In 1914, Nedeljko Cabrinovic, a member of the black hand,[2] used an M12 Vasic grenade at the car in which Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie were being driven through Sarajevo in 1914.

The bodies were cast from various materials, and were spherical, pear-shaped and cubic, with a chemical (sulfuric or nitric acid), percussion igniter or Bickford fuse.

Locksmith Petar Miljković Pepek cast the grenades, which were filled with explosives by Lazar Ilijev, a wounded Bulgarian who remained in Vranje.

[4] Vasić modernized the bomb by 1912: the body was lightened, the circular support for the capsule outlet was made in the form of a vault with three semicircular cuts, and the combustion time of the propellant mixture was shortened to about 5 seconds.

[4] Before the beginning of the Second Balkan War, General Stepa Stepanović ordered that bomb equipped squads (consisting of one non-commissioned officer and 16 soldiers each.)

In the absence of schneiderite, TNT was used for the basic charge (otherwise intended for 120 mm shells) alongside confiscated Austrian ammonal as well as French Cheddite.

[4] Albert Charles Wratislaw, described in his memoirs how in 1915 a British naval officer transported four bags of Serbian hand grenades from Belgrade to Athens with the aim of testing them at the Dardanelles.