Smle grenade cup- markings survey

[Roger Payne]

I don't know a lot about the discharger cups but some years ago, I managed to have a look at a fair few, both in the UK & in France, & most of them had S&B marked adapters, with a variety of different markings (& sometimes very little) on the actual cup itself. I wonder if S&B were a/the major contractors for this component.............or as you suggest, S&B is not a manufacturer's mark after all.

As an aside, do you know how late on RFI made the cups? Did they continue to make them after the end of WW2? Just curious.....

Information

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[lithgow1918]

I don't know a lot about the discharger cups but some years ago, I managed to have a look at a fair few, both in the UK & in France, & most of them had S&B marked adapters, with a variety of different markings (& sometimes very little) on the actual cup itself. I wonder if S&B were a/the major contractors for this component.............or as you suggest, S&B is not a manufacturer's mark after all.

As an aside, do you know how late on RFI made the cups? Did they continue to make them after the end of WW2? Just curious.....

No clue how long RFI made them, dates on cups seem to be rare. Only date I've ever seen on any (from pictures) is 1942. I've seen it twice on bases and once on a cup marked HL. I suspect RFI may have also done refurbs, you can see a faint "SA" over a number, along side RFI on the first pictures on this thread. If nothing else the RFI looks like it was applied after the "SA" based on wear alone. My guess is they stopped in the 1940s, because (I believe) England declared its obsolete in 1946/1947, and probably sent all it's remaining dischargers to India and Australia. That's all speculation though.

---------- Post added at 08:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:08 PM ----------

Also, does anyone have any ideas on how I should format the spreadsheet, I am currently doing
cup mfr,cup misc, cup date, base mfr, base misc, base date,
I put S&B as the mfr, and any other marks under misc but maybe I should switch them, open to any input as I've never really done this before.

[Alan de Enfield]

England declared its obsolete in 1946/1947, and probably sent all it's remaining dischargers to India and Australia

An extract from a post by Peter Laidler

'We' were still producing GF rifles ……………….


Thanks to former Armourer ‘Robbie’ Robertson who was able to shed light on this. Robbie also commented that ‘………….. we did about 250 of the rifles in 1967 or so but I don’t ever remember seeing any of the actual cups since Korea in the early 50’s. I don’t think we had any!’
[/I]

[lithgow1918]

An extract from a post by Peter Laidler

'We' were still producing GF rifles ……………….


Thanks to former Armourer ‘Robbie’ Robertson who was able to shed light on this. Robbie also commented that ‘………….. we did about 250 of the rifles in 1967 or so but I don’t ever remember seeing any of the actual cups since Korea in the early 50’s. I don’t think we had any!’
[/I]

Huh, maybe they retained some, or my source is wrong. I guess it's also possible they were making line throwing rifles, although I find that possiblity unlikely. It's also possible they were just drawn out of front line service in 1947. Looks like they must have kept some though.

[Alan de Enfield]

Huh, maybe they retained some, or my source is wrong. I guess it's also possible they were making line throwing rifles, although I find that possiblity unlikely. It's also possible they were just drawn out of front line service in 1947. Looks like they must have kept some though.

As Peter was the most senior Armourer in the UK, and was actually involved with GF rifles, I would suggest that he had a reasonable idea of what was happening.

One of his posts from December 2007

There’s been a bit of discussion, off forum, between a few forum-ers about grenade launching and the part it plays in the virtual destruction of rifles. Don’t forget that there are basically two sorts of ‘standardised’ grenade launchers. The spigot launchers for the Energa type grenades and the cup dischargers for the old hand grenades.
But first, CUP DISCHARGERS
There are a few myths about these things and at Warminster and Shrivenham, some of the old research papers exist from the Woolwich and Enfield trials. But first things first. I am going to mention this in everyday non-technical language for obvious reasons and it stands to reason that a technical interpretation might be flawed to a hopefully small extent but ….. The claws on the old cup discharger simply hold it in place and don’t take any of the recoiling load. This might be contrary to your beliefs, but it’s true. It simply holds the cup onto the nose cap.
To cater for a forthcoming problem that I’ll mention later, Armourers would instruct the bombardiers (the grenade launching specialists) how to fit the cup correctly and properly. Now, look into the cup discharger and you’ll see, buried deep into the bowels of the conical end, a large screwdriver slot astride a hole that mates up with the bore. This screwdriver slot is to unscrew the NOZZLE and if the drawings are correct, it’s a ½” BSP thread. These nozzles were a readily replacement part as they quickly wore out should you ever need to make another. The screwdriver slot was made so as to be compatible with the ‘BIT, screwdrivers, stock bolt’. And effectively prevented the normal squaddie interfering with it. Yours will inevitably be jammed solid with years of carbon fouling if you’re UN-lucky or just old grease if you’re lucky. So loosen it off and get it out. If you have to make a new one, make a few and sell them on, cheap, to fellow forum-ers
This is what the Armourers instructions to the bombardiers was. Screw the cup to the nose cap in the usual way. NOT with a xxxxing great strap wrench or huge pipe spanner …, please! THEN get the Armourer with his stockbolt screwdriver to screw the nozzle down until it is a tight fit ONTO the muzzle of the rifle. That way, it’s effectively pulling the cup away from the fore-end, almost acting as a lock nut and it’s a gas check too. It’s simple isn’t it, but not understood after having been lost in the mists of time!
This is because the recoil takes place on the rear of the cup. If the nozzle isn’t hard down onto the muzzle then the nose cap will recoil violently onto the fore-end, fore-end recoils violently down and into the rear of the body. In a short space of time the fore-end will be loose and, …. well, in short, knackered. HOWEVER, if the cup recoils against the BARREL, well, that’s what barrels do anyway!
But there’s more. Armourers notes, say that for grenade launching rifles, the butt MUST fit right up into and abut against the inside face of tapered butt socket ….. ‘while remaining a tight fit inside the socket……’. But not only that. There MUST be a gap of about 2mm (go on then, the width of a hacksaw blade) between the rear edge of the socket and the wood of the butt to the depth of the step. This is important for ALL rifles because this small measure prevents the butt socket slicing a sliver of wood away from the edge. You’ve got another patch to do if it does! There, does that explain why you have a grease filled slot between the front of the butt and the rear of the butt socket. It shows that a) its correctly fitted and b) the Armourer will have done his job. But you’d expect that from a REME Armourer anyway.

And how does he know this? An Engineering Graduate, Capt. Peter Laidler was the Senior Armourer in the British Army since serving his apprenticeship between January1963 and 66. More recently he was the senior technical Officer at the Small Arms School at Warminster. And oversaw the introduction of the current L59 series of DP rifle.