Powder is in the nose. The balls are in there so neatly because there are little pie-shaped cast iron pieces with dimples to fit them precisely! It actually worked very, very well with the cast iron plates, the head and the body all adding to the damage. The more common base charged was simply cheaper to manufacture. However, having worked ranges where both of these types were used, the projectile from base charged type always falls far short of the impact area for the shapnel, whereas all the shrapnel and the fragments in the nose charged variety impact the same general area, just like case shot. The development of high explosives suitable for artillery projectiles made all shrapnel obsolete. We still had a lot in our inventory at the beginning of WWII, but it was all used Stateside for training.
