Sorry misnomer, technically the wood is not a sabot, but parts of the system holding the sabot. I agree with all the rest in the previous post, even the usage for holding the thin copper straight makes sense to me. I see no indication it was fired, the rest of the copper sabot is even, no indications of rifling, the wood sabot would split from the force of firing and be gone usually,and there is a line of "damage " right above the bent down area, but its recessed back enough that I would think the shell would show other damage if it was from firing, sorry can't photo it. Its a 2" curved wavy shallow line, U shaped profile, not V and appears to be the reason for the down push of the copper sabot. If it was fired, I would expect a very light charge or undersize sabot, since it didn't take any rifling ands is perfectly smooth. was entirely speculative for a additional flame groove and 99% sure it wasn't, but we have seen some unusual field mods of hatchet and saw cuts on sabot for that purpose before, was just throwing out ideas. I really don't know why its bent, just that it doesn't look like that line was caused by impact. could have been stuck in the shipping container and pried out with a crow bar from the look of the damage, but we will never know for sure:) If it was found later with a detector, I would have said shovel hit it, but know thats not the case
