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Posted: 8/22/2008 3:56:47 PM EDT
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Does any one no what kind of shell this is it has a few markings such as: 2 P 37m m5 m3 and each one is on a raised section of the shell  
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Looks like a fired 37mm Armor Piercing projectile. The copper band near the bottom of the projectile is called the driving band. That is what the rifling in the cannons bore engages, making the projectile spin. The wide diagonal lines on the copper band, are where the rifling grooves in the barrel dug in. Check this out. Link |
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Please don't take this the wrong way, but you should not be picking up projectiles of that size that could have HE in them if you don't absolutely know what they are. I remember the story in the news about a year agoof the high school teacher that had a fired, but not exploded 40mm HEDP projectile sitting on his desk. People played with it for some time, but one day it went off. First rule of range safety (and maybe gunshow safety), don't ever touch/pick up a dud. |
+1. My former Ord O told a story of visiting a guy in Guam who had a HEI Artillary round as a decoration piece. 
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YEP NO SHIT.........I would "DEEP SIX" it in the deepest lake I can find..Some kid 10yrs from now will try to "Demill" it. And god knows blow himself up!  ...Fuck that.I spent 20yrs in ARMY guard. We would go to FT McCoy at least every outher year. They always said never pick-up stuff that you were NOT sure of! |
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Although some good advice has been given about not picking up fired projectiles, you don't need to panic over this one. It's a WWII 37mm M74 armor piercing shot with tracer. You should see about a 1/2" diameter cavity in the base with or without some white chalky junk in it---the tracer composition. Other than that, the projo is solid steel and copper. It is pretty unusual that any of the markings on the rotating band are still legible after firing so maybe it went down the bore of a gun with worn out rifling. The markings would have originally noted 37mm M74 and for gun M3 (towed) and M5 (tank). Now if that thing was just about an inch longer, more spire pointed, and with a brass plug in the base, it would have been an M63 high explosive round and a very dangerous thing to screw with in the fired condition. You got lucky this time. |
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Found it: http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa142/The91Bravo/Misc/AP.jpg Armor piercing (AP) An AP projectile is a hardened-steel projectile. AP projectiles may have a small cavity in the base for explosive, or they may be solid. AP projectiles look a lot like base-fuzed common shells, but they are made from much harder steel. Also, the cavity in the base for explosive, it is much smaller than that of a common shell. Figure 19 shows a diagram and a photo of an AP shot. |
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