Original Item. Only One Available. This is a very interesting piece of artillery history, what we believe to be an experimental U.S. Recoilless Rifle round developed during the 1970s or 1980s. The round measures roughly 36¼” long. The round has an EOD tag as well. Like all deactivated ordnance, this round is Not Available for Export.

A recoilless rifle (rifled), recoilless launcher (smoothbore), or simply recoilless gun, sometimes abbreviated to "RR" or "RCL" (for ReCoilLess) is a type of lightweight artillery system or man-portable launcher that is designed to eject some form of countermass such as propellant gas from the rear of the weapon at the moment of firing, creating forward thrust that counteracts most of the weapon's recoil. This allows for the elimination of much of the heavy and bulky recoil-counteracting equipment of a conventional cannon as well as a thinner-walled barrel, and thus the launch of a relatively large projectile from a platform that would not be capable of handling the weight or recoil of a conventional gun of the same size. Technically, only devices that use spin-stabilized projectiles fired from a rifled barrel are recoilless rifles, while smoothbore variants (which can be fin-stabilized or unstabilized) are recoilless guns. This distinction is often lost, and both are often called recoilless rifles.

Though similar in appearance to a tube-based rocket launcher (since these also operate on a recoilless launch principle), the key difference is that recoilless weapons fire shells using a conventional smokeless propellant. While there are rocket-assisted rounds for recoilless weapons, they are still ejected from the barrel by the deflagration of a conventional propelling charge.

Because some projectile velocity is inevitably lost to the recoil compensation, recoilless rifles tend to have inferior range to traditional cannon, although with a far greater ease of transport, making them popular with paratroop, mountain warfare and special forces units, where portability is of particular concern, as well as with some light infantry and infantry fire support units. The greatly diminished recoil allows for devices that can be carried by individual infantrymen: heavier recoilless rifles are mounted on light tripods, wheeled light carriages, or small vehicles, and intended to be carried by crew of two to five. The largest versions retain enough bulk and recoil to be restricted to a towed mount or relatively heavy vehicle, but are still much lighter and more portable than cannon of the same scale. Such large systems have been replaced by guided anti-tank missiles in many armies.

The round has holes in the middle shaft, indicating the round’s designation as a recoilless rifle round. The bottom of the round has six fins, and there is a threaded hole at the very bottom. There are no markings save for an EOD tag reading:

INERT
0921
E O D S

EOD is Explosive Ordnance Disposal. This experimental round didn’t pass trials and was therefore “disposed of”, being made inert. This is a great display piece that requires more research! Comes ready for further research and display.