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Picked this up, is it a No5 or a No23?

Reenactor1939

New Member
Got this the other day and I think its a No23 but wanted to be sure as I start trying to find the missing parts....which won't be easy considering I'm in the US. Mills in general seem to be really hard to get here in any condition.
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The Military Man (Worthing, UK) sell first class reproductions of the missing bits at very reasonable prices but I don’t know if they ship overseas. It might be worth asking them
 
My money is on a No 5,Westinghouse Brake manufacture,as it has poor (undefined) collar detail beneath shoulders & usually a divot in lowest segment of seam
I think you're right. I also think this one was never completed/ factory reject because the cast seam on the other side is an incompletely fused/ cold joint.
 

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I think you're right. I also think this one was never completed/ factory reject because the cast seam on the other side is an incompletely fused/ cold joint.
Early Mills production grenades were of the Centre cast type,which was a labour intensive production method,this followed through by many manufacturers who were awarded production contracts. Westinghouse Brake were one of the companies awarded an early contract,however it appears they adopted the alternative side cast production method ,which was faster to produce,but reject rate was high due to misalignment issues.Due to high demand if a casting was not defective,but visually imperfect it would still pass QC. I believe your grenade is an early side cast production by Westinghouse......this is only my opinion, but based on years of collecting & lots of Googling sales sites over many years
 
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