Grenade, Hand, Practice, Mk 2A1

[Brian Keith]

I picked up a pair of what I think, from my bit of research, are Grenade, Hand, Practice, Mk 2A1 with Igniter- M10A3. One fuze was made by SMC the other PMC can anyone tell me who they are? As you can see, they are painted blue. From my bit of research, the fuzes were made during WW II, but it is a bit less clear when these blue bodies were used. I am aware that sometimes/often the military has and uses decades old ordnance. (I have fired 1960s dated ordnance in the early 2000s. Not small arms ammo, WP rockets and Claymores!

Note; there was a small piece of the exploded fuze in the one on the left. I remember when running a grenade range with the practice grenades; we had to clean out the fuze debris from inside the grenades every so often, gotta love the Leatherman!

Thanks for looking, comments Welcome!

BKW

 

[collector]

Blue is practice.

[Kaptainssurplus]

The official model is grenade, MK2 practice. Your bodies are early WW2 bodies, right after prewar screw bottom bodies. They are not MK2A1s, those are late war to post war VN era. You probably got that info from sources online saying if it had M10A3 fuzes they are MK2A1s, which is somewhat right but not always correct, now a days it is common to have mismatched fuzes and bodies. You have to look at the body to figure out which era/model it is. They should have offset holes in the bottom as they were actual HE bodies drilled to be practice bodies. Some have said that these practice bodies were HE bodies that didn't pass inspection but I have had hundreds of these over the years and only a few I could see that were defect castings or other issues, others looked just fine. So my opinion is that yes some were defect bodies and other were not. As for PMC and SMC, they were common makers of fuzes, but I can't off the top of my head remember the actual names, I do have that info in docs I have but am away from home right now.

[Kaptainssurplus]

Here is a good source for info in the future.

 

http://www.inert-ord.net/usa03a/usa2/index.html

[917601]

Much confusion about practice grenades, I have found the inert-ORD site to be in error, and in fact have written the owner and he has stated there are in fact errors. I use this more detailed site: http://tgrm.foxed.ca/Americangrenades/Mk%20II/The%20Mk%202%20grenade.html

He backs up his info with directives and TMs. No way to distinguish later MK 2 practice grenades ( no threaded filling hole) from EARLY M21 practice grenades. A small point, but yours is definitely WW2. Later M21s used an entirely different fuze and body that had more knobby segments. It seems WW2 practice grenades were given an M number designation ( M21) late war instead of using " MK2 practice", which I have supplied a picture of the container.These containers had in them what you pictured, MK2 practice grenades, blue, with M10A3 fuzes. That said, I found it interesting your spoons are engraved M10A3 AND inked M10A3- yours spoons should have a black painted band?...all this said, the only rule is no rule in grenade collecting due to all the expedient changes in such short time.

[917601]

A screen shot.

[917601]

I forgot to mention your M10A3 fuzes are late war fuzes ( which validates the MK2 / M21 question).Notice the half moon pin in the fuze body in your picture where it contacts the spoon. That is why I stated your spoons should be painted with a black stripe , that means modification. You supply no spoon pics. ...attention to details. The last modifications to the M10A3 fuze was installing the half moon pin ( earlier models had a flat end pin) to prevent the spoon disconnecting if squeezed to hard and popping off in certain conditions. Grenades can be dated by that modification. As Kaptain surplus stated, there is a lot of Internet " info", not all correct, as fuzes were commonly swapped with bodies by collectors. Attention to very small details can determine if a grenade is " correct". Eg, a later WW2 MK2 grenade with a rarer M6 fuze ( fuze train has red sealant instead of green indicating a TNT filler) should have the half moon pin, if not, the fuze and spoon are not " correct". Small points, but helpful when deciding " value" of a grenade.

[Brian Keith]

Thanks for all the great responses guys! OK, the site I found and got most of the info from is the screen shot that was posted. The spoon top I posted the photo of does have the lower portion of the spoon painted black. Interesting detail about the sealant color, both of these have the green sealant. Ill post a couple of more photos. Ive marked them 1 & 2. In my first post, the #1 is on the left, 2 on the right.

 

 

[Brian Keith]

 

Top of fuze #1.

Thanks for the comments and info!

BKW