I kept my old mess kit that I was issued from my last unit in Panama in the early 1990s made in 1967 when I was born. I keep it part of my emergency gear in my truck for road trip camping. I love it. ❤❤❤. Boiling hot dogs or making ramen noodles works perfectly. ❤❤❤
The interwar lid is not a casting. You can't roll an edge on a casting. All the "hulls" of the mess kits are stampings. Source. I own all these mess kits and a few others and work as a metalworker and fabricator. Early ww2 are zinc plated galvanized then switching to stainless later on. Other than that you are correct. Nice video.
There's a few other very similar but different models also. I have a 1942 that's an in between of what you have. Some variants may also be due to manufactures for the military.
There is such a thing as cast steel. Just not in these mess kits. The drive sprockets on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle were cast steel. I used to do the finished machining on them for FMC.