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War & Peace show Haul

peregrinvs

Well-Known Member
Acquired today. Left to right they are:

1. 7,5cm KwK 40 cartridge case. Rusty; but a lot of it is cosmetic. No holes, cracks or chips.
2. As above. Not quite as nice condition, but only appears to have a small chip out of the neck.
3. 6 Pounder Hotchkiss shell. Only cosmetically rusty. Clearly marked VSM 1916.
4. US made 57mm / 6 Pounder 7cwt projectile. Mostly only cosmetic rust.
5. 6 Pounder 7cwt projectile. Fired and well rusted. (A free gift)
6. WWII Mills No.36 grenade casing. Moderately rusted, but restorable. The centre tube and spring are still intact.
7. 20mm Hispano ball projectile. Fired and well rusted. (Also a free gift)

The star find is the 6 Pounder Hotchkiss shell, which is a bit of a diamond in the rough. Apart from the KwK 40 cases , they’ve all started a dip in Citric acid.
 

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Well done ! We must have followed each other around - that KwK40 casing looks familiar, I 'passed' as I already have one. And I couldn't resist one of those 57mm/6pr projectiles ; the rust is relatively light & I reckon will clean up well. It's not easy to find ( cheap ) unfired examples.

My own 'haul' included a rather lovely 8.8cm PaK/KwK PzGr projectile - unfired, complete with base fuze and faded but visible stencils/colouring.

beltring yesterday was much better than I expected - there was a lot of ordnance for sale and dealers generally were keen to 'haggle'.
 
Sounds like we were on very similar missions. I had a good day with a much better haul of items than last year. I think a lot of dealers and collectors are getting into ordnance after the deactivated gun market got messed up by the ban on sales of non-EU spec ones. I also had success with negotiating asking prices downwards.

The nicer KwK 40 case and the 6pr Hotchkiss shell came from the biggest ordnance stall at the end of one of the rows. Lots of nice stuff and much of it priced to sell. The Hotchkiss shell made it worth coming for that alone and everything else was a bonus.

Pictures attached of the results of an overnight soak in strong Citric acid solution. So far, so good. The Mills look likes it’ll fettle up well and I discovered some traces of green paint around the middle, so I know how to repaint it. The spring inside has come out mint, so I assume it is stainless steel.

I’ve moved the 6pr Hotchkiss and 57mm projectiles into a weaker solution of acid as it’ll attack solid metal in high concentrations. As you can see, some of the US stencils survived under the rust, but unfortunately they were too fragile to save.

The KwK 40 cases have gone off for a long bath in diluted molasses. I’ll see how they’re doing in a month or two.
 

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The Hotchkiss shell post clean-up. Currently undecided whether to repaint it or not. There’s some pitting on the side opposite the markings that I could conceal if I did.
 

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Nice to see the annual sale tables, been a bit of a tradition on this site this time every year, especially Bens stall.
 
The fired 6pr 7cwt shot post-clean up and stuck in a case for fun. I’m not planning to give it a full filler and paint makeover as there’s no great point. No doubt it’s just me being slightly weird, but I’ve long thought post-rusted items like this had a certain pleasing aesthetic quality all of their own. :tinysmile_twink_t:

I was was planning to return to W&P today with my children to see the displays, having done my shopping on Tuesday. But a mixture of terrible weather and domestic issues has vetoed it.
 

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Hi Peregrinus
I totally agree with you about cleaned up but not over restored rounds. They look fantastic just the way they are. If they have come from a battlefield it is even better because they tell their own story. I have a collection of items from the battlefields of Normandie and to me they just ooze history. German tank rounds in particular.
Keep up the good work
Regards
Matt
 
I totally agree with you about cleaned up but not over restored rounds. They look fantastic just the way they are. If they have come from a battlefield it is even better because they tell their own story. I have a collection of items from the battlefields of Normandie and to me they just ooze history. German tank rounds in particular.
Keep up the good work

I’ll have to admit I am someone who usually fully restores things (see various previous threads in this section) but having also got a largely undamaged one, I’m happy to leave it as it is.
 
Had a bit of a win with the Mills No.36. More out of hope than expectation, I thought I’d try and remove the centre tube via heating and cooling cycles. I alternately blasted the bottom with a blow torch and then poured cold water down the middle several times - followed by a bath in Paraffin.

To to my delight it unscrewed without much difficulty. It’s in poor condition so I’ll replace it, but it’s good to know the method works. I have a dug WWI Mills No.36 drill with a seized aluminium centre tube I’d ideally like to dismantle.

The tool is one of the ones sold by Dugup. It so happens I also have a spare example of one of their repro centre tubes.
 

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Here is the bits i got, really pleased with the S.O.E knife, on the whole an average show for me, weather, my stall position and lack of small collectors did not help.......... Dave

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The 57mm M70 shot after removing the rust. There are some patches of pitting to fill in, but it won’t require major surgery to look presentable. Another bonus is that Milcorem does an off the shelf stencil for this exact projectile.
 

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The Mills No.36 completed after sourcing an original base plug from the Fjordhouse stall and a repro pin, lever, striker and filler plug from the Dugup stall at Military Odyssey yesterday.

It is of course more of a display piece than a collector grade example, but I do these things for the fun of the restoration and I’m quite pleased with it.
 

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The nicer of the two KwK 40 cases finished. This was the result of a combination of a slow clean in molasses and a faster clean in citric acid. However, I think my new favoured method for cleaning rusty steel cases is electrolysis followed by citric acid - as I did with the PaK 40 case.

I’m seriously pleased with this as most of the rust is cosmetic. It’s a shame I don’t have a way of re-plating it in brass. Also a shame that the headstamps have almost completely gone.

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Good job on scaring the rust away.
As for replating the brass or copper, a way to get the same effect is coloured wax rubs, like 'Rub'n buff'. Unfortunately not very durable with handling but for display they can have a very realistic finish, better than paint.
 
Post-cleaning pictures of the less nice KwK 40 case. It not as solid as the other one, but it’s an upgrade to the one it’s replacing.
 

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The end result with the 57mm M70 shot. Thanks to taking a picture of the remnants of the original stencilling back last July, I was able to put the new ones back in almost exactly the same place. I think this is the first time I have literally restored the markings on a projectile rather than just adding illustrative ones.
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