Calling A. Roads, Calling A. Roads...

[cannonmn]

Sir,
A poster from another board has posted this and wants an answer.  I sent him to the UK muzzleloading board you recommended, but maybe you know the answer anyway:

I notice in the provided link Cromwell used shells with iron fuzes leaded in place.

When shells where cast, the spindle that held the inner core mold also formed the fuze hole. This meant that the hole in the shell had to be fairly large i.e. large enough for the spindle. The hole also had to be large enough to allow the inner core of sand and clay to be broken up and removed from inside the newly cast shell. If the hole was too small this could vastly slow down the extraction of the inner sand and clay.

A fuze hole too large would allow most if not all the gas from the burning black powder to escape without shattering the shell.

Shell fuze holes were normally plugged with wooden fuzes. An iron fuze leaded in place would seem to be ideal in that the strength of the iron, its weight and it being leaded in place would allow a much higher pressure to develop within the shell as compared to a wooden (or copper) fuze popping out before the shell bursts i.e. I would expect that a shell with iron fuze leaded in place would explode with much more violence and would break into more pieces.

The smaller hole in the bottom of the iron fuze would still allow easy filling with rifle powder and then perhaps a smaller wooden fuze was tapped into the iron fuze (iron fuze holder).

Beside allowing a much more violent explosion, an iron fuze would be yet another deadly piece of iron flying around.

My question is does anyone know of an example of this shell "with an iron fuze leaded in place"?

Here's the link:


The History of Drogheda

http://books.google.com/books?id=UAwwAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA282&dq=%22iron+fuse%22+OR+%22iron+fuze%22&as_brr=3#PPA282,M1

[A.Roads]

In short I do not know of an example of an early iron fuzed shell & most of my books don't cover such early ordnance in enough detail for me to provide any leads. It may be worth his while scouring the articles index of the Ordnance Society Journals & Newsletters on the Ordnance Society website in case something on this, or a similar subject, can be found. Certainly a very wide variety of projectiles were used at one time or another & there seems to have been a bewildering varity of carcasses, shells, fire balls, expanding shot and such devises as could be contrived, I am not at all surprised that iron fuzes were used & in such cases they would have had to be well secured if they were not tapered, lest they be driven into the shell by the shock of discharge. Wooden fuzes were by far the more successful. Some notes I made from more modern treatises c1870: Adrian

The advantages of wood over metal time fuzes were initially believed to be chiefly safety, preservation of the composition and causing the shell to act more violently as the fuze hole is more securely closed. However, experience showed that the advantages as to safety and preservation were imaginary and that closing the fuze holes was found of some importance only in the small calibres. Wood was much cheaper and superseded metal time fuzes. Metal of course remained the material for most percussion fuzes and as further technological advances were made, eventually metal replaced wood entirely for fuzes.