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Mills bomb base plugs in brass?
- Thread starter Eion99
- Start date
That's the only one I know of as BMG says.
The brass base plugs are not that uncommon.
Over 60 million No.36 were made in WWII, and from 1942 the batch manufacturers in the UK (the likes of Kenrick, IBR, Thomas Green, Carron, BBC, etc) received rolling contracts for typically 100,000 to 400,000 grenades per batch. In turn most of them placed sub-contracts for furniture, typically hundreds of thousands of components at a time, so while I have not seen a specific contract for any brass base plug, the likelihood is that batches of at least a 100,000 were churned out.
Physical evidence shows brass base plugs were made in 1943, 1944 and 1945 (attached image), 1943 corresponding to the beginning of rolling batch production; allowing for only 100,000 made each year, that makes one in 200 a more likely ratio. From what I have seen over the years in photos and in the flesh (around 25-30 brass plugs in total), a ratio of one in 200 is probably not far off.
Tom.
