Mini Iron Cannonball??

[GaffleBab]

I found this on a beach located on Vancouver Island in BC, Canada. Have previously found smaller lead musket balls at this location as well as a variety of great finds as I have spent 60+ hours back and forth here and it is at the point that I dig anything repeatable if I want to find anything here and well I got this...

Looked online and found some information but hoping that someone on here who is very knowledgeable in this type of stuff might be able to give me a positive ID. Thank you for looking (:

 

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[EnvoyToTheMolePeople]

I'm no expert, but it could be grape shot.

 

[A2coins]

interesting cool find

 

[Hawks88]

Nice find. Congrats

 

[Icewing]

You'll need to get a set of micrometers and measure it to ever get any closer to an ID unless you know of some well documented history where a cannon may have been used at that location.

 

[ANTIQUARIAN]

If you could measure it or picture it next to a Quarter or a Dime for scale this would help.
I've found a number of these here in Ontario, it almost looks too small to be grape shot.

Dave

PS. Maybe the British attacked looking for Nanaimo Bars... just a thought.

 

[GaffleBab]

@Icewing Nothing specific to that exact area but the Spanish did visit the island way way back.

@ANTIQUARIAN I'm thinking grapeshot too, picture attached.

Thanks again for chiming in (:

 

[Joe-Dirt]

Yep, I’d definitely say canister shot, I have one just like it, great save!!!

 

[Wild Colonial Boy]

i received this great answer from cannon ball guy when I found one



There are multi-millions of small (less than 2 inches in diameter) iron/steel balls -- most of which were manufactured for industrial or machinery purposes (such as ball-bearings), not made as artillery ammunition.

Therefore, the only thing we can do to ID such a ball with even semi-certainty is, get a super-accurate measurement of the ball's diameter, and see whether its diameter matches up with anything in the size charts in the civil-war-and-earlier US Ordnance Manual Of 1861. Of course, all of the rust-&-dirt encrustation must be removed to get a truly accurate iron-only measurement. If the diameter measurement you get from the cleaned ball is a dead-on match (within 2 one-hundredths of an inch) for an artillery ball in the Ordnance Manual, then you'll know with certainty.

For example, the Ordnance Manual says a 6-Pounder caliber artillery Canister was specified to be between 1.14" and 1.17" in diameter.

All of the above having been said... because you reported that you found it near a "Colonial" cellar-hole, it could be a Colonial era Quilted Grapeshot ball. I say "could" because the diameters of the balls in the many sizes of Colonial era Quilted Grapeshot ammunition are not known. Unfortunately, there is no Colonial time-period equivalent for the Civil War Ordnance Manual. In other words, there's no way to prove or disprove your ball from being a Colonial Quilted Grapeshot ball.

So, all you can do is clean every bit of encrustation off your iron ball and check its precisely-measured (use a Digital Caliper) diameter with the 1861 Ordnance Manual artillery-ball size charts.
Cannon bore, shot, and shell diameters for smoothbore guns

The only other thing I can say at this point is, because Grapeshot and Canister artillery ammunition contained dozens of balls, when you find one of those balls, there's usually more than just one ball at the spot where you dug it. If you can't find even one other ball like that one at the dig-site, it is "unlikely" to be a Grapeshot or Canister ball

Last edited by TheCannonballGuy; Oct 21, 2018 at 10:18 AM.

 

[Wild Colonial Boy]

Cleaning

I would advise soaking in white vinegar for about five days, scrub with wire brush, smash any protruding encrustations with hammer, before the rust sets in
heat it up to have all moisture evaporate,

and give it a quick spray with Rust Inhibitor

here are before and after shots

 

[Wild Colonial Boy]

sorry i forgot reference links

http://www.civilwarartillery.com/shottables.htm

got this from Friend in UK

This might help for earlier Revolutionary grape shot sizes

see page 315 for 1717/1750 table, and p-499 for later

Two tables of specifications for land service grapeshot have been prepared, the first drawn up by Albert Borgard in 1717, the second, contained in an untitled bound manuscript notebook circa 1750 attributed to Samuel Glegg, an officer of the Royal Artillery. While not entirely in agreement, both tables are very similar and are clearly describing the same sort of grapeshot.

https://sha.org/assets/documents/Bri... English.pdf