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Musket ball?

gtoast99

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Joined
May 31, 2010
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2,884
Location
Dumfries, VA
Hey ya'll!

Had a downright miserable hunt last night for all but the last 10 minutes. Mosquitoes ate me alive, and I was getting nothing but pulltabs. The only redeeming qualities of the hunt came right at the very end when I pulled a neat John Deere pin and this round bit of lead. I'm hoping you all will tell me if it's a CW era musket ball? The area I found it in is certainly old enough for that to be the case.

The "front" is indented (not my doing), but also scratched by my digger on the way out :(. The "back" side of the indent has this odd pit, which I cleaned out with a toothpick.

I have 2 CW musket balls in a display someone bought for me which were labeled .69 caliber. One of them is visibly slightly larger than this, but the other is exactly the same size. The one of the correct size seems to have a similar "pit" like mine, too, although not as deep.

Thoughts and opinions? Thanks!!
 

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I measured what I got and the other two sold labeled as ".69 caliber" using a standard ruler. These measurements are the best I could do, and may not be entirely accurate (especially on my dug one which has some deformity to it). The bigger of the labeled ones in ~17mm or .67 in. The smaller one sold as ".69 caliber" and my dug one are more like 14mm or .55 in. If that helps ID it any.

Thanks!!
 
Congratulations on the find, you deffiently have a CW musket ball! I have found quite a few of those not far from my house... I have found ones in great shape, like yours and then some that were fired and hit a target (kind of creepy)... I have also found melted lead chunks that still have the shapes of the musket balls showing, which happened when the soldiers melted them down to make more bullets... The ones I have found do not have a pit, so im not sure about that part of the question... Hopefully someone else can answer that! You should go hunt that spot again, there should be some neat relics under the ground too! About those mosquitos though, search "Thermacell" on the Bass Pro or Cabelas website. I own one and it is worth its weight in gold!!! :), I use it hunting, fishing, detecting, and for everything outside. I hate smelling like OFF, and in my opinion it works better than OFF as well...
-Bryan
 
Thanks, yall! The pitted part may just end up being a mystery. So at 14-15mm, anybody know what gun it'd be used in? Now I may be getting too specific, but I'm happy to hear that you concur with my hope that it's a musket ball. :D
 
That pit is most likely result of a miscast. Whoever did the cast ran out of lead or emptied his ladle and didn't bother remelting this bullet. When molten metal cools it tends to for a pit, that is why you pour generous amount of metal and cut off the extra sprue later.

As for civil war...I know you US folks are very enthusiastic for CW items but remember that round musket balls were used long before the CW and are still used by hobbyists..I myself use .44, .45, .58, .75 and 48mm lead balls in my black powder weapons...

That said, for example the 1861 Springfield rifle musket has a calibre of .58. That's slightly under 15mm. Now it normally fired Minie balls but I guess in a pinch round balls were also used. And 1853 Enfield used a .577 ball so that's a definite possibility.

Voriax
 
You may have a "drawn" musket ball.

When a ball mis-fired or jammed, the ball was drawn (or pulled) out of the musket barrel using a screw type point on one end of the ram rod. This would leave a small hole in the musket ball.
 
Thanks for the great replies! Those both sound like reasonable explanations for the pit, thanks.

Voriax, I did know lead balls are still used some. The road it was found on was a major throughway in NC during the war (from Greensboro to Chapel Hill), and it's good to know that the size does fit with some CW era weapons. I just wish there was a way to tell for sure! Guess I'll keep looking around to hopefully find something else CW era, and go on that.

Thanks again!
 
Looks like a .54 caliber to me. I've found four of those on my property from the second seminole war
 
It isn't .69 caliber. A nickle is about.58 caliber. I think you may have found the buck of a Buck and Ball round. That's usually a .69 caliber ball with two smaller balls fired from the same cartridge.
 
the whitish color is what lead looks like when it's been in the ground for 150 years. i like it, cool. HH blev
 
It isn't .69 caliber. A nickle is about.58 caliber. I think you may have found the buck of a Buck and Ball round. That's usually a .69 caliber ball with two smaller balls fired from the same cartridge.

The "buck" in buck and ball was "buckshot" which was about 32 caliber, usually three buckshot with one .69 ball. They wouldn't be likely to use a couple or three .58s on top of a .69.
 
Guys! I've studied the Second Seminole War! Its either a .54 caliber or one piece of buck and ball (a .54 caliber on top of three buckshot sized balls)
 
hahaha. Not sure how this ended up back on top. Pretty sure this was one of my very first threads on the forum. Too funny. Let's all just let it rest in peace...
 
I have found several of those old musket balls around old house sites. I would say it is old buckshot, .54 caliber as mentioned.
 
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