✅ SOLVED Bullet help please

[sorahc]

I found this bullet in Civil War camp a few years back and I cannot find a similar one in any of my reference books. The main part of the bullet is roughly the size of a Ringtail Sharps but the base is unlike any ringtail I've seen. I thought maybe it was some kind of Shaler variant but I don't think it is. And I can't see any seams between the extended pieces at the base so I think it might be one piece. Does anyone have any idea what it is? Is it a Sharps variant?

 

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[TheCannonballGuy]

That particular variation of Sharps "Ringtail" bullet is quite rare, but others have been dug from civil war sites. Opinions of civil war bullet scholars about them vary, but because the extra "stud" on the bottom of the ringtail serves no known purpose-- so most bullet-scholars think it is just an ordinary Sharps whose mold-casting sprue did not get cut off, as is typically done when the bullets come out of the bulletmold. Some weight is added to that theory by the apparent fact that fired ones don't seem to get found.

 

[sorahc]

Outstanding! I think you have solved my mystery. Thanks a million, CannonballGuy.

 

[sorahc]

And by the way, I'm fairly certain that this was not fired. It has been mangled and apparently chewed but does not appear to have been fired.