Identification help needed British?

[Fragman]

Hi. This item was recovered by a qualified EOD technician. Any live ordnance found with it was disposed of appropriately.

You know Santas getting the message when theres a box of relics left under the tree on Christmas morning:santaclaus:.

This one is going to take a bit of cleaning. It has a hole in each end and has that Ive seen you before look about it. However, I cant identify it:banghead:. Your ideas please.

Cheers

 

[Fragman]

Hi. It's cleaned up OK. It's quite heavy and weighs about what you would expect a live grenade to weigh. Still no luck identifying it. Cheers

 

[paul the grenade]

hi colin.
its similar to this practice mills but without the top lug. might be a locally made practice gren??
cheers, paul.

 

[Fragman]

Hi Paul,

It could well be a locally made practice grenade, although I’ve never seen one like it before. It was found with a lot of other ordnance, dating from WW1 through to the 50’s. I am hoping it’s something else, although I have no reason to make the linkage (other than hope).

Very recently I found out that locally designed and manufactured grenades were made in New Zealand during WW1. I’ve always been of the understanding that we did not start producing grenades until WW2, and then only the No36 M MkI Mills.

This grenade was known as the “Sabulite” and was made by the Sabulite (New Zealand) Company. This article was printed September 24 1915,

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cg...s=6&e=-------100--1----0grenade+manufacture--

This one was published 25 September 1915, describes the grenade as being small spherical shells, a little larger than a cricket ball.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=EP19150925.2.9

Like a said, a lot of hope and no supporting evidence.

Cheers

 

[siegfreid]

My understanding is that these & similar ones are either Scandanavian or Danish practice Mills grenades from the 1930's . Hope this helps.

 

[Fragman]

Hi Mike. Thanks for your comments. It would be good if it were a practice Mills from up north. With there being no apparent threading to either orifice I suspect it either an unfinished body, Practice version, or some sort of frag sleeve for an improvised device. Cheers

 

[Fragman]

Hi guys. Thanks for your comments and suggestions. After trawling through old photos of collections I’d visited in days gone by, I think I’ve found a good match. Whilst it’s been many years since I’ve seen it, it has the same distinctive frag pattern/bands and from memory it was made of wood and weighted with lead. Unfortunately the origins of the wooden one are not known. Cheers