Help with Mk.I Body

[Nickman983]

After buying a couple of Mk.I dummys under the assumption that I wouldn't be adding a real Mk.I to my collection for a while I managed to pick this up earlier this week and I need a little help understanding what I have here.

 

I think it's a Mk.I grenade body but neither end of the grenade seems to have been threaded. It looks like there may have been an issue with the casting around where the threading for the fuse should be. Is it possible this is a factory reject?

 

Also, I'm assuming the silver and gold paint is not original. If that is actually the case, should I leave it as is or would I be better off stripping it?

 

Any insight into this one would be greatly appreciated!

[doyler]

believe this is an early practice grenade. Ones I have are painted black

[Kaptainssurplus]

From what I remember these were used as throwing dummies, some were painted white? That is maybe the reason for the left over paint that looks to be a different color because of oxidation. 

[Nickman983]

Thanks for the information guys! I knew about the solid cast MK.I trainers that replicated the shape of the twist lever fuzes but wasn't aware of these.

 

Were these purpose made training grenades or MK.I bodies left unfinished and used for training?

[917601]

Gold / Bronze is the color US Ordnance used at one time to signify inert/ deactivated. I have seen a few pieces ( 81 mm mortar and grenade body) painted in gold , they are dated late 1940’s. I have also seen the 155mm VX chem shell painted gold, it is dated 1991, an M121 shell used to test the nerve agent disarming/ destruction equipment.

See this website, scroll down for color codes.

 

https://alternatewars.com/BBOW/Markings/US_Ammo_Markings.htm

[917601]

MM2597 – Interpreting Ammunition Markings and Color Codes (1~ MB PDF)
MIL-STD-709C – Military Standard, Ammunition Color Coding – 6 May 1976 (730~ kb PDF)
MIL-STD-709C Notice 1– Military Standard, Ammunition Color Coding – 7 February 1980 (89~ kb PDF)
MIL-STD-709C Notice 2 – Military Standard, Ammunition Color Coding – 28 September 1984 (271~ kb PDF)

 

[Nickman983]

2 hours ago, 917601 said:

Gold / Bronze is the color US Ordnance used at one time to signify inert/ deactivated. I have seen a few pieces ( 81 mm mortar and grenade body) painted in gold , they are dated late 1940’s. I have also seen the 155mm VX chem shell painted gold, it is dated 1991, an M121 shell used to test the nerve agent disarming/ destruction equipment.

See this website, scroll down for color codes.

 

https://alternatewars.com/BBOW/Markings/US_Ammo_Markings.htm

awesome, thank you for the information!

 

I'll leave it as is

[Kaptainssurplus]

3 hours ago, 917601 said:

Gold / Bronze is the color US Ordnance used at one time to signify inert/ deactivated. I have seen a few pieces ( 81 mm mortar and grenade body) painted in gold , they are dated late 1940’s. I have also seen the 155mm VX chem shell painted gold, it is dated 1991, an M121 shell used to test the nerve agent disarming/ destruction equipment.

See this website, scroll down for color codes.

 

https://alternatewars.com/BBOW/Markings/US_Ammo_Markings.htm

Gold/bronze is the modern color for inert, NATO spec, I believe we started using it around the late 70s? WW1 and WW2 era the US used a few colors for training/inert- like red, white and black. The gold/bronze color wasn't used during that time, The VX 155mm round you speak of was gold/bronze because it is a modern NATO spec round, it is an inert version for training. They would be a grayish color with green and yellow stripes if it was a live round, like other chemical rounds.