Rare Mills Grenade

[siegfreid]

I got this No23 Mk1 today . One of the rarer makers , Motor Equipment Birmingham , one of the very few makers who used steel base plugs . Also , knowing the provenance of this one , it's complete as it was made & not a mix of parts . It has a lacquer coated brass centre tube & also there is about 40% remaining of the original lacquer finish on the outside of the body [there have been discussions on the use of lacquer for WW1 Mills bodies on this forum] . Altogether an extremely fine example of a WW1 Mills . Enjoy the scans .

 

[millsbomber]

Wow that is a new one for me, i have the standard Mk1 version and only 2 drawings of No23 Mk2 Brass examples in another collection as pictures,,,,, Dave

 

[siegfreid]

Dave. Oh , yes . I thought that was a mis-struck Mk1 but you're right , it's a Mk11 ! I should look at these things more carefully . Thanks . Mike.

 

[Snufkin]

A couple more steel plugs, marked up to MkII.

Steel was the initial material specified for the 23MkI base plug in May 1916, but a lot of the manufacturers found it hard going drilling and tapping the rod hole. The requirement was relaxed to brass bar or malleable cast iron in order to speed up supply for quantity delivery in July. Some makers persisted with steel though, and a few appear to have revisited it when the MkII requirement was approved in October 1916 - even as the cast iron Hearn-Galer base plug was being adopted.





Tom.

 

[millsbomber]

Wow that is a new one for me, i have the standard Mk1 version and only 2 drawings of No23 Mk2 Brass examples in another collection as pictures,,,,, Dave

View attachment 76317 View attachment 76318 View attachment 76319

I made a mistake here the diagrams are of steel or cast iron examples,,,,,,, Dave