bad finsh on base of projectile

[Darrol]

hi .anyone know why this projectile has a bad base . could they just be unfinished ? i wouldnt have thought that they would have used them in this condition due to the off center chunk of casting .theres two of them and both have there cartridge which are really clean inside .
thanks. Darrol

 

[highlandotter]

My theory is that they are war time production and it cut the unit time for production. The guns that fired them were used at realatively short range and it did not affect accuracy that much.Prewar pruoduction usually have clean machined bases.

 

[bacarnal]

Darrol, Of the three that I have, all of them have that off center cast. I always thought is was odd. A thought just occurred to me, though. Since the black powder was loaded loose, maybe the off set sprue would act as a counter weight if the powder shifted, but then again, you could never guarantee that the powder would shift where you wanted it to. I think highlandotter has the right of it. Cheers, Bruce.

 

[Gspragge]

They were smooth finished from the beginning 1888 until some time in 1915 when they just left them like this until the end of the war to speed up production. These are cast iron and the rough base likely had little negative effect. Those modified for tracer and such were finished off of course. Post ww1 examples are smooth again.

 

[Darrol]

thanks guys . i thought they could have been fake bodys at one point .glad to know otherwise.
cheers Darrol:tinysmile_fatgrin_t

 

[Gspragge]

Poor Wartime Quality assured ~

Here is another one, even this poor casting on the side wasn't enough to fail it in inspection, and likely made no difference to how it
would work anyways.