Royal Laboratory Experimental Rifle Grenades 1912

[Bonnex]

Herewith a couple of surviving examples of RL Rifle Grenades from 1912. These were designed to compete with the work of The Cotton Powder Company but the RL mechanisms were largely covered by Hales Patents and as a result the grenades did not get further than the experimental stage.

 

[millsbomber]

Its great to look at examples like these as you can see the developments till the final out come, there is the frag ring which is similar to the No2 and the arming vain like on the No 3, 10, 11,,,,,,, Dave

 

[paul the grenade]

do you have any diagrams showing the innards bonnex?
cheers, paul.

 

[Bonnex]

I regret that I don't Paul. Relatively few Royal Laboratory design drawings exist (according to my research into the subject). These grenades are to designs RL17940 an RL17870A which, being experimental would in any case not have been kept by the various inspectorates at Woolwich since they only held drawings for in-Service ammunition. When the 'QAD' facility at Woolwich closed down many of the old drawing negatives were passed to the MoD Pattern Room (then at Nottingham) but a large number of RL negatives on 'aperture cards', previously seen in the old Woolwich Arsenal had disappeared. There was some speculation that they had been gifted to a local society but I never managed to track them down.