Cannon Ball Fuse - Identity

alabama11

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Biddle Rosette Shell is what I found on line , but no shell photo or description. It is 2.5 inches long and .75 inches in width, but is missing a piece of the structure. Gunboats were in the neighborhood and it was found associated with a houseplace site.
IMAG0582.jpg best,

According to the Cannonball Guy "The new photos and the addition of the ruler are making it look like a US Navy version of Hotchkiss Percussion fuze, missing its flat top." This question is now solved.
 

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Davers

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Was this piece in the group of relics you pictured in a post before?
TCBG or some other Artillery Lover will chime in hopefully Soon.

I know next to nothing about Fuses , having only dug one Parrot fuse 15 years ago.
GL & HH ,Seem you got a pretty good site.
Davers
 

TheCannonballGuy

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Is the width .75" across the threaded area or the smooth area? Based on the measurements and info you gave and what the photo shows, it appears to be a US Navy Watercap fuzeplug which is missing its dated "lip." It was screwed into a larger threaded larger bushing, which is usually present but is missing on yours. I said "it appears to be" because I need to see photos of both ends of it to be certain about its ID.

Your statements about the dig-site indicate it was fired off of one of the yankee navy gunboats. It would been in a Heavy Caliber shell, which on a "gunboat" (smaller than a Monitor-Class ironclad) ranged from 6.4"-caliber to 9"-caliber. Here's a photo showing an intact US navy Watercap fuzeplug in a sawed-in-half 7"-caliber roundshell from the Southern part of your state.
 

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alabama11

alabama11

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The threaded piece was in an earlier post , but there are two areas that are seperated by a river that the other artifacts came from. Only the pistol trigger guard and two small buckles came from the fuse area and that location has only been hunted 1 time for 3 hours. About 15 bullets were found 300 yards away. Working at adding some more of the fuse photos and dimensions.
Best and thanks for the comments. IMAG0602.jpg IMAG0606.jpg
 

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TheCannonballGuy

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The new photos and the addition of the ruler are making it look like a US Navy version of Hotchkiss Percussion fuze, missing its flat top. To be certain about that ID, I need to see a view of the threaded end.

A navy Watercap fuze missing its dated lip/top looks almost exactly the same, but the threading-rate is different from a Hotchkiss Percussion fuze, which has 12 threads-per-inch. The ruler in your photo seems to show 9 threads on 3/4-inch of threading, which equals 12 threads-per-inch.
 

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alabama11

alabama11

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Since we have found no other fragments of the shell i suspect the fuse was picked up in the agricultural field and brought to the house place. If the shell exploded in the ground there should be a visible crater nearby. Something to look for.
 

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