Not the most exciting thing to look at, but pretty rare in the flesh as far as I'm aware. The solid steel headed practice shot for the PIAT anti tank weapon used with the adaptor tray that seem to come up for sale once in a while.
When I got this, it was just one great lump of rust and I did think that it may crumble away into nothing. after soaking in diesel for about a week, I started to clean it up. I could see that the cartridge had been fired, so I proceeded to try and unscrew the head from the body. No need to worry about tool marks on this, because of the pitting. Armed with a very large old record vice and an even bigger pair of plumbers grips, I expect to have to put immense effort into undoing the joint, but to my surpprise it was only just over finer tight, still greased from it's last use !
After removing the fired cartridge I cleaned it up the best I could and then gave it a coat of white paint and found a loading ring (Guide) from my spares box.
I think it looks ok considering it's age and that fact that it had probably spent the last 50 or 60 years in the ground. Note, I bought this at a fair, I did not dig it up myself.
The only drawing I have of this is in the PIAT training manuals, does anyone have any more details, drawings or pictures ? Tony.
When I got this, it was just one great lump of rust and I did think that it may crumble away into nothing. after soaking in diesel for about a week, I started to clean it up. I could see that the cartridge had been fired, so I proceeded to try and unscrew the head from the body. No need to worry about tool marks on this, because of the pitting. Armed with a very large old record vice and an even bigger pair of plumbers grips, I expect to have to put immense effort into undoing the joint, but to my surpprise it was only just over finer tight, still greased from it's last use !
After removing the fired cartridge I cleaned it up the best I could and then gave it a coat of white paint and found a loading ring (Guide) from my spares box.
I think it looks ok considering it's age and that fact that it had probably spent the last 50 or 60 years in the ground. Note, I bought this at a fair, I did not dig it up myself.
The only drawing I have of this is in the PIAT training manuals, does anyone have any more details, drawings or pictures ? Tony.