Possible Cannonball

[khopfe]

Good morning-

I am new so please be gentle. I have a possible cannonball my father told me he received from a surveyor in the 1960's who was doing work near the present day Astrodome in Houston, near South Main or San Felipe. Does not appear that santa anna made his trek in that area. If it is a cannonball, maybe someone jsut dropped it. Hope somone might be able to positively id, know the time era in general, and if it might have value.

It appears to be 3 inches in diameter, made of steel, and weigh 1 pound. No holes for powder.

Thank you for your insight and thoughts in advance.

Regards

 

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[TheCannonballGuy]

First, welcome to TreasureNet.

As my posting-name indicates, cannonballs and other Antique artillery projectiles are my specialty area of relic-study. Please check the "About me" section in my Profile here at TreasreNet.

There are literally millions of iron/steel balls which are not Artillery balls.
Examples of Civilian-usage balls:
ball-bearings (many are small but some are quite large)
Mining & Stonemilling Industry ore/rock-crusher balls
machinery counterweight balls
Sports Shot Put balls
Ornamental Ironwork balls (uch as, a gatepost-top_

So, super-precise measuring of the ball's weight and diameter are needed to tell whether the ball is an Artillery ball or a Civilian-use ball. The very-exact weight and diameter of Artillery balls used in America from the Colonial Era through the Civil War are are listed in the Shot Tables charts in the 1861 Ordnance Manual, here:
www.civilwarartillery.com/shottables.htm

More information about Artillery balls, and instructions for precisely measuring their weight and diameter are here:
SolidShotEssentialsMod

Diameter:
Your ball is small enough for you to be able to use a Digital Caliper to measure its diameter, in hundredths-of-an-inch.

Weight:
A precision Postal Shipping scale is needed, because typical household bathroom weighing-scales are notoriously inaccurate.

I should mention, there seems to be something incorrect in your weight measurement of the ball. You say it has no hole in it, so apparently it is a solid (not hollow) ball... and its diameter is 3-inches and it weighs 1 pound. But that size of SOLID iron/steel ball should weigh almost 4 pounds. So, either your weight measurement of it is incorrect or it is a hollow ball.

 

[khopfe]

Thank you so much. I had it weighed again and you were correct- it is 4.4lbs. It is almost exactly 10 inches in circumfrence and 3.1 inches in diameter (will use caliper this weekend to confirm). I went to the link and did not see a match other than possibly pre-1860). Am I missing it?

 

[texasvarmit]

hi khopfe and thecannonballguy,
I replied to khopfe's post on a diff thread here:
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/t...win-sisters-cannonball-found.html#post3637943

and measured the upper left cannonball of mine in that photo, and my cannonball is smaller at : 1 lb 14.6 oz on a postal scale and will calipers it measures 2.45 inch diameter.

the link thecannonballguy provided, is GREAT and mine was presented as "grape" I believe when I got it, and it may fit in the range of grape shot balls as on that link page. as 2.462 inch diameter (from the chart on the page) as mine appears to be 2.45" diameter as best I can tell.

the bottom left cannonball with the visible seam (from casting) is about 3.53 inch diameter (my calipers jaws just barely can reach that wide) and weighs about 5 lbs 14.3 oz.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Texasvarmit, thank you for your compliment on the quality of information I provided.

I take no pleasure at all in being the bearer of bad news... but I have to say, none of the four balls in your photo is an artillery ball.
Three of them are clearly out-of-round, like a potato or egg, which excludes them from being a cannonball or grapeshot ball, etc.
As I said in the "Solid Shot Essentials" article:
"Poorly cast cannonballs with surface projections could also jam in the bore causing the barrel to burst on firing. This is why
cannonballs were manufactured to be perfect spheres and never out-of-round (like an egg, potato, or onion)."

The ball at upper left in the photo is the correct shape (perfectly spherical), but its precisely-measured size
excludes it from being an artillery ball. You say its diameter is 2.45-inches. There is no artillery ball of that size
anywhere in the Ordnance Manual's "Shot Tables" size-charts. The closest one in the charts is a 2.36-to-2.40-inch
grapeshot ball. Being even .05-inch too large would cause it to be rejected by the Ordnance Inspector.
The reason for the rejection is that the Grapeshot balls had to fit in a tight circle of three balls per layer, and if
the balls were too large, they would not fit properly within the tight circle's diameter. If that happened, the
"Stand Of Grapeshot" would be too wide to fit into the cannon's barrel. THAT is why the Artillery Ordnance
Department issued strict size-specifications, had Ordnance Inspectors whose job was to precisely measure
every artillery ball to make sure it met the size and weight specifications.

For anybody who has never seen a "Stand Of Grapeshot," one is shown in the photo below.
Note that it contains three layers of balls, and each layer contains three balls which are grouped
in a tight circle, held firmly in place by encircling iron rings.

I should mention, there is another Grapeshot variety, called "Quilted Grapeshot.
Its balls were also grouped in a tight circles, which MUST not be too large in diameter to
fit properly into the cannon's barrel.