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120mm prac round with plastic driving band.

C

Chubbster

Member
Hi all,

I have acquired a 120mm prac round which has a plastic removable driving band. Is this so the round could be reused? I have another 120mm prac round that has a brass driving band. Is the plastic driving band a later type? I'm new to ordnance and not sure now to date them.

Thanks
alex
 
Hi Alex! Anyway that you can post a few photos. It would help with the ID. Guessing the "plastic" driving band is really nylon?

Jason
 
Jason,

Yeah its white nylon, not sure how to post picture from my phone! It has RLB 78 stamped on the body the lower body and the steel slug inside. Does this mean 1978?

Cheers
alex
 
Not a 100% sure of the meaning of the RLB 78 stamp. Could mean the year? Does the nylon band freely rotate or spin around the projectile or is it fixed to it so that it does not spin? If you take a picture of it with your Iphone, then e-mail the photo so you can put it on your real computer, you can then upload the picture to photobucket.com to then post here. I am sure there may be a easier way.




Jason
 
If your adding images to site could you try to use the forums imaging software,as weve found that quite often images from external image hosting sites photobucket etc tend to be deleted and leave posts without images thereby making them useless to other users..
Thanks
Spotter
 
I would suggest that RLB is the Royal Ordnance Factory (Later Royal Ordnance Plc) at Birtley. This was the UK's last major projectile manufacturing plant.
 
Hi Alex,

Your first question is if the nylon driving band is so that the round can be reused. I doubt it very much, as any sort of impact would deform the projectile so that subsequent re-use would have an implicit loss of accuracy. I have encountered nylon driving bands on HESH and HEAT rounds where they are designed to slip around the body of the projectile. The effect of HESH and HEAT is reduced if the projectile is spinning on impact, but the nylon driving band allows these rounds to be fired from a rifled gun.

Whilst I'm not a projectile expert (as some here could claim to be), I do know that the 120mm HESH practice round had 4 tracer pockets in the base and no nose fusing.
 
Thanks for all the replys

Markings on the projectile are:

120mm TK DRILL
SX 167A
RLB 78

I will email some pics to the modarator to up load.

Cheers
alex
 
A slight change from the "practice" projectile as the thread originally stated.
The "drill" projectile was used to teach crews aspects of gun drill without having to use live rounds on a range. A "practice" projectile would have been fired and ( see recent thread re this) would have contained live explosive components such as tracers and possibly flash and smoke elements depending on what type of projectile we are talking about.
The SX167A relates to the design drawing number.
 
Thanks,

My mistake then! I'm still learning the basics. On a drill round, how was the rifling cut in to the driving band if it wasn't fired? Just pulled though the barrel on a simulator?

Cheers
alex
 
Hi,
A good question. And never be afraid of asking on BOCN.
A drill projectile such as yours would only ever be placed in the chamber of the weapon. What you refer to as a driving band on this projectile is actually a ramming stop. The complete projectile would have had a rope attached to the base for extraction purposes. I may have a diagram somewhere that I will search out and post for you.
 
120mm Tk Drill.jpgA plan of the 120mm Drill Shell L1A1. The Body and Base Adaptor are locked in position by a Locking Screw and thedriving band is replaced with a nylon Ramming Stop which does not have a raised
rib.

 
Brill info,

Wondered why it had a hole though the bottom. Might try and find some suitable nylon and turn it down to look like a stop rather than the rifled band that's on it.

Cheers
Alex
 
exat808, without wishing to hijack the thread I have seen some naval drill rounds that were designed to travel through the gun barrel.
 
Hi all,

Looking at it now, and the nylon band doesn't really fit the round properly. Just need to find a local paint mixer to get the 113 blue.

Cheers
alex
 
shush prac round

spotter said:
If your adding images to site could you try to use the forums imaging software,as weve found that quite often images from external image hosting sites photobucket etc tend to be deleted and leave posts without images thereby making them useless to other users..
Thanks
Spotter
Click to expand...

The reason for the prac round with the plastic band is it is used in a tank simulator for gunnery training. once the firing sequence has been completed the projectile is expelled through the front of the simulator and drops into a canvas basket.Many wonderful hours spent training on these sims
 
just going thru a box of old stuff as having a clear out and in it are various bits of nylon rifled band some about 15mm wide some 45mm and some that look like cardboard as well as some thin smooth ones. they came with some other bits at a fair. More to add to the puzzle. Any ideas?
 
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