Dropped bullets

[Harry_Morant]

I see a lot of posts and videos when people find a bullet which is not deformed in any way and people have a tendency to call it a "dropped" bullet. I was recently watching a British show called 'Two men in a Trench" where these two Brits do battlefield archaeology and they were test firing some muskets through a scottish wooden shield, some pork ribs and then into sandbags to see how far a musket round would penetrate. What amazed me (and them by the way) was that not only did the musket round penetrate the wood shield, ribs and deep into the sandbags that when they recovered it that it wasn't deformed.

They said that normally if they had found this round in this condition on a dig they would have previously assumed that it had been dropped. They are now rethinking the whole dropped round thing. There's a good chance that many of the 'drop' have actually been fired but not deformed on impact.

Thought?

 

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[civilman1]

That's pretty interesting Harry....I guess we'll really never know now.Thank's and HH!!

 

[stoney56]

I'd say that may just be true, especially if the weapon had no rifling. What's to say that it was fired, reached maximum distance and then it fell to the ground. There might be a slight deformation to the skirt unless it's a solid base.

 

[Virginia_Relic]

Don't know much about England, but here in the States...................

there is a vast difference in the alloy of bullets cast nowadays, as opposed to ones cast during the Civil War. The CW era bullets were extremely soft and deformed rather easily. They must have been firing very hard bullets , if they did not deform after penetrating all you described ! Just my 2cents.

 

[DCMatt]

I'm not an expert, but I believe MOST of the rifles used during the Civil War had rifled barrels and MOST of the bullets used were the hollow-based Minie type. These bullets were designed to expand at the base when fired. The expansion forced the bullet to fit into the barrel rifling thereby greatly increasing the range and accuracy of the projectile. So, almost by definition, a fired minie bullet is deformed. "Drops" don't show evidence of the expansion or rifling.

Why would bullets be dropped? Try loading a muzzle loading rifle while someone is shooting at you. I guarantee you'll drop a few. I've also read about soldiers filling their pockets extra rounds before a battle, then emptying the unused rounds onto to the ground when the fighting was over. I'm sure there are other reasons.

Are there "pristine" fired bullets? Probably, but if you find one you'll probably think it's a drop.

Just my opinion and (somewhat limited) experience finding Civil War bullets.

DCMatt

 

[civilman1]

Amen Matt....another reason they were dropped is because of moisture in the powder,why take a chance.The rifling is really a dead give away.if it was pulled it would show the tell tale sign also.Too many factor's...

 

[Harry_Morant]

Some interesting comments - thanks guys. I used to shoot black powder rifles myself but mainly round ball and not the military bullets which you guys find at civil war sites. No question about a lot of rounds being dropped on a battlefield or camp - just thought I'd share and see what the thoughts were. Good hunting guys

HM

 

[Shortstack]

Recently, while researching the ORs, I found a short report written by a Union officer that included comments about the bad ammunition his troops were suffering with. He mentioned artillery rounds that were unsafe to fire over the heads of his own troops because so many exploded prematurely and injured many of them--one he called by name, lost both arms. Also, he claimed their rifle ammo was unreliable and did not produce the distance needed in battles. He specifically stated that the Rebel ammo was excellent quality; made with English power and was extremely reliable. He wrote that he felt the manufactureres and suppliers of THEIR ammunition should arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

I mention this as a possibly good reason for finding a lot of "dropped" bullets. Maybe alot of Yankee troops emptied their ammo boxes in favor of captured Rebel supplies. YEEEEE-HAWWWWWW.
I'll try to find that report, again, and post a copy on this thread.

 

[DaChief]

I have been in law enforcement for over 35 years and a criminal investigator for many of those years. I can tell you that comments about riflings leaving their mark on projectiles is correct but one thing many people do not realize is that a smooth bore weapon also leaves its own marks or "striations" on every round that passes through it. They are not as pronounced as the marks left by a rifled bore weapon but they are there and a good CSI lab can match a solid projectile fired through a smooth bore weapon to the weapon from which it was fired. The reason for this is that even smooth bore weapons have tiny almost microscopic imperfection in the bore. These imperfections leave marks on rounds fired through the bore. These marks are peculiar to the particular weapon and can be identified just like a rifled bore weapon leaves its marks. In fact, many of the striations identified on projectiles from rifled bore weapons are simply the same type mark. They are not just the marks made by the rifling but also the imperfections within the barrel that make identification of a particular weapon to a projectile possible.

I you use a magnifying glass to look at any "dropped round", you can easily see if it was fired or not. A round fired through a smooth bore weapon will still have very identifiable striations or fine lines running down the sides. A round ball would be no exception. It would also pick up these striations as it traveled out the bore. Thus we are able to identify a shotgun slug that was fired through the barrel of a particular shotgun if we can recover the slug reasonably intact and recover the shotgun from which it was fired before the barrel is destroyed.

We use those same types of marks to identify a tool that forced a door or window open. I even matched an ax blade to a murder once by matching the striations that the ax blade left on the bone that it cut through. The ax blade in that case would be similar to the bore of the weapon and the bone that it cut through would be like the projectile. Pretty cool stuff but really simple if you learn about it.

Here is a pic of something similar that you would see through strong magnification on a slug that passed through a smooth bore weapon. Keep in mind you may not be able to see these with a naked eye. This would require strong magnification such as a jewelers loop or maybe even a microscope. The line in the middle of the picture is where two images where compared next to one another to see if the striations are identical or have enough points of identity to conclude that the marks were made by the same object. The image on the left side of the line is of the marks left at the crime scene and the image on the right side of the line is the image of the test scrape made at the crime lab.

Take care and hope this helps answer some questions.

Jim

 

[duggap]

I agree with what the Dachief says. I read of some experiments, I believe by Remington, where they were trying to see if they could tell from a fired bullet what it may have struck. Particularly if it hit a soldier. Because the lead is pure and soft, their conclusions were that it would be impossible to tell.

 

[cwdigger]

Thats kinda of hard to believe but I agree with others we will never know