Military munition part?

[cudamark]

I have found many of these brass rings on a local beach that also has lots of military copper and brass items. I also finally found what seems to be the item to which the rings attach. The shaft is ferrous (steel?) and the most complete one also has a brass nipple on the opposite end along with 54H stamped into the side of it. There may be other numbers as I haven't cleaned off all the encrustation yet. I'm a little leery of tapping it with a hammer until I know more about it! When I first started finding them, I thought they were just cheap copper/brass finger rings, but, when I saw that the inside of the rings have splines, that changed my mind.

 

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[Tony in SC]

The rings do look like rifling grooves? I don't know about the west coast beaches but the beaches here in South and North Carolina were used before and during WWII for practice runs by the Aircorp.

 

[cudamark]

We had the same WW2 and Korea practice ranges here too. Rifling grooves would be inside a barrel and in a slight spiral wouldn't they? The certainly wouldn't be in a brass ring I wouldn't think.

 

[augoldminer]

i find 1000s of those 20mm bullets or frag from them but the steel parts are still there
the only time i have ever found just the brass rings was on a salt lake shore here in the desert the steel part long since corroded away.

i would be worried about the brass nipple one as most of the ones i have found has a alumium nose or a steel nose.
the brass nipple remines me of a fuse and that is only used on a live exlosive round.

 

[Tony in SC]

Yes I'm thinking the grooves in the brass were caused by the rifling in the barrel. I've seen larger shells with the same grooves?

We had the same WW2 and Korea practice ranges here too. Rifling grooves would be inside a barrel and in a slight spiral wouldn't they? The certainly wouldn't be in a brass ring I wouldn't think.

 

[Sparlo]

The rings are called "driving bands" or "rotating bands"which are attached to the base of a projectile and are intended to contain the expanding gases from the propellant in the barrel when fired. The outer edge is either swaged by the barrel's rifling when fired or, as in the case of a smooth bore like a mortar, is swaged in production to impart the spin required for stability in flight. The interior grooves on the ring are used to keep the ring seated on the projectile. I suspect the projectiles eroded, leaving only the brass bands.

 

[cudamark]

What kind of projectile is this? Just a bullet type round? Explosive round? Tracer? The steel body is a little smaller in diameter than a 50cal round, but, the brass ring itself is about the same as the 50cal. I've just never seen a thick steel round like that.

 

[dozer dan]

Old broken combination padlock?

 

[cudamark]

No numbers on any of them we've found. There isn't 10 flats on them anyway. Between myself and my friends, we've found dozens of them.

 

[Sparlo]

These are 20mm anti-aircraft cannon rounds used by the Army and Navy in around 15 different variations, including armor-piercing and HE rounds. I have found these on a nearby WW2 anti-aircraft training site, albeit never the ring itself but I have found rounds with missing rings.

Here's an example:

 

[cudamark]

So, what you are showing is just the "bullet"? Is it meant to be an explosive round? Practice round? How do you tell the difference? Would there also be a brass shell casing for the primer and gunpowder charge, or is this a complete round?