40mm Practice Grenade??

[Darren]

This arrived it the post today, it is the first 40mm grenade that i have in my collection. From what is marked on the case i assume that it is a practice round?

It is a bit of a shame that this has holes drilled in the case but still a nice round i think. I am looking foward to adding more of these to my collection.

I know nothing about these but am hoping that someone can tell me more.

It has some markings on it that i can just make out,


The gold section is not marked.

The silver section is marked: CTG 40MM EMPTY M406 W/DUMMY FUZE

The case is marked: AMM LOT MA-SP 888 (may be 889)

40MM M110 AON 1 8 76 (may be 70)

Darren

 

[HAZORD]

Here is some data on your grenade. The M406 was probably the most widely used HE grenade in Vietnam, fired from the M79 "Thumper" or "Bloop Tube". At the time, Gold nose meant HE Service round and Silver nose meant practice (With dye spotter charge) Later on the Silver nose ones went to blue anodized nose.

One of my examples has the same holes and relatively the same labeling as yours.

 

[pointblank0]

Nice little round. Where did you purchase it?
Rob

 

[dano1917]

M406 Thumper

Cool round Darren, Vietnam era stuff is pretty hot. John I knew the nomenclature "Thumper" for the M406, but must say "Bloop Tube" is a new one on me. See, you can teach an old dog new tricks. I've been looking for one of these but not successful yet. Again Darren really nice round..Respectfully...Dano
P.S. going back to another post of Dummy vs. practice rounds, since this says "dummy" on it does that mean it was a training round for instructional (ogling at) purposes??

 

[pointblank0]

Cool round Darren, Vietnam era stuff is pretty hot. John I knew the nomenclature "Thumper" for the M406, but must say "Bloop Tube" is a new one on me. See, you can teach an old dog new tricks. I've been looking for one of these but not successful yet. Again Darren really nice round..Respectfully...Dano
P.S. going back to another post of Dummy vs. practice rounds, since this says "dummy" on it does that mean it was a training round for instructional (ogling at) purposes??

I've never heard the term Bloop tube either. I have heard it called the Blooper. Quite like it though, sounds so innocent then.....BANG!!!!

 

[Darren]

Nice little round. Where did you purchase it?
Rob

Hi Rob,

I saw it on an american auction site, liked the look of it and placed a small bid. I did not want to pay too much as I was not sure if it would make it to the UK (customs and all that) I ended up winning at 2.39, not a bad price i thought?

Darren

 

[Darren]

Thank you for the info HAZORD, very interesting to know a little more about these great little grenades.

Darren

Here is some data on your grenade. The M406 was probably the most widely used HE grenade in Vietnam, fired from the M79 "Thumper" or "Bloop Tube". At the time, Gold nose meant HE Service round and Silver nose meant practice (With dye spotter charge) Later on the Silver nose ones went to blue anodized nose.

One of my examples has the same holes and relatively the same labeling as yours.

 

[Fragman]

Hi Darren,

That's a great round and one I don't have (want to double your money:xd.

Here's a few similar rounds from my collection. One shows what is typically meant by a dummy fuze and another shows the insides of a standards M406. Cheers Colin

 

[peashooter]

Would you let me know the site name

Rich.

 

[Darren]

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the photo, it is great to see the insides, very interesting.

One thing that i do not understand about mine, it has the HE projectile but all is marked DUMMY? Would it be coloured gold insted of the standard blue for training/education purposes?

Darren

Hi Darren,

That's a great round and one I don't have (want to double your money:xd.

Here's a few similar rounds from my collection. One shows what is typically meant by a dummy fuze and another shows the insides of a standards M406. Cheers Colin

 

[paul the grenade]

must be the bargain of the year! :tinysmile_fatgrin_t
paul.

 

[Fragman]

Hi Darren,

This is my understanding of the timeline. I'd appreciate any appropriate corrections.

The early (late sixties / early seventies) made dummy rounds were made using HE components. You'll notice the one with the black ogive in my earlier post is just a gold one painted black (the inside is still gold). It also has an actual grenade attached. Later on the dummy ones were made using specially made components (see attached photo). The silver topped practice rounds (see attached photo) were internally similar to the HE round, except the grenade was replaced with a spotter charge. We were still using these rounds over here in the mid eighties. I'm not sure when the silver was changed to blue. But now most countries use a blue plastic nosed round full of chalk, with no requirement for explosive. Cheers Colin

 

[Darren]

Thank you for the explination Colin, i have much more of an understanding now. That would explain my round.

Darren

Hi Darren,

This is my understanding of the timeline. I'd appreciate any appropriate corrections.

The early (late sixties / early seventies) made dummy rounds were made using HE components. You'll notice the one with the black ogive in my earlier post is just a gold one painted black (the inside is still gold). It also has an actual grenade attached. Later on the dummy ones were made using specially made components (see attached photo). The silver topped practice rounds (see attached photo) were internally similar to the HE round, except the grenade was replaced with a spotter charge. We were still using these rounds over here in the mid eighties. I'm not sure when the silver was changed to blue. But now most countries use a blue plastic nosed round full of chalk, with no requirement for explosive. Cheers Colin

 

[HAZORD]

Darren,

To add to KiwiColin's info and to continue on a bit about color coding of U.S. Ammunition. First of all economics and the audience. Economics says make it a cheap as possible, so that is why the noses of the first practice grenades were left silver. It avoided the blue anodizing step, so it was easier to pull noses from the normal production of HE rounds before they were anodized gold.

The audience for your grenade was probably classroom instruction as to what the grenades looked like. The holes were probably drilled later due to accidents happening with the live ones getting mixed in with dummy ones. The U.S. has gone through a number of "Hole drilling exercises" over the years, due to live stuff getting into EOD collections, etc.

There are a lot of variations of practice/dummy ammunition, and a lot of variations on the components in the ammunition. Most stuff for training that is non-High explosive is blue color, or natural color for the ammo with a blue band. If it has a spotter charge, it would normally have a brown band for low explosive. To complicate things, due to historical useage, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps like to have their drill and dummy ammo painted bronze. The original drill projectiles for the 5 inch guns were made from bronze, so they continue with that color. I have seen all types of aircraft ordnance, bombs, antisubmarine mines, etc. all painted bronze. Typically these items will have all real components, minus the energetic materials. I hope this helps a little with your understanding.

 

[inertordnance]

Photos of another variation of a US M407A1 Live Practice Round Circa 1967, with Dummy Fuze / Frag. Ball Assembly.

 

[inertordnance]

Also Live Practice US M407A1 Variations with Black, Gold and Silver Colored Ojives.

 

[Fragman]

Nice grenades :congrats:

 

[RJ144]

What was the name of the website?

Thanks.

 

[inertordnance]

What was the name of the website?

Thanks.

Which website are you inquiring about?

 

[V40]

From my "bloop Tube" owners manual (1972) states that any practive version back then had a Grey ogive. If there is anymore qustions about these colectables please PM me or ask here on this thread. I will dig in to my Vietnam Files and fine more info?