BLK HOLE wrote:
> Concur with you, doesn't look like any of the projectiles from CW that I know but the guy to ask is "Cannon Ball Guy"!
R.S. Morris, pre-20th-Century artillery projectiles are my primary area of relic-study. In collecting them and doing research on them, I've also come across a lot of info about 20th-century ones. For those, a crucial ID-clue is the presence or absence of a fuze, and if present, its location on the projectile. Yours has no fuze on its nose, and it appears to have a Tracer nozzle in the center of its base, rather than having a base-fuze. Combing both of those two clues means your projectile is a Solid-Shot... not an explosive shell. In particular, Tracer-based Solid projectiles are used for training and practice... which fits with your projectile having been found in the US. In my opinion, it is from sometime in the first half of the 20th-Century.
Precise measuring will tell you whether it is a 100 or 105 or 110mm (etc.) caliber projectile.
Important:
Please note, I said "COMBINING" the two clues means it is not an explosive projectile. With post-civil-war artillery projectiles, the mere absence of a fuze in the projectile's nose does NOT automatically mean it isn't an explosive one. Many 20th Century shells had a fuze located in the center of their base.
In regard to yours... the small (3/8" or so) empty shallow hole in the center of its base is the clue which tells us it is a Tracer projectile.
