An iron hand grenade ca 1700

[M ELEY]

So, how does one differenciate between a 'grenade' and a mortar shell? Bother were made of iron, were spherical and had a plug of wood in the hole to keep the powder from running out. The differences betwen them starts with the sizes. Although there were some smller mortar rounds of 4" diameter, most were much larger specimens, many so heavy that they had cast 'hangles' near the powder hole for lifting with a pulley or lever. Mortar shells had to be nearly perfectly round, whereas grenades didn't need to be, as they were typically not fired out of a smooth bore coehorn or cannon. A lop-sided mortar shell could easily get stuck in the barrel and explode, thus they were very smooth. Finally, many examples of grenades would have either a concave indentation (called a dimple) or a slightly rounded bump that allowed the grenade to be set down and not roll away! On the deck of of ship, this was most important! The examples brought up from many shipwrecks have this interesting feature. Mine has a small bump to the base that keeps it sitting upright. As you can see from the pics that my example is very irregular and about the size of a softball or grapefruit. I carved a wood plug for mine based on the existing examples I've seen.