Object with 303 case stuck in it

[tripodmvr]

Can anybody identify this piece of metal found on a farm in the Fraserburg District of South Africa

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[browningautorifle]

The front band of a rifle...

[tripodmvr]

Thanks for reply. And the case stuck in it?

[browningautorifle]

I saw cases stuck in various things...you'd be surprised what the troops fill their time with. Perhaps the band was lying around and one just drove that in because it fit.

[RobD]

If it is the front band of a rifle, I am afraid it is not any Boer War rifle I can identify. Certainly it doesn't look like a Boer Mauser, Boer Krag, a Martini of any variant, and nor it it from the Lee Metford or Lee Enfield Rifle or cavalry carbine.
In fact, because the holes don't have a split / adjusting construction, it is difficult to see how the metal could grip onto a fore-end.
Personally, I don't think it is part of a rifle...

The case is a fired .303 case, unless you can read the marking on the case head it could be any date from 1888 - 1988... primer looks military in its size and crimp, for what it's worth.

[Peter Laidler]

I think BAR has the real answer. The case is there because it fits. And squaddies, being squaddies the same the whole world over, he found something with a hole in it and guess what he did...........

[browningautorifle]

I don't think it is part of a rifle...

Alrightie then...what IS it?

[RobD]

Blimey, I have no idea.. maybe a bit of an engine or a tool... The .303 case has nothing to do with the origin of the bit of rusty steel, in my humble opinion, somebody just stuck it in the hole in an idle moment, of which there are many to be had in the platteland...
But I can say what it isn't: having mis-spent my youth picking up useless rusty stuff off the veld, I can confidently say that, as well as not being part of a Boer War rifle, it is not part of a Boer or British artillery shell, nor a bayonet, nor an assegai, neither.
In fact I would hazard that it can safely be used as to hang from the flushing chain of a high-level cistern, without risking a loss of any historical significance.

[browningautorifle]

I can confidently say

I see...it's NOT eh? He didn't really ask that...you sound more like someone that likes an argument than anything else.

[RobD]

Well, the Fraserberg district may have featured peripherally in the Boer War - it's a remote area where Jan Smuts' and other republican commandos would have operated in the Cape. It might very reasonably be assumed, at first, that a bit of steel wrapped around a .303 case is something rifle-related from that conflict. But, on closer inspection, as far as I can see, this object isn't that at all. No, Jim, I am not after an argument, I don't like them, and I certainly didn't intend to raise your hackles... I just have a lifelong interest in battlefield pickups from the Boer War and Zulu War, and a large collection of such items which I am gradually returning to their places of origin, bit by bit. So though I cannot say what it is, I can say, with some confidence, what it isn't.