What's new
British Ordnance Collectors Network

Join over 14,000 collectors of inert military ordnance. Get expert identification help for shells, fuzes, grenades, and more — plus access our classifieds marketplace and decades of archived knowledge. Free to register, takes seconds.

dummy vs. practice

I have seen several references to a dummy and practice unit being different. Geez, I feel like the village idiot here but could someone educate me. What is the difference between practice and dummy? Dano
 
hi

If I don't make translation error, dummy is for instruction (like in a classroom, you can dismantle it), and practice for exercice.

Practice munition can contain explosive, or black powder, or other substance.
 
Another Term

Another term to add a some confusion is display. In the Canadian Forces dummy is used for drills such as loading weapons, throwing grenades, etc. Display ammunition is colour coded and marked to resemble its live counterpart. Display ammunition is used for instruction in classrooms to learn how ammunition functions and characteristics about particular items. Display ammunition includes cut away ammunition so the internal working can be seen.

Practice ammunition contains some form of energetic material and general produces some form of target effect.
 
Dangers

The difference in the two rounds has been lethal in a number of cases. When 'practicing' with a Gustaf the rounds were meant to be drill or training(dummy) ie inert. A practice round was fired with damaging results. In another case a practice round was asked for in mistake for a training(drill or dummy) round for a A/T shoulder launched weapon and death resulted.
Moral of this is check if it is training(drill or dummy) or practice before use or collecting.
 
Top