Beach Hunt....Canister or Grape-Shot? Artillery fuzes?

[DocBeav]

Was out yesterday at low tide, hoping for gold but found ALLOT of lead! Started finding all of these lead "shot" pieces all over one section and they were EVERYWHERE! I was digging between 3-12 per scoop when I'd get a signal. They are just big enough that they didn't fall through the holes in my scoop but would settle in place in them and stay until i gave em a little tap. Ended up digging 114 of em then moved on as that was all I was finding in this spot. Some of them are deformed as if they may have impacted something but many just have marks or dimples from where they may have been packed together. I also dug what might be some sort of artillery fuse(s) (maybe?). They were both pretty corroded and rusted up. One is copper (smaller one) the other appears to be steel or iron and is slightly concave on one side and has a hole in the center. (measurements shown in the pictures in mm). Also found the copper band that looks like it came off of some sort of shell, you can see the marks on it from either the breach or the rifling in the barrel.

I know that this area had a problem a few years ago where they dredged up sand in what used to be a naval gunnery range (mistake) and dumped it all on a nearby beach. Supposedly the range was used between WWI and WWII but may have been used earlier than that. Took a while for EOD teams to remove any unexploded ordnance (which I'm on the lookout for as well.....carefully!) Trying to figure out what it all is and how old. Lots of Civil War and Revolutionary War action around this area as well as it is near an old fort.

Also found some 7.62 bullets, a .50 cal round and a cool multi tool by Gerber (The Dime) that was in pretty good shape and cleaned up well. Thanks for looking and hopefully someone (Cannonballguy?) will be able to tell me what some of this is. May head back today to look for more! Measured as best I could (not sure where exactly to place the calipers) in mm and weight was in grams.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Diving for Pleasure and Treasure - Grab it through Amazon!

[Vonclemen29]

Nice. That ring is definitely off a shell. Lead shot is crazy. That's alot lol, I'd be happy with these finds. Nice finds man

 

[thrillathahunt]

Interesting finds, I hope you can get some positive ID's.

 

[CASPER-2]

looks like from image at bottom - I have a beach I find them along with other parts of the shells

 

[DocBeav]

Thanks for the picture Casper! Wish I had some of the gold like you just found to go with my other finds!

 

[NEPADIGGER7]

Very interesting

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

DocBeav sent me a Private Message asking for my analysis of his finds, pictured above.

Yes, some of them are components of exploded 20th Century artillery shells.

The 34.5mm brass disc with a circular hole through its center is a plug from the bottom of an artillery fuze... looks like a World War One era version, but may be somewhat later.

The very-encrusted brass disc (no size-measurement given) with screw-threading on its edges is very probably also from an exploded artillery shell. It resembles a fuze part, similar to the one identified in the paragraph above... but I'd need to see it completely cleaned up in order to have any hope of giving you a specific ID for it.

The 12.3mm (and other) lead balls are antipersonnel balls from the Common Shrapnel and High-Explosive Shrapnel shells show in the diagram posted by Casper-2.

The 54.7mm iron/steel disc with a small hole through its center is the pusher-plate for a Common Shrapnel Shell, as shown in the diagram posted by Casper-2. (In that diagram it is labeled a "steel diaphragm.") When the shell's powder-charge exploded, the pusher-plate "pushed" the lead antipersonnel balls straight forward, toward the enemy.

The C-shaped copperbrass band is a broken band-sabot ring (now called a driving-band) from an exploded shell. That particular form first starts showing up around 1880... and is still being used today. The multiple axial grooves/ridges on it are rifling-marks created by being fired through a rifled cannon's bore.

 

[DocBeav]

Thank you TheCannonballGuy! I really appreciate it!

 

[Hillbilly Joe]

Finding live Ord. seems to happen a lot in the UK,

Grandfather discovers 'silver ring' found while metal-detecting was HAND GRENADE pin | Mail Online

I think in 2010, a seven year old found a live WW2 grenade that had washed up on the beach. She put it in her pail and walked it home!

Be careful! COOL FINDS!

Semper Fi

 

[vpnavy]

Thanks for sharing...

 

[vpnavy]

Thanks for sharing...