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ARWEN ammo

For information, there are two companies which currently make the rebated-rim ARWEN ammunition (which is entirely different from and not interchangeable with the usual rimmed 37/38mm/1.5 inch riot control ammo shown in early illustrations on this thread). One is Police Ordnance Company Inc, formerly the Canadian distributor of the Royal Ordnance ARWEN system (Anti-Riot Weapon ENfield - developed in 1977), who bought the rights to the ARWEN system in 2001, the other is the American company Sage Control Ordnance.

Their websites are: http://www.policeordnance.com/ and http://www.sageinternationalltd.com/sco/index.html respectively.
 
Hi,
here my arwen case, AR-2/P

best regards
 

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Thank you Fert for showing this, another British case for the list, I must look out for one :) Tony.
 
Hi,

I thought I'd share these photo's of 2 more British ARWEN cases plus an experimental L2 baton round.

According to the Royal Ordnance manual from 1986, the AR-2 is a multi source irritant smoke round (indirect fire) whereas the AR-3 is a frangible nosed irritant baton (direct fire).

Cheers,

Gary
 

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Very nice British cases and round Gary, love the way the purple stripe is painted lol
 
realised I'd not posted this - ad for ARWEN - A4 size, from a magazine - bought this on ebay.

arwen ad.jpg

I also have manual in ring-binder for ARWEN.
 
Pretty sure I have a complete ARWEN round that I would sell - also a few other cases & projectiles for baton rounds - will sort at weekend - send email ad for pics
 
Looking to buy empty/fired cases for this if anyone has any. Preferably canada but will accept other countries too.
 
roller63 said:
Since posting my original message, I have managed to get these two British made ARWEN inert rounds. Note one has a commercial .44 magnum cartridge as a propellant.
Click to expand...

It did not use a .44 Magnum cartridge. It was a .44 Magnum case loaded with a black powder substitute - RM1A1?
 
oktato said:
Hi,

I thought I'd share these photo's of 2 more British ARWEN cases plus an experimental L2 baton round.

According to the Royal Ordnance manual from 1986, the AR-2 is a multi source irritant smoke round (indirect fire) whereas the AR-3 is a frangible nosed irritant baton (direct fire).

Cheers,

Gary
Click to expand...


In the frangible, the head of the tadpole was shortened and a recess cut in it filled with lead shot to restore weight. A polystyrene nose cap was fitted containing a small quantity of CS. It was to allow an individual to be targeted with their own personal dose of CS.

The baton round was the original design but was quickly superseded by the PVC baton. It was allegedly nick named the Colleen's Delight.
 
spotter said:
This what you needed ??
1a137mmbatonScreenshot___20_11_2007___20_05_52.jpg
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Don't know what your drawings are of but all the ARWEN rounds I saw back in the day had rebated rims as in the illustration from MissingSomething.
 
Altec, do you know what type of baton this sectiond Arwen round is?
I cannot find this type of baton in any of the information I have for Royal Ordnance, Police Ordnance, or Sage.

The Arwen case has 89 headstamp.

The propelling cartridge uses a Midway headstamped case.

 

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Sorry, no. I lost contact with what was happening when Enfield closed in '88. The holes in the Mag insert are odd as is what I take to be spacer. Pure speculation of course but it looks like a full length baton as opposed to the normal tadpole.

BTW There was a practise Frangible with the CS replaced with chalk dust or something similar. And I don't know how far it went but they were messing about with a round to penetrate a curtained window that had Stanley knife blades set in the end of the baton. Oh and the ARWEN was in the Bond film Never Say Never Again for which some special flash bang rounds were produced.

Also, three different guns were designed and prototypes produced and tested before the rotary was chosen. The other designs were a box magazine with top ejection and a bullpup pump action design with a chamber and locked breech.
 
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altec said:
Sorry, no. I lost contact with what was happening when Enfield closed in '88. The holes in the Mag insert are odd as is what I take to be spacer. Pure speculation of course but it looks like a full length baton as opposed to the normal tadpole.

BTW There was a practise Frangible with the CS replaced with chalk dust or something similar. And I don't know how far it went but they were messing about with a round to penetrate a curtained window that had Stanley knife blades set in the end of the baton. Oh and the ARWEN was in the Bond film Never Say Never Again for which some special flash bang rounds were produced.

Also, three different guns were designed and prototypes produced and tested before the rotary was chosen. The other designs were a box magazine with top ejection and a bullpup pump action design with a chamber and locked breech.
Click to expand...

What looks like three holes on the 44 Mag case are primer stakes.
The baton is indeed full length. It appears to sit on the white part which I think is as you say, a spacer.
 
For anyone who needs info the arwen round uses about 9.5 grains of bp ffg for the standard load in the ar-1 round and looks like the same for the smoke and cs. I just fired an ar-1 over the weekend with a light strike primer and it sent the projectile to a speed of 233fps.

Also oddly sage munitions uses berdan primed .44 where as arwen and police ordnance both use boxer. And the original arwen are staked primers where as the rest dont bother.
 
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I am wondering what some of the codes on the ARWEN rounds stand for. For instance, on one of the pictures it has AR-4 and JM under it. The AR-2 has CS (which with the red band explains itself). The AR-2/P has WM.

Any ideas on these markings?

Joe
 
On a side note, there is a US company out of Michigan, Sage Control Ammunition, that produces a number of 37/40mm less lethal munitions http://www.sageinternationalltd.com/SCOI/ammunition.html. They share many design features with Arwen, and have in fact had a working relationship with Arwen for many years. They also use 44 magnum cases for propulsion. For most designs they begin with CCI provided primed aluminum cases, which have different lengths and crimps depending on the type and amount of propellant. For one, higher pressure system, they manufacture their own cases with heavier walls.
During a recent visit I obtained a few of their items, along with some Arwen items that were sitting around. I also have examples of the different propellant cartridges. I will try and find some time this weekend and see if I can snap a few photos.
 
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