Lets see your Guns.

[Mike Hill]

Bit of an update on the Brownings from a renown sa expert I send the pictures to.

 

You are correct regarding the .303 Brownings firing from an open bolt and an unfired round should not be in the chamber. It is possible that the gun was damaged in some way during a dog fight and could not fire as the round was chambered. Who knows?

 

What is clear is that the gun is from a wing mount, either a Hurricane or Spitfire and the plain tube is actually part of the wing into which the gun was fitted. The wings had access panels and the guns were inserted from the rear into the aluminium tubes which were part of the front of the wing structure. When the plane crashed the guns complete with mounting tubes were ripped from the wing.

 

What a fascinating find! The cartridge is headstamped as a B IVZ which was an incendiary round specifically for aircraft use. colloquially known as "Buckingham'.

 

Cheers

Rod 

[Johnsond]

5 hours ago, Mike Hill said:

Bit of an update on the Brownings from a renown sa expert I send the pictures to.

 

You are correct regarding the .303 Brownings firing from an open bolt and an unfired round should not be in the chamber. It is possible that the gun was damaged in some way during a dog fight and could not fire as the round was chambered. Who knows?

 

What is clear is that the gun is from a wing mount, either a Hurricane or Spitfire and the plain tube is actually part of the wing into which the gun was fitted. The wings had access panels and the guns were inserted from the rear into the aluminium tubes which were part of the front of the wing structure. When the plane crashed the guns complete with mounting tubes were ripped from the wing.

 

What a fascinating find! The cartridge is headstamped as a B IVZ which was an incendiary round specifically for aircraft use. colloquially known as "Buckingham'.

 

Cheers

Rod 

Cheers Rod 

Some cracking info there bud, we had to put them back on the sea bed at a wet store location. The archeological rep has got more involved in the process now. Hopefully one of other mag targets is a nice chunk of Merlin engine. 
Much appreciated 

Dave 👍
Been looking online and looks like your source nailed it 👍barrel shrouds are clearly visible in the pic. 

Edited May 18 by Johnsond

[openspaceman]

@Johnsond did you find the story behind the double wasp engine you recovered off the south coast?

[roys]

6 hours ago, openspaceman said:

@Johnsond did you find the story behind the double wasp engine you recovered off the south coast?

Wasp as in a helicopter?

[openspaceman]

35 minutes ago, roys said:

Wasp as in a helicopter?

no, the radial engine used in flying fortresses, and a number of american fighters, after 1943 it became more significant for the war effort than the iconic merlin

 

[Johnsond]

On 19/05/2024 at 15:11, roys said:

Wasp as in a helicopter?

No sadly we never heard anything more. Interesting finds tend to go to museums or archeological societies. We move onto the next project and very rarely any updates 🤷‍♂️

Regarding the brownings it would be great to get a serial number and identify the aircraft. 
Some of the guys are on the nearshore intertidal clearance at the moment. Nothing interesting so far but defo a novel way to get over the mudflats 👍

Edited May 22 by Johnsond

[GarethM]

Does anyone have any real world experience of the cheap thermal monoculars on small targets?.

 

I do a lot of squirrel control, obviously this time of year makes it harder to see upto about 80 yards

[peds]

14 minutes ago, GarethM said:

Does anyone have any real world experience of the cheap thermal monoculars on small targets?.

 

I do a lot of squirrel control, obviously this time of year makes it harder to see upto about 80 yards

We have one on the mountain rescue team. Amazing bit of kit. Monocular, not scope, obviously. 

 

Don't know how cheap it is relatively, but it was about 1400 euro. Don't know how good it would be on squirrel sized targets at any great range, but it can spot sheep and people through fog and light foliage fairly well.

 

Edit to add some numbers: people/sheep sized targets through swirling cloud at 800m easily, I'd never played with this sort of kit before and I was blown away by it. There was the same kind of device with a laser range finder for another 400e, and HD lens for another grand, so I guess ours is relatively cheap. If you find one cheaper, I'd love to hear about it because we'd like one for our other van too. 

Edited May 26 by peds

[GarethM]

Had been looking at the £300 ones, more for seeing where the little buggers are hiding in the tops of canopy.

 

Granted I'll probably just wait until it warms up and a calm evening, then just follow the noise of the falling nuts and seeds.

[peds]

At that price point, do you know what kind of distance or definition you would be looking at? Have you compared a 300 quid device to a 1300 one? 

Like I say, we'd like another one, but if multiple cheaper units would work better for us than a single pricey one, I'd lean that way. 

 

It's got things like WiFi connectivity and camera too, which is useful, but not essential. 

 

I'll go squirrel spotting the next time we are playing with our device 👍