ccdog
Jr. Member
A friend found this in the woods not too far from my home. The ball is approximately 10" diameter and weighs over 100 lbs. There are 4 small holes drilled around the circumference of the ball. Appreciate your help identifying!
Cannonball??
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recondigger
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Was there ever military activity around where it was found?
Dig until your arm falls off
Dig until your arm falls off
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HutSiteDigger
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Waiting on CannonBallGuy : )
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huntsman53
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If it is a cannon ball, then it was either fired from a Columbiad 10 inch Cannon or a improvement of the Columbiad Cannon called the Rodman Cannon! Normally exploding cannon balls had one hole for the fuse in which to ignite the gun powder inside but your friend's cannon ball (if that is what it is and it appears so) has four holes. I would imagine that a cannon ball of that size may require four holes in which to load gun powder in different compartments but probably only used one fuse. WARNING: You, your friend and anyone else needs to be very careful with the cannon ball since it may still contain gun powder that could explode and one of that size would probably level one or more homes and kill a lot of people. Call an expert of Civil War Cannons to have it checked out but in the meantime, carefully place it somewhere safe away from people, especially children, homes and buildings and also pets.
Frank
Frank
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HutSiteDigger
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I think i know what you have.. however!!! We have a expert here "CannonBallGuy" who answers "What Is It" threads on here and he is been credited in Civil War artillery books and is a co-author of a book called "Field Artillery Projectiles of the American Civil War by Tom Dickey and Peter George" and from what Huntsman said about the "WARNING" this is something he needs make a judgement on. Things can go very seriously wrong!! if you don't know what you are doing!!! if you dig a live artillery shell! and for someone to tell you "it is not" then it actually ends up being would be pretty horrible.
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huntsman53
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While I am no expert and can't be sure that the item in question is or is not a cannon ball, the propensity to alert the O.P. that it could be one and one that is dangerous beyond imagining was overwhelming! Since CannonBallGuy is the expert, I normally would wait for him to answer the question but since he had not answered and the posting had been up for almost 7 hours, I felt it necessary to make the post that I made. I hope that no feelings are hurt but most of all, that no one is injured or worse by what could be a dangerous unexploded Civil War artifact!
Frank
Frank
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Your ball appears to be steel not cast iron ,cannonballs were not steel. Also if there is no fuse hole its not explosive, those small holes are not fuse holes.
Some cannon balls had 2 small lifting holes but not 4.
Im not an expert but would say its not a cannon ball. Its one of those unknown balls.
Here is a post of one.
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/what/317194-cannonballs.html
Some cannon balls had 2 small lifting holes but not 4.
Im not an expert but would say its not a cannon ball. Its one of those unknown balls.
Here is a post of one.
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/what/317194-cannonballs.html
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TheCannonballGuy
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First... EXCAVATED cannon BALLS are not dangerous to merely handle, or drop, or even to hammer on. Please note I said BALLS -- bullet-shaped artillery shells from the 20th-Century can still be dangerous to drop.
The evidence:
We relic-hunters have dug up ("excavated") more than 50,000 cannonBALLS -- and nearly every one of those got hit by the shovel during the digging process. Also, relic-diggers are notorious for cleaning the rust-encrustation off dug cannonballs by bashing them with a hammer. Extensive research of newspaper archives indicates that not even one cannonBALL explosion has been reported to have happened during digging-up... or even during hammer-bashing. But remember, I'm talking bout cannon BALLS.
The only two ways to make an EXCAVATED cannonBALL explode are:
1- drill into it
2- heat it to above 572-degrees Fahrenheit (which is the ignition-temperature of the blackpowder explosive charge in cannonballs).
If you avoid doing those two extremely "provocative" things, an EXCAVATED cannonBALL is safe to handle.
The reason the police tell the public that EVERY cannon projectile is deadly is that most people (including most policemen) cannot tell the difference between a dangerous 20th-Century artillery projectile and a comparatively harmless pre-1880 artillery projectile. For example, to un-educated eyes, a bullet-shaped civil war (1861-1865) Parrott's-Patent artillery shell and a World War 2 shell can look very similar.
Now, about the 100-pound ball posted by Ccdog:
I've personally examined these 4-tiny-holes balls several times. I am 100%-certain it is not a cannonball, for the following reasons.
