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US WW1 Shrapnel round


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These hard to find with an unused driving band and internal pusher plate intact. From a retired artillery officers huge collection. Probably the most interesting in design and concept ( but not the most lethal, the balls did not travel very fast, under 1,000 FPS I believe) post-180924-0-90095800-1553203969_thumb.jpeg

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Very nice, and very hard to find, indeed!

 

I am wondering if it was ever loaded, looks clean, never painted?

 

You going to re-paint it?

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Unique design, as you see the fuze ignites a powder tube which travels down to a black powder charge which ignites and pushes the plate and balls forward and out. Legendary design. WW1 Shrapnel rounds from other countries.post-180924-0-09508600-1553204188_thumb.jpeg

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Very nice, and very hard to find, indeed!

 

I am wondering if it was ever loaded, looks clean, never painted?

 

You going to re-paint it?

This one I will leave as is, the patina is hard to beat ( the case is 1918, the fuze 1917). I will probably just wax it with Renaissance wax. I do not believe it was ever loaded as the interior is pristine, no rust or signs of the shrapnel/ ball/ smoke filler. The " TM" states the cavity was mixed with shrapnel and a smoke filler for spotting. I may fill it with lead balls to give it the correct weight.
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Brian Keith

Nice shell! In the movie, "They shall Not Grow Old", there is a scene of these exploding and showering the ground with the balls.

BKW

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Were these projectiles (WW1 era) originally painted a certain color on the outside? A quick way to determine what its' purpose was?

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Were these projectiles (WW1 era) originally painted a certain color on the outside? A quick way to determine what its' purpose was?

 

Shrapnels were painted a dull red with black stencilling...

 

Typically:

 

75G

SHELL

SHRAPNEL

MK I

 

75G meaning 75mm Gun

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Shrapnels were painted a dull red with black stencilling...

 

Typically:

 

75G

SHELL

SHRAPNEL

MK I

Pzgr, I believe mine to have been repainted in a reddish primer long ago, however there is remnants of black paint showing through. Also the area below the driving band is unpainted metal. What was the color black used to signify?..or maybe the black was also a repaint. WW1 Ordnance not my area.

75G meaning 75mm Gun

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Shrapnel in authentic coloring.attachicon.gifimage.jpeg

 

Bingo...WWI is not my forte either, but I have a few shrapnel shells (75mm, and 3") and I needed to paint and stencil them correctly...I have a couple of WWI manuals that have color coding, but I haven't transferred them to my new computer, I will get them on here, and post some relevant pages...

 

And I agree with your assesment that this shell was never loaded/completed, its in beautiful shape...I wouldn't be able to resist painting it though! ;-)

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Here it is with a coat of museum wax ( Renaissance Micro crystalline wax) on it to seal it from moisture, oxygen and stabilize it. This wax coating can be removed easily with mineral spirits anytime. I like the patina, it screams " old". post-180924-0-89006700-1553354426_thumb.jpeg

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That is very cool and thank you for the education. I didn't know about this type of round.

 

Semper Fi

Phil

Interesting, these were fired from the 75mm field gun. The lead balls ( about .50 cal) were discharged in a forward eltical pattern. Other models used HE and the body fragments went all over in a circle pattern, at a much higher velocity. Interestingly, it was a British favorite as it discharged forward and it was used fused over the heads of advancing infantry ( not possible with the other shrapnel designs) discharging the balls 300-500 ft overhead and the balls hit a few hundred yards in front of the advancing infantry, keeping the enemy heads down. A few accounts record advancing infantry " very closely" following the balls impact areas. I assume not much thought was given to the occasional " short" round. Most rounds of this type found today were reassembled from battlefield pick ups. That is why most are seen with the driving band rifling marks, expended. When fired and the payload discharged, the empty shell and fuze fell to the ground intact, picked up , reassembled and brought home as a souveneers, so a WW1 ordnance collector tells me.
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Garandomatic

Man that's wild. I figured mine was a practice range pickup, but if they were that common of an item to bring back, maybe mine was.

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Hundreds of millions shrapnel rounds were fired off, they were collected up for scrap right up to WW2 and beyond. I imagine in 1917-18 one could pick up hundreds of un rusted good condition bodies and fuzes. The fuze was made to be blown off with a small charge of blackpowder, they were made of brass so I guess they went first. That said, unfired examples are relatively rare. Here is a picture of gathered shrapnel cases of all calibers, all armies, stacked up ready for the scrap yards.post-180924-0-21339600-1553387503_thumb.jpeg

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Well I had to finish it off. Another Ordanance site clued me into as what the shrapnel size was, .451" DIA. Lead balls, .44 caliber. I fabricated ( epoxied to proper size tube) one row ( 98 balls), two full rows being standard (about 200 + balls)...I used one row only so I can remove the ball stack up for viewing. The 200+ balls were packed in an Incediary matrix for spotting purposes. Just the thing for those that like to disassemble ordnance.post-180924-0-27999900-1553978411_thumb.jpeg

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