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Author Topic: Read Flame Grooves  (Read 3141 times)

CarlS

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Read Flame Grooves
« on: September 20, 2018, 11:32:23 PM »
RelicRunner asked me to help post this thread about a Read shell he recently purchased.  He was wondering what could be determined from the flame grooves and construction.  Where was it made and is this some particular style?
Best,
Carl

Woodenhead

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Re: Read Flame Grooves
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2018, 03:16:49 PM »
Carl, I probably know more about these Read shells with 3 flame grooves than you want to know.

1) All were made between Sept. and Nov. 1862 by the Richmond foundry of Snyder & Walker.

2) All iron bodies were cast from the same mold pattern as yours. All have that pronounced lathe 'key' on the ogive.

3) Adding the 3 flame grooves was a stupid mistake. As you can read below, the Richmond Arsenal ordered the three grooves in early August of 1862 for the last of the Tennessee sabots, then corrected the demand about one week later for all field projectiles of 3 inch caliber or less. (Big shells got the 3 grooves for the next few months which might help Jack Bell date some of those in his heavy book.) The orders clearly state that the 3 inch Reads (formally adopted later in August 1862) should have one groove in the sabot as is normally seen in dug examples.


4) Snyder and Walker's error can be forgiven because they were 'newbies.' Although Asa Snyder had produced a lot of canister during 1861, the new partnership began large-scale production of rifled field projectiles in August 1862. They were apparently somewhat 'out of the loop.' The CS Ordnance Bureau had given up on Tredegar as a primary source of field-size projectiles during the previous July. Snyder & Walker completed the earlier Tredegar contract to produce 4,000 of the "Baby Mullanes" 2.25 inch shells for the Mountain Rifle Guns - making the last 2,000 at the same time as they were casting these Reads with 3 grooves.

5) Your Read shell was among 200 or so made in Sept. 1862 with wooden fuze plugs. I can tell because its iron nose was not cut down to seat the flange of a copper fuze plug like those made by Snyder & Walker during Oct. and Nov. of 1862. Identical examples have been dug with the wooden plug that had not been salvaged. A majority of this pattern were equipped with some of the first copper plugs ever put into 3 inch Virginia Reads. It is obvious to me that your shell was salvaged at Chancellorsville or Fredericksburg and then it was threaded and fitted with the copper plug. Further proof is the machining done to thin out the interior of the thick cast brass sabot. This practice became common during the winter of 1863-64, and is not seen on any of the 20 or more Snyder & Walker shells I have photographed. It is well documented that those battlefields were carefully scoured for fired ammunition to reuse. Remember all those 3 inch Dyers. Look at the page from Lee's Thunderbolts I've included below for another salvaged wood-fuze Read with a later copper fuze plug added.

Summary: this is a very cool 3 inch Read from Virginia.

There is more to say about these 'beauties,' but I'll leave it for later.

Woodenhead

misipirelichtr

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Re: Read Flame Grooves
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2018, 05:20:10 PM »
Where can I get a copy of Lee’s Thunderbolts?

relicrunner

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Re: Read Flame Grooves
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2018, 06:03:36 PM »
thank you for all the info Wooden Head!! this is fascinating stuff for me. When will you be publishing a book on all your knowledge of CS projectiles? :-)

Woodenhead

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Re: Read Flame Grooves
« Reply #4 on: September 22, 2018, 07:58:16 AM »
Here are a few more examples. Remember, all were cast from the same mold pattern although they might appear different because some of the noses were cut down. The first page shown below with the long nose and wood fuze plug is what Carl's pictured shell looked like when it was fired the first time. The Snyder & Walker invoice shows the first 228 they made with wooden plugs. At $1.50 each, and the late delivery date, it is obvious someone else finished the fuze holes.
There's more!
Woodenhead

emike123

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Re: Read Flame Grooves
« Reply #5 on: September 22, 2018, 09:25:38 AM »
Here are a few more with 3 flame grooves.

emike123

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Re: Read Flame Grooves
« Reply #6 on: September 22, 2018, 09:34:03 AM »
I was surprised how many I had in my little collection that apparently were made in this short time window.

Left to right:

1) Sideloader with a strange fuse adapter configuration.  The entire flange head of the fuse adapter is countersunk into the iron.  Maybe this is a reworked one like woodenhead describes.
2 & 3) Wood adaptered ones.  1 has cuts through bottom bourrelet and one doesn't
4) This may be the same shell woodenhead posted in his first response.  I would need to check but I may have gotten it from Keith
5) I think this is one of the Houston Read types if I recall correctly.  Obviously this is not the kind with the fine saw cuts in the sabot, but rather the cast 3 slots.

Woodenhead

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Re: Read Flame Grooves
« Reply #7 on: September 22, 2018, 11:31:07 AM »
All of those you show were cast from the Snyder & Walker pattern. No Houston Arsenal's in your grouping above, although it is interesting that they also mistakenly put 3 grooves in their sabots. Only the first Reads made by S & W included cuts in the bottom bourrelets. Ironic that they soon figured out that those cut were unnecessary while keeping the 3 sabot grooves. Yes, some of the S & W Reads had countersunk fuze flanges. I've never found an explanation for this practice, but I suspect it had something to do with the introduction of the McEvoy igniters that sat on top of the shell. Snyder & Walker's 10 pounder Read-Parrott also was countersunk (see below). S & W's invoice below shows they made only 100 of these rarest of VA Read-Parrotts. I believe this was the only copper sabot 10 pdr. Parrott shell ever made in VA. Those found in VA came north from Georgia and Alabama. AS an interesting aside - Some of these Snyder & Walker projectiles might have ended up at Vicksburg or nearby sites. Just as many of these shells were being delivered to the Richmond Arsenal in November 1862, Richmond sent 2,000 3 inch Reads and 10 & 20 Read-Parrotts to Augusta for shipment to the Vicksburg theater.

W.H.