1- No cannonballs had four tiny holes.
2- MOST importantly, none of these are the precisely-correct diameter to fit any known caliber of cannons.
3- These are made of steel, and there were no steel explosive cannonBALLS in Artillery history.
4- None of the 4-tiny-holes balls have ever been excavated from a battlefield. In fact, the majority of the few known specimens of them have been found at scrapyards in the late 20th-Century.
We Historical Artillery scholars have not discovered the identity of these 4-tiny-holes steel balls, but they are definitely not cannonballs.
Anybody here who wants to know my Professional Qualifications for making all of the above statements can check the "About me" section in my TreasureNet profile. And, yes, I wrote the encyclopedic reference-book on civil war artillery projectiles mentioned by HutSiteDigger in post #7 in this discussion-thread. Also, I co-authored the Solid Shot Essentials educational article here: SolidShotEssentialsMod
The evidence:
We relic-hunters have dug up ("excavated") more than 50,000 cannonBALLS -- and nearly every one of those got hit by the shovel during the digging process. Also, relic-diggers are notorious for cleaning the rust-encrustation off dug cannonballs by bashing them with a hammer. Extensive research of newspaper archives indicates that not even one cannonBALL explosion has been reported to have happened during digging-up... or even during hammer-bashing. But remember, I'm talking bout cannon BALLS.
The only two ways to make an EXCAVATED cannonBALL explode are:
1- drill into it
2- heat it to above 572-degrees Fahrenheit (which is the ignition-temperature of the blackpowder explosive charge in cannonballs).
If you avoid doing those two extremely "provocative" things, an EXCAVATED cannonBALL is safe to handle.
The reason the police tell the public that EVERY cannon projectile is deadly is that most people (including most policemen) cannot tell the difference between a dangerous 20th-Century artillery projectile and a comparatively harmless pre-1880 artillery projectile. For example, to un-educated eyes, a bullet-shaped civil war (1861-1865) Parrott's-Patent artillery shell and a World War 2 shell can look very similar.
Now, about the 100-pound ball posted by Ccdog:
I've personally examined these 4-tiny-holes balls several times. I am 100%-certain it is not a cannonball, for the following reasons.
1- No cannonballs had four tiny holes.
2- MOST importantly, none of these are the precisely-correct diameter to fit any known caliber of cannons.
3- These are made of steel, and there were no steel explosive cannonBALLS in Artillery history.
4- None of the 4-tiny-holes balls have ever been excavated from a battlefield. In fact, the majority of the few known specimens of them have been found at scrapyards in the late 20th-Century.
We Historical Artillery scholars have not discovered the identity of these 4-tiny-holes steel balls, but they are definitely not cannonballs.
Anybody here who wants to know my Professional Qualifications for making all of the above statements can check the "About me" section in my TreasureNet profile. And, yes, I wrote the encyclopedic reference-book on civil war artillery projectiles mentioned by HutSiteDigger in post #7 in this discussion-thread. Also, I co-authored the Solid Shot Essentials educational article here: SolidShotEssentialsMod
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huntsman53
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TheCannonballGuy,
I don't think that anyone here and especially myself were questioning your' Professional Qualifications concerning cannon balls and other Civil War Artillery projectiles and hope that you do not feel that this was the case! I am by no means an expert much less a fair novice on Civil War cannon balls but without any expert opinions on the item at the time, I made the best decision available to me at the time and that was for the O.P. and his friend to err on the safe side until an expert opinion could be obtained. With that said and if my calculations are correct, the ball in question could not be made of solid steel, right? In my calculations a solid 10 inch diameter steel ball should weigh approximately 148 pounds minus a few grams due to the drilled holes. Respectively, a cast iron ball of the same diameter, should weigh approximately 136 pounds minus a few grams due to the drilled holes. The O.P. stated that the ball weighs over 100 pounds but how much over 100 pounds does it weigh?
Frank
I don't think that anyone here and especially myself were questioning your' Professional Qualifications concerning cannon balls and other Civil War Artillery projectiles and hope that you do not feel that this was the case! I am by no means an expert much less a fair novice on Civil War cannon balls but without any expert opinions on the item at the time, I made the best decision available to me at the time and that was for the O.P. and his friend to err on the safe side until an expert opinion could be obtained. With that said and if my calculations are correct, the ball in question could not be made of solid steel, right? In my calculations a solid 10 inch diameter steel ball should weigh approximately 148 pounds minus a few grams due to the drilled holes. Respectively, a cast iron ball of the same diameter, should weigh approximately 136 pounds minus a few grams due to the drilled holes. The O.P. stated that the ball weighs over 100 pounds but how much over 100 pounds does it weigh?
