Possible French 1pdr Drill/Dummy rounds

[Vasco Da Gama]

I have had these French 37mm Model 1885 rounds for some time and never been sure if they are drill/dummy or just home made wooden heads. The lack of damage/wear would point towards home made for display, but why screw them into place so securely? The shape of the projectile also does not really fit the profile of the standard French 1pdr. Very glad to have your thoughts?

 

[MINENAZ16]

Hello,
I never seen such a drill round in France.
As you said, looks like home made.
Look at the gspragge collection (http://www.bocn.co.uk/vbforum/threads/71788-37mm-by-member-Gspragge).
I only found a wood specimen in this collection (never seen in France too).




I have also other pictures of "french" drill rounds from another collector (I think André), but I don't know if these were original and no details.
Regards

 

[Gspragge]

There seem to be five kinds of recognized styles as shown in the last images,
I believe Andre's. But it is not impossible to have variatons made up as needed
at varoius places. The screws show more than normal home made effort in the examples first submitted in this thread. So while
there may be only several official issue kinds, more are very possible. I would not discount these.
One style seems to use cases marked MT which are cases loaded for the 75mm Trench
Mortar. These may have been recycled out for this purpose as stamping such cases was likely a waste
of time and control impossible. Later MT cases are stenciled instead so any case was fine for this use.
These are all wartime drill rounds, so does any one have a pre ww1 example, there was certainly a need
as the French Navy had 722 Revolving Cannon on issue. Of the examples shown above, the finely made
mahogany looking example is almost too nice for real use with it's fine double bands.

The dating of the two
examples of 10/14 on the cases is the date of the contract to make them, so they could have been made actually in
early 1915 (no idea as to the actual order to production time). As there was a rush to send pretty much anything to the front as it dug in a lot of Hotchkiss single shot
deck cannon were issued in the emergancy. These drill rounds would certainly be in line for such a situation and are of earlier dating than
the others we are looking at. I certainly wouldn't mind one such as these !

 

[Hoeksel]

They look original to me but I do not recognize them as French (obviously the cases are French), especially for the wide driving bands. I would suspect these are original drills but not for France, just French cases. Many countries used French cases post-war so plenty of opportunities.

 

[Gspragge]

Making the area covered by the two bands one solid area would make sense, as accurate double bands
would easily damage, not to mention more work in manufacture. The way to check these is to stand one side by side with a common shell
and see that the banded area matches. This is why I discount the finely made double banded example as they are more a work of art than
something designed to take a beating . So I must respectgully disagree on this point. The truth of the matter is that we weren't there when these
were made so therefore we will never be 100% sure as usual :tinysmile_cry_t2:

That both are matching cases to early ww1 is less likely to happen after ww1 when most foriegn usage occured is my thought.
There are no reload marks on the cases either, if this helps the arguement in thier favour.

 

[2pounder]

no expert but the wood in the two in question looks to be a soft wood by the grain when a hard wood would be used for a real drill round and the primers are let as is when most if not all drill rounds have either the primer machined away or a soft 'bung' in its place. Perhaps other 37mm drill owners could confirm re primers.

 

[Vasco Da Gama]

Thank you all for your comments, the debate is interesting and has been going on in my head for some time! The width of the raised wooden driving band is 13.44mm which is very close to the French double banded rounds. The diameter of the raised area is 36.85mm and length of projectile from tip to case is 77mm.

 

[Gspragge]

My two have primers absent, though in practice it's better to leave them in for the firing pin I believe.
But there could be varaiences between factory made and local depots/bases etc ?