Lead cannonball???

[button king]

Really not sure what this is! It's over 5 pounds in weight any help on any idea what this is would be great thanks !!Not sure what this is either is it a type of projectile ??

 

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[Red James Cash]

No lead cannon balls.Prone to being disfigured transporting them,cant have that as they would jam in the barrel and you definitely dont want that.

 

[button king]

Then what was it used for ??

 

[Red James Cash]

Then what was it used for ??

Sorry,On that I have no idea

 

[button king]

Ok thanks for the help

 

[HuntinDog]

Did you weigh it?
Your last picture has the shape of a well beaten 5lb lead ingot.

 

[button king]

Well I've been reading and I found out the British used lead cannonballs anyone have any info on that ??

 

[Silver Searcher]

Well I've been reading and I found out the British used lead cannonballs anyone have any info on that ??

Yes, they were called round shot, and were made from stone, iron and lead.

Round shot has the disadvantages of not being tightly fitted into the bore (to do so would cause jamming). This causes the shot to "rattle" down the gun barrel and leave the barrel at an angle unless wadding or a discarding sabot is used. This is known as 'windage

SS

 

[Smithbrown]

Lead round shot is really rare, even in Britain. There are two main uses- one for the smallest cannon calibres- the one-pounder or robinet where they are really just up from the largest musket- approximately an inch diameter. The other is dice or diced shot- a cube of iron surrounded by lead sheet or cast in lead. These have been found on the battlefield of Bosworth, on the Mary Rose and (I think) on Spanish wrecks of the same period. If you scroll down to the section on lead here you will see some x-rayed pieces. http://qa.maryrose.writemedia.co.uk/experiments/chemistry/metals-from-the-mary-rose.aspx

However your piece doesn't really look like them; more likely a battered ingot or weight as has been suggested.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Super-accurate measurement of a ball's diameter, in hundredths-of-an-inch, is crucial for determining whether it is an artillery ball or not. Cannonballs absolutely MUST be exactly the correct size to properly fit inside the gunbarrel.
1- If the ball is even slightly too large, it won't fit into the cannon's muzzle.
2- If the ball is even slightly too small, a lot of the cannon's firing-blast escapes around the ball, causing it to not travel as far as it should... which means it will fall short of the target it is aimed at, and therefore the shot is wasted.

Therefore, EVERY actual cannonball was very carefully manufactured -- and then checked by an Artillery Ordnance Inspector -- to be exactly the right size. Balls which were rejected by the Inspector got tossed back into the melting-pot.

Button King, like others here I am not sure whether your find ever was ball-shaped. But there's a way to pursue the issue, if you want to do the effort. Because your lead object is badly battered, you'll need to weigh it on a super-precise Postal Shipping scale, and then do the math to calculate the diameter of a lead perfect sphere which weighs exactly the same as your lead object. When you've calculated that diameter, check to see if there were ever any cannons which used that size of ball at the spot where you dug it.

 

[button king]

Well there was a lot of British activity in the area I'm hunting so I will have too look up sizes of British cannons sizes I guess. Thanks for your reply cannonball guy! Also I will get the correct weight of it !

 

[calisdad]

Downrigger weights are made from lead.