What's this?

[Dronic69]

Spotted this recently on an auction listing - haven't seen before - any ideas?

Thanks
Cheers
Drew

 

[kiwieod]

some sort of drill round?although i dont see how you could chamber a round like that

 

[Tony]

Is the ring around the head Wax ? Could it be for testing wear ?

 

[Dronic69]

Is the ring around the head Wax ? Could it be for testing wear ?

An interesting thought - looks driveband "copperish" to me -perhaps a hard resin as I would expect wax to melt during firing?

 

[Tony]

Unless it's a non-firing drill type round (which it looks like on the base to me?) which is simply inserted into the breech and then ejected to check wear at that point. If you look at the head of the piece you can see that behind the "wax / resin" is tapered in to allow transfer of the testing material backwards as it enters the breech ?

 

[Hoeksel]

Looks to me like a drill and a cut down case of a caliber below 37 mm.

 

[Dronic69]

Unless it's a non-firing drill type round (which it looks like on the base to me?) which is simply inserted into the breech and then ejected to check wear at that point. If you look at the head of the piece you can see that behind the "wax / resin" is tapered in to allow transfer of the testing material backwards as it enters the breech ?

Yes may well be a non-firing drill round. - which would help to explain the lack of impact /wear marks judging by the base strkier pattern - looks more like a dart board with a very small number of inners /outers. How would a centre fire gun gets so many deviation base hits away from the centre?

 

[Tony]

Looks more like it's been shot at with a low powered air rifle or BB gun to be honest

 

[Alpini]

The case has some similarities with a 38mm Nordenfelt case. Except for the mouth which may have been altered for the drill projectile.

A "N" may be visible in 5 o'clock position on the base.