PanzerLehr
New Member
First post, please excuse my inexperience, any imprecise terminology, etc.
A few years ago I was given as a gift what was claimed to be a "WWII Anti Tank Gun Armour Piercing Shell". I was immediately unsure about this, as it didn't look quite right to me. It's far too small to be even something as light as a 2pdr, but looked wrong for an AT Rifle round. There's no neck join from the cartridge case to the projectile, the shoulder seems too far back, and the slope of the cartridge body seemed very unusual. Still, I didn't think about it too much at the time. But I have now decided to try to find out what it is!
I started by measuring it and looking at http://www.quarryhs.co.uk/ammotables.htm
The projectile calibre is measured at 22.5mm. The calibre at the base of the shoulders is 27.0mm, increasing smoothly to 34.8mm just above the extraction groove. Diameter at the extraction groove is 31.5mm, with the rim back at 35.0mm. Pics of the item with general views and all of these measurements here: https://imgur.com/a/zDzuR8u - please let me know if these don't work or are inaccessible! Apologies for not including a picture for length; the calipers don't extend that far, but this is approx 231mm.
The basic diameter numbers led me to the Japanese 20x142mm but this doesn't look right - the shoulders are further forward and the body isn't anywhere near as tapered, e.g. pics on https://ordnanceandmilitaria.com/20mm-ammo.
At the moment, my two thoughts are that this is something wildly unusual, and potentially coated with a fairly thick layer of brass which is obscuring a lot of useful detail, or maybe it's just a (rough) lookalike. If the former, I'd guess at 20mm, as there don't seem to be any common calibres between 20 and 23mm. For the latter, the imprints at the base and the nose suggest that this could plausibly have been turned on a lathe. My partner contacted the seller, but it was sold as a curiosity rather than as militaria - the seller supposedly bought it from a militaria collector at an auction and doesn't know any more than that.
A few years ago I was given as a gift what was claimed to be a "WWII Anti Tank Gun Armour Piercing Shell". I was immediately unsure about this, as it didn't look quite right to me. It's far too small to be even something as light as a 2pdr, but looked wrong for an AT Rifle round. There's no neck join from the cartridge case to the projectile, the shoulder seems too far back, and the slope of the cartridge body seemed very unusual. Still, I didn't think about it too much at the time. But I have now decided to try to find out what it is!
I started by measuring it and looking at http://www.quarryhs.co.uk/ammotables.htm
The projectile calibre is measured at 22.5mm. The calibre at the base of the shoulders is 27.0mm, increasing smoothly to 34.8mm just above the extraction groove. Diameter at the extraction groove is 31.5mm, with the rim back at 35.0mm. Pics of the item with general views and all of these measurements here: https://imgur.com/a/zDzuR8u - please let me know if these don't work or are inaccessible! Apologies for not including a picture for length; the calipers don't extend that far, but this is approx 231mm.
The basic diameter numbers led me to the Japanese 20x142mm but this doesn't look right - the shoulders are further forward and the body isn't anywhere near as tapered, e.g. pics on https://ordnanceandmilitaria.com/20mm-ammo.
At the moment, my two thoughts are that this is something wildly unusual, and potentially coated with a fairly thick layer of brass which is obscuring a lot of useful detail, or maybe it's just a (rough) lookalike. If the former, I'd guess at 20mm, as there don't seem to be any common calibres between 20 and 23mm. For the latter, the imprints at the base and the nose suggest that this could plausibly have been turned on a lathe. My partner contacted the seller, but it was sold as a curiosity rather than as militaria - the seller supposedly bought it from a militaria collector at an auction and doesn't know any more than that.
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