✅ SOLVED Musket ball? If so, asking for caliber/gun

[cti4sw]

Scott (scotk9) found this today at our usual spot. He thought it was a poorly handmade, fired musket ball. It's very pitted and deteriorated.

The average diameter measurement I got was 0.49" - 0.50". Due to the pitting I wouldn't be surprised if it was originally larger than that.

Here's a close-up shot of it:



Looking for confirmation, and with it, caliber/gun/era.

Here are the pics after cleaning, as requested:

 

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[BosnMate]

I have a theory, arrived at because I also found a ball like yours that's a battlefield artifact, pre Civil War, whites against Native Americans. My theory is it's not a fired ball, but one that has been sized by pounding it with a rock, on a rock, to size it to the bore of his musket. Can't prove it, and will search for a picture of mine so we can compare.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Impact damage can change a bullet/ball's shape so that its diameter cannot be accurately measured, but impact damage doesn't change its weight. Please weigh the ball on a Jeweler's Scale which measures weight in grains, and report the result, because the super-accurate weight can be used to calculate a solid (not hollow) ball's diameter. That will enable me to have a decent chance of correctly answering your question about caliber/gun/era.

 

[cti4sw]

I don't have a jeweler's scale, nor access to one. Is there a way to convert from grams to grains?

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Fortunately, there are now free converters on the internet. For converting grams to grains, go here:
Grams to Grains conversion

For example, one gram equals 15.432 grains. Hopefully, when you weigh that lead ball, the grams weighing-scale you use tells tenths-of-a-gram.

 

[cti4sw]

According to Google's grams-to-grains calculator, 1g = 15.4323584 grains. The lead ball weighs 11.42g, which translates to 176.237532928 grains. Hope this is the right conversion value.

 

[BosnMate]

Continuing my my theory, here is a picture showing the bullet I found along side a dropped .44 caliber pistol ball from the same fight.
Holding it in your hand is a much better indication than what the photo shows. My bullet was pounded oblong, from a larger ball to make it small enough to fit in the bore. Caution on saying mine is fired, I've recovered plenty of fired round balls, and they don't end up looking like this one, which has been pecked on all sides. Because your find is still round, my thinking is it's a fired ball that has been worked round again, until it would fit in the bore. Recovered round balls have been flattened on one side, not covered all over by peck marks.
Here are two fired round balls, both front and back side, note about half the bullet is still rounded and half is flattened. One has been shot into wood, the other into soil.
On the left, removed from the body of a deer, on the right, what it looked like before fired. Even though the fired ball doesn't retain much roundness, it's still not covered with peck marks.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Thank you for the ball's weight in grains (176). Combining data in the M&M bullet-book and the T&T "Handbook Of Civil War Bullets & Cartridges":
.464" lead ball weighs 139 - 145 grains
.520 lead ball weighs 210 grains
So, my best guess is that your 176-grains lead ball was for a .50-caliber musket or rifle, such as the Hawken. The manufacturing era of those firearms was mid-1700s through early-1800s.

However, your ball's surface shows numerous small pits and bumps. That could be due to acidic corrosion in the ground, or it could be "animal-chewed." Please scrub all of the dirt off it and provide a photo of it after cleaning.

You did not say whether the dig-site is a civil war era site or pre-civil-war. If it is pre-war, the ball is more likely to be a .50 musket/rifle ball. If from a civil war site, it's more likely to be a heavily-corroded .54 rifle ball or Case-Shot ball.

 

[cti4sw]

Thank you for the ball's weight in grains (176). Combining data in the M&M bullet-book and the T&T "Handbook Of Civil War Bullets & Cartridges":
.464" lead ball weighs 139 - 145 grains
.520 lead ball weighs 210 grains
So, my best guess is that your 176-grains lead ball was for a .50-caliber musket or rifle, such as the Hawken. The manufacturing era of those firearms was mid-1700s through early-1800s.

Which fits one of the timeframes for the site.

However, your ball's surface shows numerous small pits and bumps. That could be due to acidic corrosion in the ground, or it could be "animal-chewed." Please scrub all of the dirt off it and provide a photo of it after cleaning.

I shall do that tomorrow morning.

You did not say whether the dig-site is a civil war era site or pre-civil-war. If it is pre-war, the ball is more likely to be a .50 musket/rifle ball. If from a civil war site, it's more likely to be a heavily-corroded .54 rifle ball or Case-Shot ball.

I wanted an unbiased opinion with info from both wars. The site dates back to 1740, possibly shortly before that date. No known battles or skirmishes were fought in the immediate area, although we are a comparably short distance from the Battle of Germantown and other Revolutionary War artifacts have been found locally. Even though the site's earliest use possibly predates 1740, it has been continuously used through the present.

 

[cti4sw]

Thanks, BosnMate, mine does look kinda like yours. Like it was a recovered fired ball that someone tried to reuse. Never would have thought of that

 

[cti4sw]

Updated OP with post-cleaning pics.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Thank you for the update photos of the lead ball, now cleaned of the dirt. They show indentations made by jaw-teeth, rather than corrosion-pitting. A wild hog or deer mistook the ball for an acorn, chomping on it quite a few times before realizing it was not a crushable nut. A human would not have chewed the ball in so many directions.

About the myth of wounded soldiers having to "bite the bullet":
Human teeth are not strong enough to withstand the force needed to make more than very slight dents in a bullet. If you use too much force you'll break your teeth. If you disbelieve it, ask your dentist. Even civil war era surgeons knew it. When necessary, a soldier would be given a strip of thick of leather or a twisted cloth rag or a GREEN wood stick to bite on -- never anything made of metal.

Another very important reason a bullet would not be used is that a surgery-patient in agony might swallow a small object like a bullet. Even back in the civil war era, doctors knew that lead is highly toxic when swallowed. (You can imagine what happens when it sits in the stomach's Hydrochloric Acid.)

 

[cti4sw]

Thanks, TCG. So you're conclusion is that it's a chewed .50 caliber musket ball?

I've Googled "50 cal muskets of the Revolutionary War" and found that one called the "Pennsylvania Rifle" shot .50 cal musket balls and was popular with the Pennsylvania Dutch (whose area I live in), who based in on a "Jaeger Rifle", so there's that possibility in addition to the Civil War-era Hawken Brothers' Plains Rifle.

Thanks! It's Scott's first musket ball, and the first musket ball (but not the first bullet) from our site.

 

[BosnMate]

I have to agree with CBG, now that it's cleaned it doesn't look to have been sized by a rock, looks much more like tooth marks. The pits are too deep, and there has even been lead pushed up -- Photo #3, the last photo really has a tit pushed up. I still think mine was sized with a rock though. Might take better photos and start another thread. I never thought of the hog chewing, but there were never any hogs where my bullet was found, more likely deer, antelope, cattle, wild horses, and rattle snakes, none of which I think would chew a lead bullet. The reason I even thought of rock sizing is because at a muzzleloader shoot I once attended, the host club decided to even things up and made people change the balls they were using with each other. I was shooting a .62 caliber flintlock, and had to use a ton of patches to seat a .50 caliber ball. Imagine the guy shooting the .50 sizing the .62 in order to fit in the bore of his gun. Made a rather elongated and pecked bullet. As I recollect neither of us did well on that target, but I've always remember that.