✅ SOLVED 54Cal 3Groove Possibly TN Rifle Family?

[Yak1366]

Hello All!!

I need some additional info and/or positive ID on this bullet. From what I have seen online, it looks like it belongs to the Tennessee Rifle family of bullets. I've found 69Cal & 57Cal versions with nearly an identical nose profile & groove pattern, but so far, not a 54Cal version. A while back I dug a 57Cal 2 groove Suhl which is often listed as a TN Rifle Bullet and the profiles are fairly similar.

Specs are:
Diameter, measured just above the 3rd groove, is min/max 0.531-0.533".
Height is min/max 1.011-1.016".
Weight is 429 grains.

A couple of interesting characteristics I notice about this bullet are:
1) It has, what I would term, a parabolic cavity 9/32" (0.281") deep. I used a very thin and straight piece of music wire to view this. The cavity wall curves outward, different than a typical conical cavity where the wall is a straight line from cavity point to base flange.
2) The middle ring is slightly larger than the other 2.
3) The 3rd groove is smaller than the other 2.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

And I couldn't help but take this last pic yesterday. I dug the bullet about 50' from this sign and it looks like someone took some target practice with a 22. Would love to have it hanging in my collection room, but with my luck, I'd be tasered by a park ranger before I could remove it.

 

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[TheCannonballGuy]

Your mystery-Minie is a US .54/.55-caliber Machine-Pressed-&-Turned bullet, made for use in .54 US Mississippi Rifles and imported .55 Austrian Rifles. See the T&T "Handbook Of Civil War Bullets & Cartridges" bullet #130, except yours is the paraboloid-cavity version.

 

[smokeythecat]

I think the cannonballguy has all this memorized.

 

[Joe-Dirt]

The bullet on the left looks like it has been through a sizing die at some point. I shoot a lot of sized Minnie’s and they sometimes come through the die with uneven grease grooves. I guess it could be from the swagging process? That would be a question for cannonballguy. Pretty cool though, nice find!!

 

[Yak1366]

I spend hours researching what he states.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Smokeythecat wrote:
> "I think the cannonballguy has all this memorized."

Thank you sincerely for the compliment, but... although I do have civil war bullet identifications memorized, from being a Dealer of them for 40+ years, I still have to go look up their bullet-number in the various civil war bullet-books.

I've got the identifications memorized because I put my Reputation on the line whenever I put an ID-label on a relic at my shop or at a relic-show. I dreaded the vision of a unhappy/angry/disappointed customer bringing a relic back to me saying it wasn't what I'd said it was. So I did lots-&-lots of research to keep that from ever happening. For example, buying all the civil war relic-ID reference books (and your French Colonial one, Smokey) and diligently reading through them... plus subscribing to the relic magazines, such as the North/South Trader's Civil War, and American Digger, for the newly written relic-ID articles that weren't in any book. I mention all that now to encourage readers here to do the same. And of course, to read the What-Is-It? forum every day.

In my opinion, if you're going to sell relics, it is your ethical responsibility to make certain you are putting the correct identification on the sales-tag along with the price.

 

[Yak1366]

Thank you again sir for the info!!!