What's new
British Ordnance Collectors Network

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

British fuze ID

Falcon

Falcon

Well-Known Member
I picked this up at a car boot sale this morning for a fiver. What is it and what calibre shell did it fit? The stampings around the bottom of the cose say 101 II E CEB 1/17 LOT16. at random places on the body it has "933" /|\\ FIIIII7 "upside down /|\\ over FB". The nose cone is marked "B". The nose cone unscrews, the top face undeneath it is stamped "4" and "B". In the bottom where the Gaine would have screwed in, it is stamped "8".

fuse.jpg


At the same boot sale, I asked a house clearance chap if he had any shell cases. I usually ask these sorts of sellers as sometimes they do. He replied "I usually just scrap 'em 'cos they're brass int they" :angry:

Another house clearance seller told me he had 4 mint No.68 AT grenades that had never been filled, but he had decided to keep any ordnance he found for himself. Where do people find this stuff? And in September I didnt buy one off him that he was selling for 20 at the time because I didn't have the cash. :angry:
 
Falcon your fuze is a No101 dated 1/17 (jan 1917) as jayteepee says commonly found on 18lb rounds and also used 60lb ,12/15" heavy howitzers and others ,according to my info they were in service from 1916-1945 and went through several different MKs
 
Thanks spotter, I guess this must be a No. 101 Mk. 2 as it has a "II" after the "101". This appears to be a pecussion only fuze. Is that correct? Can you post a diagram of a sectioned one?
 
Falcon,

101 Number on British fuzes. Percussion Fuze. Attempt to overcome 100s weak points. Introduced 1916. Obsolete 1921.

101D Number on British fuzes. Percussion Fuze. Proposed delay version of 101. Design cancelled 1917.

101Q Number on British fuzes. Percussion Fuze. Swiss, made by Zenith and Piccard-Pictet. Obsolete 1921.

101b Number on British fuzes. Percussion Fuze. 101 Fuze for heavy Howitzers 12/15". Royal Ordnance Factory modified 101 Fuzes with weaker detent spring. Introduced 1916. Obsolete 1845.

101E Number on British fuzes. Percussion Fuze. 101 with shutter. Introduced 1916. Obsolete 1943.

101EX Number on British fuzes. Percussion Fuze. 101E with a stronger creep spring. Introduced 1917. Obsolete 1921.

Hope this give you some gen :)
 
Jayteepee: thanks for the diagram. if I PM you my email address would you be able to send me a higher resolution copy of that diagram? The text on the one you posted is a bit difficult to see, even when enlarged.
 
Thanks for the second diagram. My fuse is missing the needle and creep spring. Of course the gaine is also not present, I got only the main fuse body in the photo and the nose cap. Would an inert gaine be easy to find?
 
Today I managed to get the screw that retains the detent spring out. Where the spring should be was fitted with a black iron oxide sludge mixture, the spring was nowhere to be found. I now believe that this fuse has been in the sea, and the stuff that came out was sea water that had corroded the spring away.
 
sorry for being american, but what is a "car boot sale"?

i think I know what a fiver is, 5 british pounds sterling? right?

I do get plenty of english people here in florida when visiting so I try to learn the lingo, but a car boot sale is new to me.
 
Hi Hoth, no need to apologise for being American ! I will think about my time in Florida last year, tomorrow morning when I have to scrape the ice from the car windows !
Think of a car boot sale as a garage sale on wheels. You get your car and fill the boot (trunk) with anything you don't need/want anymore, drive off to a field or car park (lot) take it all out and see if anyone else wants to buy it. They are organised events but quite casual. We do have garage sales here too, but they are not as common as with you Guys. Years ago you could pick up allsorts of good stuff at car boots, but these days there seems to be a whole lot of cr*p for sale ! you can still get lucky though.
The exchange rate is till about $2 to the , so 5 UK is about $10 US. I would not worry too much though, at the moment in the UK, we are paying the equivalent of $10 a gallon for petrol (gas) :( Tony.
 
oh, I see.

I totally forgot that a boot is the trunk.

thanks!!!

I teach but I also work as a server part time, and when I get british tourists and ask them if they need more napkins they laugh and tell me that knappies or knapkins are diapers? that was funny when I found that out.
 
Were the threads on WW1 British fuzes Whitworth type? If so, I can make a new needle by turning some of the threads off a Whitworth machine screw and turning a point on it.

I drilled out the corroded remains of the detent mechanism today. I intent to manufacture replicas of the missing parts as close to original as possible. However, they will be slightly different as I drilled it out using the closesnt equivalent metric drills.

The two missing springs can be sourced by finding similar ones that will fit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top