Interesting Sabot

[CarlS]

I picked this sabot piece up today in a big collection of early dig artillery frags.  Lots more neat stuff in it but this piece was on top of one of the buckets and it caught my eye because it was a type periodically mentioned by Pete George over the years.  It is the bell shaped sabot to a Read shell that has the square hole in the center to keep it from slipping. 

[CarlS]

Well I thought it was interesting.  And here is another that I just got yesterday that is pretty cool as well.  It has the typical round hole in the center but also has 3 holes equally spaced around the center hole which filled with the iron when the shell was cast on the sabot.  There was no way this was going to slip!  This is one I was really happy to get.

[Dave the plumber]

 frags are cool, they tell a story.   Keep on postin'

[gandycreek]

Interesting. I agree, keep posting.

[CarlS]

I was shooting some pics for a few new shells I posted over on the sales side and so shot two images of Read sabots showing something different.  This picture is of two with the most typical round hole and no other design point to to assist with preventing slippage other than friction of the brass/copper on the iron.  The one that still has the iron center piece is from a 3" shell fired from an ordnance rifle and has a steep slope to it.  The more green one below is from a 3.25" Read shell found at Blakeley, AL.  It has a large center hole which held the typical so called "Selma Blob" which was a nice rounded pancake looking base knob.  It doesn't have nearly the slop as the top one.

[CarlS]

This base is real interesting to me.  Unlike the prior ones I pictured it has an iron sabot and also has a center hole.  The assist in preventing slippage during manufacture they used a sharp pointed object to drive dimples into the wrought iron around the center hole.  When the shell was cast around the sabot the molten iron would fill these dimples and hold the sabot from slipping.  This is from a 2.9" smooth sided Read fired from a Parrott gun.

[emike123]

We have discussed these marks a couple other times here but they were always on early Parrott shells.  I remember you telling me how excited you though Pete would get if he saw one of them. 

Are you sure this is a CS Read and not a US Parrott?  I can dig out a few bases to show pictures of if the earlier posts are too hard to find and I for one am too lazy right now to look for them.

[CarlS]

You are correct Mike.  When I took the picture it was piled with some Read bases I didn't look closely.  But it is no doubt a wrought iron sabot stamped with the Parrott rifling from a Read-Parrott shell.