✅ SOLVED Moqui balls, Shaman Stones, Native Marbles or Musket balls or ???

[cdsieg]

East Texas Piney woods area, thought they were round balls, but now I am not sure. They are metallic, but not magnetic. They are heavy like lead. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

 

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[Tedyoh]

Buckshot would be my guess....00 maybe...

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[cdsieg]

Buckshot would be my guess....00 maybe...

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Thank you for taking the time to reply to my post. I do not know much about any of this stuff so I appreciate all the help I can get! Do you know how to tell the difference between buckshot and Shaman Stones, or Moqui balls or where I could find out the differences. I did google it, but came up empty handed. Thanks again!

 

[Tedyoh]

No sorry, I never had much interest in stones or balls.

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[cdsieg]

Thanks for letting me know.

 

[doublet2a]

Old split type fishing weights maybe?

Tim

 

[kcm]

Remember your Texas history guys. There were lots of black powder rifles used in the old days there as well. Isn't so uncommon to find old lead shot. ...However, fishing is also a wonderful pastime in the hot and humid Piney Woods, so.......

My guess, however, would be that these are bullets. Whether they were fired while hunting, during war or even shootin' at some old scallywag we will never know. But I would suspect that these are rifle balls and that the non-round ones struck a hard object when shot. Bone? Tree? Rock?? Your guess is probably better than mine.

 

[mcl]

Hey,

The "moqui balls" you are referring to would be found in Utah, from my understanding. Much of what I've read suggests they are coated in iron and somewhat magnetic as a result. You have stated that your finds are in fact not magnetic. You also stated that they are metallic and heavy, like lead. True native "marbles" were more likely to be made of non-metallic materials, as I understand it.

To me the striking characteristic of your finds is that they seem to have a more or less uniform diameter. It's hard to tell for certain in the picture just how wide they are, but they seem at least close to Tedyoh's suggestion of 00 buckshot, which is about 1/3 of an inch in diameter.

When you put it all together, you have heavy metallic spheres with similar properties to lead (non-magnetic, hefty, similar weathering characteristics e.g. white coloring and gouges) which have uniform diameters that happen to be pretty close to that of a common size of buckshot. Not saying they are buckshot, but from what I can tell they aren't moqui balls or native marbles.

-mcl

 

[cdsieg]

Remember your Texas history guys. There were lots of black powder rifles used in the old days there as well. Isn't so uncommon to find old lead shot. ...However, fishing is also a wonderful pastime in the hot and humid Piney Woods, so.......

My guess, however, would be that these are bullets. Whether they were fired while hunting, during war or even shootin' at some old scallywag we will never know. But I would suspect that these are rifle balls and that the non-round ones struck a hard object when shot. Bone? Tree? Rock?? Your guess is probably better than mine.

Thank You for taking the time to share your thoughts and helping me out.

 

[cdsieg]

Hey,

The "moqui balls" you are referring to would be found in Utah, from my understanding. Much of what I've read suggests they are coated in iron and somewhat magnetic as a result. You have stated that your finds are in fact not magnetic. You also stated that they are metallic and heavy, like lead. True native "marbles" were more likely to be made of non-metallic materials, as I understand it.

To me the striking characteristic of your finds is that they seem to have a more or less uniform diameter. It's hard to tell for certain in the picture just how wide they are, but they seem at least close to Tedyoh's suggestion of 00 buckshot, which is about 1/3 of an inch in diameter.

When you put it all together, you have heavy metallic spheres with similar properties to lead (non-magnetic, hefty, similar weathering characteristics e.g. white coloring and gouges) which have uniform diameters that happen to be pretty close to that of a common size of buckshot. Not saying they are buckshot, but from what I can tell they aren't moqui balls or native marbles.

-mcl

Wow, great explanation and answers with backbone! I love it! I like to learn as I do this and answers like this help me a lot! Thank You for taking the time to share your thoughts and helping me out.

 

[kcm]

Thank You for taking the time to share your thoughts and helping me out.

 

[Carolina Tom]

Sure do look like musket balls. Looks like there is a sprue on a couple of them. The "tail" piece where the lead is poured into the mold, usually trimmed off prior to loading.

Scratch one of them, if they scratch easily and show silver on the inside... you will have your answer.

 

[kcm]

I hesitate to mention this, but when writing my first post in this thread, I could not for the life of me remember the word "musket". ...And there it is in the thread title!

 

[BosnMate]

Sure do look like musket balls. Looks like there is a sprue on a couple of them. The "tail" piece where the lead is poured into the mold, usually trimmed off prior to loading.

Scratch one of them, if they scratch easily and show silver on the inside... you will have your answer.

Try and scratch the ball with your thumb nail. Pure lead will easily scratch and leave a silver streak. Your measurement leaves a lot to be desired, but they could possibly be a .36 caliber rifle or pistol bullet, or depending on measurements in 1/1000 of an inch they could be .44 or .45 caliber. .36 caliber pistol balls are about the same size as 00 buckshot, which are fired from a shotgun, 9 balls at a time. Did you find these relatively close together?

 

[cdsieg]

Try and scratch the ball with your thumb nail. Pure lead will easily scratch and leave a silver streak. Your measurement leaves a lot to be desired, but they could possibly be a .36 caliber rifle or pistol bullet, or depending on measurements in 1/1000 of an inch they could be .44 or .45 caliber. .36 caliber pistol balls are about the same size as 00 buckshot, which are fired from a shotgun, 9 balls at a time. Did you find these relatively close together?

Thank you for your reply, Sorry about the measurements, after the holidays I plan to get a digital caliper hopefully that will help! I found these in different spots on the ranch one about a half mile from the other and the other about a mile away. I cannot scratch it with my finger nail, no indent left and no signs of me trying to do that.