Strange musket balls.

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	Strange musket balls. « on: July 02, 2010, 06:22:04 am »

Can anyone put a name and date to these strange looking musket balls??
They are after 1812 and were very problematic for loading judging by the "ram rod" marks on them, found a site with many of these around........HH....Johnnn

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	Re: Strange musket balls. « Reply #1 on: July 02, 2010, 08:42:08 am »

Interesting, Johnnn! I saw something like these in a maritime
museum. They'd been used as scattershot in a cannon, much
like they used chain shot to shred sails/rigging. They packed them
in a cloth bag, which might account for the imprint in at least
one of those images.

Not sure if the context of your find supports this, and I'm certainly
no expert, but they do look a lot like the shot on display in the
museum.

Cheers-

Chris

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	Re: Strange musket balls. « Reply #2 on: July 02, 2010, 10:00:11 am »

Chris, they'd make a formidable anti-personnel weapon against mass troops if they were fired from a cannon......I could definitely see the application on a battlefield.

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	Re: Strange musket balls. « Reply #3 on: July 02, 2010, 06:52:50 pm »

Chris. Don't they seem too small for grapeshot?
BA. Maybe canister shot......

John. This should be an interesting one!

jim

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christo829

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	Re: Strange musket balls. « Reply #4 on: July 02, 2010, 07:09:31 pm »

@Mudflap - Good point. I can't get a decent idea of size. What I
remember of the projectiles in the maritime museum, they
weren't all that large, and were oddly shaped, much like these.

@BitburgAggie - I could see these as canister. Some of the samples they had
up at West Point also had a fabric wrap of sorts, which could
still account for the imprint on some of those balls.

Most of the musket balls I'm familiar with are typical Brown Bess,
around .50 cal, and they're definitely more round, without the prominent
ridge/bulge these seem to have.

I wonder if the odd marks are leftover from the casting process? I've
seen larger lead molds that leave large flash ends from the opening.
I wonder if those sort of star shaped marks are cut off spots...though
why they'd have to do that for grape or canister, I don't know. Maybe
chain shot that was getting recycled, so the chain was removed?
Yep...just guessing...

There's plenty of head scratching going on here...and it's not from fleas... Wink

Then again, I love trying to figure stuff like this out. It takes me forever to
get through a Flea Market because of things like this...

Cheers-

Chris

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	Re: Strange musket balls. « Reply #5 on: July 03, 2010, 11:23:54 am »

I'm thinking Grape Shot!

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	Re: Strange musket balls. « Reply #6 on: July 03, 2010, 12:01:13 pm »

Maybe they were used like personalized poker chips when the soldiers played cards? Or did the Army surgeons use odd shaped musket balls to give the soldier to bite when sawing off a limb? Or did the soldiers play a game like marbles and used some of these in the game?

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johnnn Topic starter

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	Re: Strange musket balls. « Reply #7 on: July 03, 2010, 02:51:03 pm »

Hi all,
I have both canninster and grape shot they are made of iron,these are all single finds and do show signs of "ramming" this weapon must have been unpopular as I do not find many of this type and none in battle areas maybe an experimental type of gun, there must be on record a musket with a barrel with the same shape as the bullet.........HH........Johnnn

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	Re: Strange musket balls. « Reply #8 on: July 05, 2010, 09:09:08 pm »

John,

I've found several of these at an early war CW site - belted musket balls. I think the belt was used to get a better seal in a smoothbore musket and thus better accuracy. It's possible they fit in a rifled groove in the musket but I doubt it. I may be wrong but think I'm pretty close.

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	Re: Strange musket balls. « Reply #9 on: July 07, 2010, 08:44:04 am »

	Quote:	Posted by mosby53
John, I've found several of these at an early war CW site - belted musket balls. I think the belt was used to get a better seal in a smoothbore musket and thus better accuracy. It's possible they fit in a rifled groove in the musket but I doubt it. I may be wrong but think I'm pretty close.

This is correct. I have found quite a few of these shot myself and a gun expert told me the make of gun years ago, but unfortunately I forgot. The barrel had a groove that guided these shot better.
Hold on to them as I have only found them at 2 or 3 sites and consider them scarce.
Nice finds!
Cheers,
Dave.

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