Officers recommended it be burst 50 yards (46 m) short of the target, and 10-15 feet (3-4½ m) above it for best effect. Shrapnel was once considered the best mankiller the field artillery possessed, and from the 1880s until 1915 was the sole projectile carried besides case. In 1915 it was largely supplanted by HE which was cheaper and easier to employ. Shrapnel became obsolete in the British service in 1935 - although it was still being used in New Zealand in the 1940s.

Gunners soon realised that shrapnel fired with fuze set to zero acted as effectively as case so the latter ceased to be carried by field artillery.