Inert 30mm Rarden Canon Shell - Fox/Scimitar/Warrior

Inert 30mm Rarden Canon Shell as used on the Fox/Scimitar/Warrior AFV's. 

Manufactured by Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) Radway Green (RG) and dated 1983.

The 30mm RARDEN Gun was developed by the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock (which closed in 1988) and the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (now part of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency) at Fort Halstead during the mid-1960s, and the first prototype was produced in 1966.

The first preproduction version was produced in 1968 and the first service versions appeared during the early 1970s. The design philosophy of the gun was that it should have a restricted rate of fire so that it could be installed in relatively light armoured vehicle turrets but still fire accurately enough to deliver a sufficiently lethal projectile to destroy APCs and similar vehicles at ranges of over 1,000m.

Proven accuracy is such that 1 m groups at a range of 1,000 m are achieved on a regular basis.

The RARDEN L21 gun fires ammunition developed from the Hispano-Suiza 831-L round, former Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) and Royal Ordnance developed ammunition.

The gun operates on the ‘long recoil’ principle in which the barrel and breech mechanism initially recoil together providing low trunnion loads.

The empty cartridge case is extracted and a fresh round is loaded during the runout phase of firing.

The system on the RARDEN is fully enclosed, and the internal section of the gun intrudes only 430 mm into the turret space. Unlike the belt-fed systems on most vehicle weapons, Rarden is loaded manually with three-round clips.

This limits its capacity to fire in automatic mode to 6 rounds however the Rarden gun does not require an external power source and can therefore remain in action even if the vehicle is disabled.

The gun is charged by a small cocking/loading handle and spent cases are ejected forward from the gun. No firing fumes or cases can penetrate into the turret area.

Normally, the gun fires single shots only but six-round bursts are possible.

This ensures that the lightweight barrel has a low wear rate. 

           The photographs are of the actual item and form part of the description.

Please examine the photographs carefully and if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us.