fuse adapter ??????

[155gunner]

My brother and I have made a couple of trips to a new CW site and in addition to the usual bullets and etc we have been digging some artillery frags. They appear to be 3" / 10# confederate parrot and reads. They are side loaded and have a cast iron sabot. The bursting chamber walls appear to be a little thin but substantial for the purpose. The nose section has a square cavity from the bursting chamber to near the tip. There are also lathe dogs at the nose. Now my question. Before we discard this piece as another piece of camp brass is it possible this is part of a fuse adapter. I don't see anything similar in my library but I thought this would be a good place for a final yes/no. BTW it is the same diameter as the nose of the shell and made of a high copper content brass . any help would be appreciated.

regards

 

[CWArtillery]

It doesn't look like any fuse part I've seen. The pictures are a bit dark but my guess would be some sort of pipe flange. Sounds like a really nice spot if you're digging side loader frags. Good luck!

 

[PCGeorge]

155gunner, in my professional opinion, CWArtillery is correct, the item is not a fuze, or anything related to one.

But, as I've repeated many times in this forum's past... you did the right thing in checking with relic experts about the item. Guys, please NEVER be embarrassed about asking.

155gunner, because my specialty-area in relics is Projectiles, I'm intrigued by your mention of Read Sideloader Case-Shot shells at the spot you are digging. Is it a summer-of-1863 site? (The book I wrote contains notation of which battles those very rare 3"-caliber Sideloaders were used at, and I continue to make notes about their use when any new information comes along.) Let me say clearly, I'm NOT asking for directions to the site ...just, what battle and what month/year it happened.

Also... usually, the case-shot balls in Read Sideloader ammo are .44" or .52" balls. I'm curious to know what size of balls you're finding at that particular site.

Regards,
Pete [P.C. George]

 

[155gunner]

Hello PCGeorge

Thanks to you and CW Artillery for responding to my inquiry . Trust me , I have been at this long enough to know when to ask professional opinions. Now if I can respond to your questions about our finds without sounding stupid. The location is in Ky and as far as i know there was no battle there. It was a camp location used off and on through out the war. Originally occupied 1861 which was early. we were somewhat surprised when the first frag showed up. In fact my brother was going to chuck it till I saw what it was and checked it out. That being the base of what we took to be a 3" parrott. Later finds lead me to suspect a read case shot. Reason being that one large section was a half side of the bursting chamber with the side hole in the middle. Later finds included portions of the upper bursting chamber which included the raised bands of a read shell. Also as mentioned, the nose portion has the lathe dog cast on one side of the nose. As far a recovery of any balls that might have come from the shells we haven't found any yet but we have only made 3 trips to the spot. We are at this point looking for big iron and lead and have not tuned into finding smaller steel balls. that will come later. Looking at the size of the opening in the shell side I would say it would only accept the smaller size balls.

At this point we are of the opinion that the site was used for arty. drill and practice. We are of the opinion it is a union site but who knows at this point. Is it possible the north was using cs shells??? I wouldn't think so that early in the war . I find it interesting the hole for side loading was so far down the side of the shell. I was also surprised to find the cast void going from the bursting chamber to the tip was square. However the very tip is missing but with what I have in hand there could not have been much left for retaining a fuse adapter. Hence I thought the piece of brass in my original inquiry might have been driven into the tip, hex portion first.

CW artillery is somewhat new to us so if any thing stated makes no sense chaulk it up to ignorance.

Hope this helps and if you can enlighten me any on anything stated please let me know.

Regards

Larry

 

[PCGeorge]

You say that "the cast void going from the bursting chamber to the tip was square." I have not seen one that is what I "think" you're talking about. (A Sideloader with a square-topped powder-caity.) If possible, please post some well-focused closeup photos of it. Also, some closeup photos of the Read shell base. If your guess that it is a Read shell's base is correct, I'll know immediately. (It MIGHT be some other kind.) Just trying to be helpful here -- not meaning to sound like "Mr. Know-It-All."

CS Sideloader Case-Shot shells did not come into existence until Spring 1863, and the Read version of them almost entirely disappears from use after Autumn 1863.

By the way... Sideloader case-shot shells almost always contained iron balls, not lead. Since you said you're going after only lead and LARGE iron signals, that might be why you haven't dug any of the Sideloader's case-shot balls.

Regards,
Pete [P.C. George]

 

[155gunner]

PCGEORGE

I will need to get the frags from my brother which might take a week or two. As soon as I do I will post the photos you requested.

Tegards

Larry

 

[155gunner]

PC George

As requested I finally got a couple of photos of some of the frag pieces. They have not been totally cleaned yet but hopefully good enough for discussion. While all pieces are greatly rusted what I think is the lathe dog is on the left side of the nose piece in both photos. The side loading hole is only about half cleaned out but you can see the original diameter fairly clearly I think. A fair portion of the tip of the nose looks to be gone.

As stated before , I do not claim to be well versed in CW artillery ordnance so if if I am all wet on these pieces just say so.

Regards

Larry

 

[PCGeorge]

155gunner, please pardon the delay in replying. I've had computer-trouble. Thank you for providing the photos. Unfortunately, there's no ruler in them to show us the items' size. No offense meant, but that is extremely important when trying to identify an item by looking at it in a photo.

My reply is a mixture of good news and bad news. The good news is that the item at upper right appears to be the base of an exploded civil war shell. Specifically, it looks like an iron-saboted yankee Read-Parrott shell's base. As you probably already know, its diameter should be about 2.9-to-3.0-inches. It looks like a yankee-made one because a Confederate-made one would have a "lathe-dimple" (a cone-shaped shallow depression) in the exact center of its iron bottom. I don't see a lathe dimple at that location of your shell-base ...and the iron sabot's "lip" looks to be about 1/4-inch thick, which matches up with the thickness of a yankee Read-Parrott's sabot. You might want to clean some more rust-crust off the bottom's exact center, to see if there is a lathe-dimple hiding under the rust-crust ...or not.

The bad news is that I'm absolutely certain the item at upper left is definitely not any part of a civil war shell. No shells had a square fuzehole.

The items at lower left and lower right may be shell fragments. but they are too small for me to be certain about that, one way or the other. So, I say hang onto them until you can show them to somebody in "real life" for definite ID.

Keep hunting that spot, close and careful. You might find the exploded shell's fuze and other fragments of it ...or even a whole shell. Good luck to you in your digging!

Regards,
Pete [P.C. George]

 

[155gunner]

Pete

Thanks for your expert input. The area we are hunting is quite large so hopefully we will turn up additional pieces.

Regards

larry