✅ SOLVED Could this be a fuse?

[CoilyGirl]

Or common plumbing part? It's not iron nor brass,could it be zinc ? "Blowout" appears to be with great force and the top (if it had one) is blown off. it is roughly 2 and a half inches long.

 

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[stevefox]

It looks like a nozzle to me.

 

[CoilyGirl]

Here's a little lightened up version of the first picture.

 

[CoilyGirl]

I tried to delete this but don't know how so I marked it solved. The more I look at it the more I think it isn't a fuse but the blow out on the side and at the top caused me pause.

 

[Helix]

I don't know what it is. Will say last winter it was so cold I had a shut off valve on my out side water spigot freeze and burst sort of like that. As we all know when water freezes it expands. Possibly if it is a plumbing part that's what happened.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Please don't throw it away. It is definitely a blown-out civil war Hotchkiss Percussion Type 2 artillery fuze. That version was first manufactured in early-1863 and was used in tens-of-thousands of shells until the end of the war.

For anybody here who doesn't already know... the term "Percussion" in this fuze's name means it is an impact-detonation fuze. It was designed by civil war artillery Ordnance inventor Benjamin B. Hotchkiss, of Sharon Connecticut, who got two US Patents for its design, in 1862 and 1863. Some (but not all) of these fuzes have his last-name and "patented" and the patent-dates marked on the fuze's flat top.

Speaking of which... here are some photos which show what a civil war Hotchkiss Percussion Type 2 fuze looks like in intact, undamaged condition. Its body its made of brass. It has a screw-in brass plug in its flat top. The fuze's small brass "safety-wire" is showing in the hole in its base, but your blown-open one is missing the wire, of course. The dug one in the photos was found at the 1864 Nashville battlefield, near where you live, Coily Girl.

 

[DigIron2]

Nice find CoilyGirl!You have been finding some really nice stuff!

 

[CoilyGirl]

Well I'll be a monkey's uncle! Actually my husband posted it on Facebook Cannonball Guy and a reputable source(John Walsh) told us that was what it was too and yes,it was going in the trash!Thank for your detailed explanation Pete. A friend of ours found an intact type 2 Hotchkiss fuse a few months ago and the little percussion safety wire was still intact.Here's what John Walsh said below.

That is a Hotchkiss Percussion Fuse that has blown out, looks like for a 3.8-Hotchkiss. . Very cool relic.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

A small correction to what my friend John Walsh said... the only size of Hotchkiss shells which were used in Tennessee in 1864 was the 3-inch caliber, so that's the size of shell your Nashville-area brass Hotchkiss Percussion fuze was in.

 

[CoilyGirl]

Thank you again. I enjoy knowing all the details of my finds so I can speak intelligently when asked about them. We sure did enjoy meeting you in Marietta.