Frank
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You can see that there are thousand and thousands of mill balls of many sizes Ball Mill Balls-Ball Mill Balls Manufacturers, Suppliers and Exporters on Alibaba.comCast & Forged
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TheCannonballGuy
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Huntsman53, please take my word that my inclusion of my Professional Qualifications in my reply was not directed at you... nor anybody else who has posted in this discussion. I included my credentials because I know from experience that there's always going to be some readers who will wonder why they should believe that the information I provide is factually correct. As we all know, anybody can say anything they want on the internet -- and often, what is said by an anonymous somebody on the internet turns out to be factually incorrect. So, I occasionally include my professional credentials to provide Credibility for what I say about artillery projectiles.
You are quite correct that a reasonable amount of caution is always advisable when a finder isn't sure whether an object is a "live" artillery projectile or not. I wrote my previous post to give readers reliable assurance that they don't need to call the Police about a cannonBALL. (And as I said, bullet-shaped artillery projectiles from the 20th-Century are a different matter, because some of that type can still be dangerous to drop.)
Now, answering your questions about this 4-tiny-holes ball:
I applaud you for "doing the math" which proves this ball is a hollow one, not solid all the way through. (As my Solid Shot Essentials article shows, that's a very important part of distinguishing Artillery balls from non-Artillery balls (such as ball-bearings, Sports Shot-Put balls, mining industry Mill-Balls, etc).
As evidence that I really have been studying these 4-tiny-holes steel balls for several decades, here's a photo showing one which cracked open when it fell off the back of a truck onto concrete pavement at a scrapyard.
Some people have theorized that these 4-tiny-holes steel balls are some kind of Incendiary cannonball. But, as I said in my prior post, the fact that NONE of them are the precisely-correct diameter for any caliber of cannon proves beyond doubt that they are not a Artillery ball.
For example, the US Ordnance Manual specifies that 10"-caliber cannonballs had to be precisely 9.87-inches in diameter, in order to correctly fit into the cannon's 10.0"-diameter bore. So, if a ball measures (let's say) 9.79-inches or 9.95 inches in diameter, it wouldn't correctly fit any known cannon, and therefore it is not a cannonball.
The precisely-measured diameter of the broken-open 4-tiny-holes ball in the photo below is 8.72-inches, which excludes it from being a cannonball.
You are quite correct that a reasonable amount of caution is always advisable when a finder isn't sure whether an object is a "live" artillery projectile or not. I wrote my previous post to give readers reliable assurance that they don't need to call the Police about a cannonBALL. (And as I said, bullet-shaped artillery projectiles from the 20th-Century are a different matter, because some of that type can still be dangerous to drop.)
Now, answering your questions about this 4-tiny-holes ball:
I applaud you for "doing the math" which proves this ball is a hollow one, not solid all the way through. (As my Solid Shot Essentials article shows, that's a very important part of distinguishing Artillery balls from non-Artillery balls (such as ball-bearings, Sports Shot-Put balls, mining industry Mill-Balls, etc).
As evidence that I really have been studying these 4-tiny-holes steel balls for several decades, here's a photo showing one which cracked open when it fell off the back of a truck onto concrete pavement at a scrapyard.
Some people have theorized that these 4-tiny-holes steel balls are some kind of Incendiary cannonball. But, as I said in my prior post, the fact that NONE of them are the precisely-correct diameter for any caliber of cannon proves beyond doubt that they are not a Artillery ball.
For example, the US Ordnance Manual specifies that 10"-caliber cannonballs had to be precisely 9.87-inches in diameter, in order to correctly fit into the cannon's 10.0"-diameter bore. So, if a ball measures (let's say) 9.79-inches or 9.95 inches in diameter, it wouldn't correctly fit any known cannon, and therefore it is not a cannonball.
The precisely-measured diameter of the broken-open 4-tiny-holes ball in the photo below is 8.72-inches, which excludes it from being a cannonball.
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