Rounds to identify

[buritonian]

Can anyone confirm what these are?

First is a common round but is it German or British?

Smaller one. German 9mm pistol or??

Third round is large diameter. What could it be fired from?

the Last is a piece of a shell, but what type? what fired it? And what did that shell look like before it blew? 
be great to know.
 

Edited 19 April , 2020 by buritonian

[AOK4]

Pic 1 and 2 are a French bullet, 3 and 4 a German bullet, the two following pics probably a French or British cartridge and the last 3 probably show a German fuse GrZ 04.

[buritonian]

Interesting, I shall look up the Grz 04.

FYI I don’t know myself, so I’m not setting a quiz. I had some ideas but would be great to get opinions.
The third cartridge is quite a bit bigger than a typical .303 one. 
 

Edited 19 April , 2020 by buritonian

[AOK4]

9 minutes ago, buritonian said:

Interesting, I shall look up the Grz 04.

FYI I don’t know myself, so I’m not setting a quiz. I had some ideas but would be great to get opinions.
The third cartridge is quite a bit bigger than a typical .303 one. 
 

Then the cartridge may be a French one.

[MikB]

3 hours ago, AOK4 said:

Then the cartridge may be a French one.

 

Yes, the rim looks like it may have the small concave radius on the periphery typical of 8mm Lebel. 

[buritonian]

17 hours ago, AOK4 said:

Pic 1 and 2 are a French bullet, 3 and 4 a German bullet, the two following pics probably a French or British cartridge and the last 3 probably show a German fuse GrZ 04.

Interesting that you believe pic 1 and 2 (the bullet with the bent over nose from an impact) to be French. Is there something defining that rules out it being a German or British bullet? I had felt it might be German since it was spotted by the British lines at Beaumont Hamel 

[AOK4]

36 minutes ago, buritonian said:

Interesting that you believe pic 1 and 2 (the bullet with the bent over nose from an impact) to be French. Is there something defining that rules out it being a German or British bullet? I had felt it might be German since it was spotted by the British lines at Beaumont Hamel 

 

It is a French bullet. I have been looking for relics on fields for almost 40 years, so I can identify a lot of things.

[MikB]

48 minutes ago, buritonian said:

Interesting that you believe pic 1 and 2 (the bullet with the bent over nose from an impact) to be French. Is there something defining that rules out it being a German or British bullet? I had felt it might be German since it was spotted by the British lines at Beaumont Hamel 

 

i) It's clearly a solid coppery alloy - the French 'Balle D' differed from German, British, or practically any other nation's bullet in being solid bronze. Others used a lead or composite core covered with a cupro-nickel or gilding metal jacket.

ii) It has a long boat tail, also a unique-ish feature of Balle D at that time.

iii) The rifling goes left-hand and looks like the 4-groove Lebel pattern. British also used left-hand but either 2 or 5 grooves.

 

Looks like the nose hit wire or something similar at the end of a longish trajectory, spun it end-for-end and the tail then hit something else. If it'd happened at closer range, the turnover would've curled over much more of the nose.

Edited 20 April , 2020 by MikB

[Michael Haselgrove]

buritonian,

Just to add to the above, if you look at the base of the bullet pictured at 1 & 2 you should, if the bullet is not too corroded/damaged, find some letters and numerals which give the identity of the manufacturer and month/year of manufacture.

Regards,

Michael.

[buritonian]

Hi

 

This is fantastic to learn. I’m really grateful. Thanks to all.

i looked with a magnifying glass but not markings to make out unfortunately