mills grenade ?

[Gary Jucha]

Ag

Agreed ... and from the throw lever the mark "11/76" I would suspect denotes November 1976 ... (God knows how the shilling ended up glued to the base !! .. the only real reason might be so that the grenade could be stood up for displaying .. as the American pineapples don't tend to stand up on their castings)

Gary J.

Hi Dave, not a Mills Bomb, but a US grenade.

Cheers, Ade.

[sscrooge]

thought it might be good for clearing the bar at new years eve

[spotter]

have a look here http://www.inert-ord.net/usa03a/usa2/mk2sp/index.html

[Erwin L]

here some other

regards Erwin

[Gary Jucha]

Wow

WOW !!!!!! .. Now thats scary !!!

Gary J.

here some other

regards Erwin

[Erwin L]

Hello Gary

They will look great in a christmas three Although they need a polishing job

Erwin

[Palmenmuster]

Erwin... They are Mills, not US grenades.
Best regards, Tom

[skinwehr]

hi guys, tried thumbnail sizes and still fails,, i sent the pics to Ben, regiment, he has told me its safe but is american and not a mills, i will post pics whenit lets me thanks again Dave

That is an American M21 practice fragmentation grenade.

The fuse head is a practice fuse (it won't thread into a real grenade body) from a later m-67 baseball grenade, as evident by the notch on it for the safety clip. It has been fired already, the squib has been blown off leaving behind only a piece of its aluminum crimp. The rivet, anvil and firing spring are missing. The spoon is a replacement.

US ordinance painted blue with a brown band means it is simulation ammunition or dummy. In its original configuration, the grenade had a primer, 4-5 second fuse train, igniter and a small bag of black powder (not enough to fragment the grenade body, just to go "BANG"). The bottom hole was plugged with a wine cork. They were used to safely practice grenade throwing.

The IRA used to rearm these by plugging up the hole in the bottom, filling them with black powder and adding a new primer/fuse (usually just gluing a cannon fuse in) to the head.

That is one possible theory for the coin soldered to the bottom.