German 81mm Mortar HE Round

[M8owner]

I just picked this up after it was offered on-line in the US; first one that I have seen on this side of the pond. 50mm German rounds are encountered regularly at $250, and I only had a pay a little more for this 81mm. It still has quite a bit of original paint with faint markings remaining. Some of you might know how I like to take things apart; however, I cannot get the top off this one - easily. The fuse comes out, and the booster housing is in there - without the booster being present. I cannot get access to the main charge to verify this is safe. My adjustable pin wrench was not up the challenge to get the fuse adapter off. Before I go and make an industrial tool to have at the adapter, I weighed the round and it comes in at 3 Kg almost exactly. My data shows this round should weight 3.5 Kg. 0.5 Kg or one pound light on the weight should indicate this has been made safe with the main charge removed. Does my data match what everyone has for the service weight of this round?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Steve

 

[US-Subs]

While your theory is sound, no bomb squad is normally going to accept weight as confirmation of inert. There are too many uncertainties still at play. I've seen teams try to use weight to verify models, CW vs HE, etc., and it just does not hold up. Too many variations in rounds, modifications, differences in references, etc.

 

[spotter]

Your going to make a tool to take the thing apart and your unsure wether its still filled or not ???,
Something we repeat over and over here on BOCN is if your unsure dont mess with it ,the best thing is hand it over to the authorities and have the experts deal with it,
If things cannot be easily stripped down by hand and seen to be empty prior to buying dont buy them