mojjax
Silver Member
It's 2 inches in diameter - weighs 15 5/8 ounces - almost a pound .
mojjax
mojjax
Possible cannon ball??
- Thread starter mojjax
- Start date
DigEmAll
Hero Member
95% certain it's tumbler shot. Used to knock off sharp edges and break up sand clots from sand casting large iron items. Also used to clean the inside of concrete trucks and to pulverize ores of various types to make the smelting process easier.
5% chance it's a cannon ball.
Reason is that it's not round. Balls that are not round do really bad things to cannon bores. If you look closely you can see that the area where the casting line was, the ball is slightly "long" in that area.
If it happens to fall in the 5% and is a cannon ball, it would be a reject ball and chunked out into the woods well away from any cannon battery, even off a bridge or into the middle of a creek. Artillery soldiers would never - even as a last resort - shoot a defective ball. Stuck balls in cannon bores lead to blown up cannons which lead to dead soldiers. The artillery soldiers would dispose of defective balls in a way that would drastically limit the chance that any other artillery unit might find and use the ball... even the enemy cannoneers.
There is about a 25% chance that this is a grape shot however. It is about the right size and weight. There is about a 25% chance that it is grape shot if you found it near the area of a Revolutionary War battle. These chances will drastically improve if you live near a large river or seaway that might have had a couple of ships go at it, either during the Revolutionary War or the Civil War.
Contrary to popular belief, grap shot was not used very much on land after the Revolutionary War, but was extremely popular on war ships.
People (myself included) tend to group similar types of rounds together. What most of us refer to as grape shot are actually canister shot that were used similarly to grape shot (shotgun fashion) but were a simple tin can packed with saw dust and musket balls. Much cheaper, faster, and easier to make, and much, much more effective.
5% chance it's a cannon ball.
Reason is that it's not round. Balls that are not round do really bad things to cannon bores. If you look closely you can see that the area where the casting line was, the ball is slightly "long" in that area.
If it happens to fall in the 5% and is a cannon ball, it would be a reject ball and chunked out into the woods well away from any cannon battery, even off a bridge or into the middle of a creek. Artillery soldiers would never - even as a last resort - shoot a defective ball. Stuck balls in cannon bores lead to blown up cannons which lead to dead soldiers. The artillery soldiers would dispose of defective balls in a way that would drastically limit the chance that any other artillery unit might find and use the ball... even the enemy cannoneers.
There is about a 25% chance that this is a grape shot however. It is about the right size and weight. There is about a 25% chance that it is grape shot if you found it near the area of a Revolutionary War battle. These chances will drastically improve if you live near a large river or seaway that might have had a couple of ships go at it, either during the Revolutionary War or the Civil War.
Contrary to popular belief, grap shot was not used very much on land after the Revolutionary War, but was extremely popular on war ships.
People (myself included) tend to group similar types of rounds together. What most of us refer to as grape shot are actually canister shot that were used similarly to grape shot (shotgun fashion) but were a simple tin can packed with saw dust and musket balls. Much cheaper, faster, and easier to make, and much, much more effective.
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