A talented British engineer with an interest in screw threads, Whitworth turned his attention to arms production in the early 1850s and devised both cannon and shoulder arms with hexagonal bores instead of rifling grooves and lands, yielding extraordinary range and accuracy. Intended for use in the 3-pounder Whitworth rifle, this attractive shell has a relatively smooth brown finish with shallow pitting and retains its original brass shipping plug in the fuze aperture on the flat top. The plug is not frozen in place and can be unscrewed. This is the Type-I configuration with the external rifling twist to accommodate the hexagonal bore of the cannon barrel extending all the way to the flat base.

No 3-pounder Whitworth tubes are known to survive in the U.S., but Dickey and George illustrate a possibly-CS cast Type-II 1.7 inch shell, appearing to be excavated, and a Virginia-excavated British Type-I bolt (solid shot) indicating that some were indeed imported, though it was unclear at the time of their publishing in 1993 whether the imported ammunition included bolts and shells of both types. See Dickey and George, p. 322ff and The English Connection 423ff.

This is a good, complete example of a very scarce shell.  [sr] [ph:m]

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