Item Number: A01269

Item Title: Nice Delafield Projectile

Price: $245

Shipping: Not included

Provenance: US

Type: Delafield

Size: 20 Pounder (3.67 Caliber)

Sabot: Malleable Integral Pre-engraved

Fuse: Parrott Zinc Time Fuse

Book:

Location Recovered: Non-Battlefield

Description:Nearly a Parrott shell but not, this is a neat shell. It is ACW wartime. It uses the Parrott zinc time fuse and a pre-engraved malleable integral sabot on the base. The base has a deep cup to allow the cast flanges to fit into the 5 lands-n-grooves of the Delafield gun. The rifling grooves seem to match the 20-lber Parrott grooves in with and it may also work in a 20-lber Parrott gun but I'm not sure on that. The iron on this is typical as most of them are with light surface pitting. Most don't seem to have the fuse but this one has a very nice Parrot fuse in it. This shell helps round out any Civil War artillery colelction.

Jack Melton notes on CivilWarArtillery.com that:
This projectile, along with a corresponding rifled cannon, was developed by Lieutenant Colonel Richard Delafield. He was Superintendent of the United States Military Academy located at West Point, New York, from 1838 to 1845 and again from 1856 to 1861. Lieutenant Colonel Delafield referred to this projectile as the "Delafield Malleable Shell." The malleable cast iron base of this projectile has five cast raised flanges that correspond to the Delafield cannon's rifling. A schematic drawing prepared by Delafield of his cannon is dated September 11, 1861. Thirteen of the Delafield banded iron rifles were delivered to the Commissary General of the State of New York on March 18, 1862. This specimen is often confused with the Federal 20-pounder Read-Parrott projectile. There have been no known combat finds of the Delafield projectile, and battlefield use is considered unlikely. To the authors' knowledge the Delafield projectile pattern was not manufactured as a solid shot.

Shell is inert, cleaned and coated.