Musket Ball ???

CoolAzDad

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It's a Dry Heat: Arizona
Although the potential for finding relics out in the west are good, I don't think that I have ever found a musket ball. Well, over the week-end I hunted a homestead from the 1880's, and I found this:

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It appears to be made of lead. I don't have a fancy scale that measures in grams, but my digital scale shows the weight as 0.2 Oz.

I am just not familiar with musket balls, so please feel free to jump in and help me out!

HH, Dave.........
 
Looks like one, a possible tell tale sign would be the sprue on it, the bit from the top of the mold, in later years, if they were taking there time the would carefully load the ball, with the sprue facing towards the end of the barrel, the musket ball would fly straighter and further.

It also might be slightly compressed due to the force of bring fired.

If you measure it across the diameter you should get a bore size

0.50 cal of the likes, done in inches

:)
 
Will it sure could be.

If that is 1.2 cm, it would be about 45 cal.
50 cal may have been more common.

But with the photo it is hard to tell.

It is probably a little larger. If so, it may be
50 cal. Need a good measurement and better
pics if possible.

Happy Huntin,
 
There are 437.5gr to an ounce. At .2 ounces this would make this an 87.5gr ball if lead. But, a .44 should be roughly 121 to 136gr. So if perfectly round, then I would have to guess it is not lead. If it has an oblong profile, then perhaps a .36 which had flattened but a bit of a stretch to find an oblong profile on a flattened .36.....
 
Better Pictures?

Will it sure could be.

If that is 1.2 cm, it would be about 45 cal.
50 cal may have been more common.

But with the photo it is hard to tell.

It is probably a little larger. If so, it may be
50 cal. Need a good measurement and better
pics if possible.

Happy Huntin,

Sorry for the delay, I have been trying to figure out how to get a better picture, and better measurement! Well, my wife gave me a digital microscope for my Bday (5/24), and these are the first pictures that I have made with it. I am still learning how to use it! It has a measurement tool, but the tool does not show up in the pics. As you can see, it is not perfectly round, and the measurement varies from 1.77 mm to 1.83 mm depending on where I measure. (Edit: this measurement must be an idiosyncrasy of the microscope, that just can't be right!) Like I said, I am still learning the unit.

picture.php


picture.php


Let me know what you think! Thanks, Dave.........
 
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