old round iron

[xtrmdigger]

While digging bullets in my yard (all mine! guilty as charged) I got a loud iron signal where there isn't supposed to be anything in that part of my yard. It was found less than four inches deep on the side of a runoff drain I had cut with a plow about 10 years ago. (Max 18" depth at the time)
I live only about 2 miles from where the first shot of the battle of New Orleans was fired. Deep in the heart of the Confederacy.

I would estimate its about 1/4 of a full circle if it ever was a ball?
It weighs 2.04 lbs
The diameter would be approx 4"
The wall thickness is btwn 3/4 - 1"
The center? (Back side) is/was cylindrical hollow?

 

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[xtrmdigger]

Back side?

 

[skeeterd]

Can you post pics from different angles and the back of it?

 

[skeeterd]

Sorry. Was typing while you were posting.

 

[xtrmdigger]

I have not tried to clean it this is how it was dug.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

As my posting-name indicates, pre-1900s artillery projectiles (especially, cannonballs) are my specialty area of relic-study. At this point, I'd say it could possibly be a cannon roundshell fragment. But it is currently too thickly covered with rust/dirt encrustation for me to be sure. For certainty about its ID, you'll need to knock as much of the thick rust-crust off of it as you can, using a hammer. Then post more photos showing what it looks like.

 

[xtrmdigger]

Dr Mr cannonball (are you Burt Reynolds?) Sorry had to ask!
OK gave it a thorough whacking!
And this was the result, thoughts?

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Loved that movie... but no, I'm not Burt Reynolds.

Thank you for the effort of removing the thick rust/dirt encrustation off your roundish-bodied iron fragment, and making and posting the additional photos of it. The cleaned version of it shows it is not from an exploded cannonball. However, its size and its weight (2.04 pounds) and the trough-shaped channel indicate it MAY be part of the conical nose of a bullet-shaped civil war era artillery projectile. (There were no bullet-shaped artillery projectiles in America until the 1850s, so it can't be a shell fragment from the Revolutionary War or War-Of-1812.)

I need you to make some more photos... because "lens perspective" seems to be distorting the fragment's shape in the current photos. Please shoot some photos "looking straight-down" from above it. Show both the rounded side and the channeled side that way.

Also, please lay it "flat" on the edge of a table, with the trough-shaped channel against the tabletop, then bend down and shoot it "horizontally" so the narrow end of the trough-shaped channel will look like a tunnel under the fragment.

(If I could examine it in real-life, holding it in my hand, I could tell you in less than 10 sexonds whether it is an artilery shell fragment or not ...but being sure about that from seeing photos is sometimes a lot more difficult.)

 

[xtrmdigger]

Do Over! OK still more pics,
Weight is down to 1.79 #'s
It would almost make a perfect sphere? It's thickness tapers near the "equator" and thins near the "poles" (or on the drilled ends) don't think it was drilled but maybe cast that way?

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Thank you for the additional effort. The newest group of photos (horizontal side-view and straight-down-on-it) show the iron object's shape in the ways that I needed to see clearly. They enable me to say with certainty that you've found a fragment from an exploded civil war artillery shell. Your "frag" is from the rounded conical top of a bullet-shaped shell. The channel across its inner side is part of the shell's fuze-hole.

I'll include a photo (below) of a sawed-in-half civil war "cylindrical" (bullet-shaped) shell, showing the rounded conical top, and fuze-hole.

If you don't mind doing some additional work on it, we might be able to figure out whether it is from a Confederate shell or a yankee shell. In your photos showing the fuze-hole, I cannot see any sign of "threading" in it, for a screw-in fuzeplug (as shown in the sawed-in-half shell photo). But the apparent lack of threading might only be due to corrosion, or rust/dirt concretion obscuring the threading. Please chip some more encrustation out of the fuze-hole, and let me know whether you can see any sign at all of threading.

You said you found the frag in your yard. How far do you live (in straight-line distance) from any part of the river? I'm asking because your shell-frag's weight suggests it is from a large-caliber Navy cylindrical shell. But if it was found too far away from the river, it can't have been fired from a Navy ship.

One other question: You said the frag weighs 1.79 pounds. I've never seen a scale which weighs in hundredths-of-a-pound. Did you mean 1 pound 7.9 ounces?

 

[xtrmdigger]

Spent about an hour hunting today. Found several modern bullets, an unmarked snap ( both sides, second in the area) and a equipments militaires button ( French bread bag type button possibly old as WWI) but not a single piece of iron! Maybe gridded maybe 750 sq ft area. Guess I'll be back! Thanks again.