Can anyone tell about these shells?? I’d love to know more

[Graehome]

Hi All,

I am clearing out my mums house and I’ve come across these two shells.  I thought they might have belonged to her father but I think they might be older than that.  Can anyone give me any information on what they are or where they are from?? Thanks 

[Spaceman]

They are cartridges for for a naval QF 2-Pdr which was essentially a larger version of the 1-Pdr Pom Pom gun used, for example, by the Boers during the 2nd Boer War and was design by Hiram Maxim as a larger version of his machine gun. The 2-Pdr was of 37 mm calibre and was belt fed like the smaller calibre machine gun. However, if memory serves e, these cartridges were also used in the Thornycroft depth charger throwers.

[MikB]

These were made by Vickers, Son & Maxim in (I think) May 1916, and loaded once with a full charge of cordite (if that's a badly-stamped 'F' next to the big 'C'). There are a couple of 'I's that normally indicated Indian issue, but in the naval context I'm not sure I can make sense of that. *Usually* 'I's of that meaning would be in line with the Broad Arrow's 'shaft'.

Edited 20 November , 2022 by MikB

[Graehome]

Wow. Thanks so much for the information.  

[MikB]

Looking at these again, I don't think the 'I's have anything to do with India - they just signify the round and the No.5 primer are both Mk.I (typically Roman numerals in WW1) of their respective designs.

Apart from the variations in the stamping, they show differences in the machining of the casehead, clearly by manually-operated lathe slides from the noticeable variation of toolfeed within each example. The worker who faced the top one must've had plenty of power available, a firm-gripping fixture plus a nice sharp tool in his machine as he was able to whip across it in relatively few turns of the spindle, whereas the second one had to take his time a bit.

Edited 21 November , 2022 by MikB