U.s. Parrott Percussion Fuze, safety sleeve model;

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

To All Interested;
      Okay members we need to keep the Forum moving along to keep everyone interested with new posts.  I don't want to appear to be hoging the limelight on here but I wish to keep it moving.
       There are two models of this style of Parrott Percussion fuzes, one has two projecting prongs to serve as a handling safety, and this one with the safety sleeve surrounding the percussion cap.
       I am not certain if the sleeve collapses at setback or merely is crushed rearward thus exposing the cap at impact.
If someone knows for certain please let us know.
       Models having fuze bodies made of brass with brass anvils have been recovered.  I presume they have the same internal construction.
Best Regards,
John aka Bart

[emike123]

Thanks for posting the nice drawings John and keeping things rolling here while Carl and I were out late last week and over the weekend, bumming about in Alabama checking out some cool stuff.  I'll post a picture or two of some of what we saw as I can get to it (need to do some photo-editing to get file sizes down, etc.)

Just so folks know, today I approved 2 new members, but after doing some cyber sleuthing on 9 more, rejected them as established spammers or worse.  Thats about the typical ratio and one of the non-fun aspect of being a webmaster on these sites, mentioned here in case folks think we just launch the site and ignore it when things go a little quiet.  As Tom and Pete know from other similar endeavors, this needs fairly constant attention and as heretical as it may sound, occasionally we do take some time away from it all

[Dave the plumber]

      John,    my thoughts were the safety sleeve was simply removed and discarded prior to the shell being loaded in the barrel.
        I have a few percussion fuzes that were fired in 30 lb Parrotts and are split open. I'll dig them out in the next day or two and see if the safety sleeve is in them, and if so, what condition it is in.              David

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

Dave,
    Sounds good, post some images of your find.
Regards,
John

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

Question to All,
      Most books on projectiles and fuzes show two models of the Parrott Percussion, one has the base of the fuze body reduced in size having two prongs on the plunger patent no. #41,937.
     The second one has straight body sides like the one shown in this post having a sleeve safety, does anyone have the patent number for this one?
Regards,
John aka Bart

       

[Dave the plumber]

  I went through my Parrott percussion fuzes that were fired, and I could not tell if the safety sleeve was in them or not. They were either not 'split' open wide enough, or far enough from the base up to the top.   
   Sorry about that, it would have been interesting to see if it was a crush type safety or removed.  I bet Pete would know, he has probably examined more artillery from the field around his area where Parrott's were used.