Original German WWI Karabingranate M1913 Rifle Grenade with Replica Rod – Inert Original Items

Original Item: Only One Available. This is a very nice Karabingranate M 1913, as used during the Great War. This grenade is completely inert as specified by the ATF, and cannot be converted to an explosive device.

German rifle grenades were propelled with a rod that was inserted into the rifle barrel.  These had to be fired with a blank cartridge or it would cause the rifle barrel to explode. This example is a very rare M1913 rifle grenade. It had a complex safety that holds the firing pin in the rear position with a small powder charge, when the safety pin is pulled from the base of the grenade and fired, the small charge is ignited by a percussion cap, this burns away the powder that holds the firing pin allowing it to move forward to strike the primer on impact. This grenade would have been filled with TNT and could also have been fitted with a disc to limit the distance it would travel, its maximum range was 350 meters.

As with most early “rod” type rifle grenades, the original rod was removed from this example long ago. A replica made from solid bar stock, aged to match, has been attached to the bottom of the grenade to complete the look.

Still in excellent condition and fully INERT this rare German WW1 Rifle Grenade is ready to display!

History of the German WW1 Karabingranate M1913

The rifle grenade M 1913 is the first of a series of grenades developed by German intended to be lauched using the simple Mauser infantry rifled armed with a blank ammunition, after inserting the long steel rod into the gun.

The 4 mm thick cast steel body with external prefragmentation grooves network, was filled with explosive and traversed by an axial tube that connected the ‘fuse’ head (in fact a simple plug) that held the detonator with the base plate. This one was holding the inertia block mechanism that was armed by the launching energy. This action ignited a small compressed powder rod whose combustion released the movements of a inertia block system that would project a starter against a percussion pin at the impact time. It was clearly a percussion system with pyrotechnical safety, comparable to the one present in many German percussion fuses used in the Kaiser Artillery at the same period.

The range could be adapted by the rifle angle, but when a close range was needed a 9 cm removable disk was screwed at the top of the body that served as a aerodynamic brake during the trajectory.