22 pound cannonball?

[OldSowBreath]

From another thread, here are pictures of a very heavy 22 lb cannonball, I think. I found this at a garage sale in Texas and the only provenance was that the elderly couple said their son brought it home from "back East" many years ago.

It measures 5 and 1/2 inches in diameter. Weight on a spring produce scale had it at 21 and 1/2 pounds. It's too heavy for my postal scale, and a digital bathroom scale, which seems to be very accurate except for when I'm standing on it has it as exactly 22.0 lbs. on repeated tests. This is what is shows when its only on the scale, and also with me holding it and subtracting my svelte weight. It is heavily pitted and there is an indentation like there either was a fuse hole or someone tried to drill into it years ago. I don't see how it could have held much powder as it is so heavy for its size. You'll see a slight gap in the calipers for the 5 and 1/2 inch diameter, this is because the top bar on my calipers keep it from exactly hitting the equator of the ball. Placing it between two pieces of wood on a metal ruler has it at 5 and 1/2 inches.



From my limited research, it doesn't seem to fit known Civil War projectiles, but the article below, along with others seems to indicate an identical one being found in Charleston with speculation it might be revolutionary war and British.

Odd cannonball keeps history buffs guessing – The Post and Courier

Here, the pictures of mine:





I would greatly appreciate any thoughts on this. Thanks so much for the help.

 

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[DCMatt]

I'm sure Cannonballguy will chime in on this relic and give us the straight dope. In the mean time, I found a guy in Trenton selling this:

[TABLE="class: items, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD]08010610[/TD]
[TD]

REVOLUTIONARY? WAR IRON CANNON BALL; 22 LBS. 5 1/2" +/- ROUND [/TD]
[TD]$125.00[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

I hope it's what you think it is.

DCMatt

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

As my posting-name indicates, cannonballs -- and other Historical Artillery projectiles -- are my specialty area of relic study (for nearly 40 years). Thank you for providing the much-needed measurements, and closeup photos. They show me two important things for identifying the ball:
1- The irregularly-shaped corrosion of its suface is characteristic of cast-iron corrosion, not steel corrosion. That means we can exclude the various versions of Steel balls (such as ball-bearings and Mining Industry ore/rock-crusher balls). In all of Artillery history, there were no steel cannonballs, except for a very-few civil war era British-made experimental 10"-caliber cannonballs which were made of steel, in the hope they'd be able to crush their way through an ironclad warshiip's armor.
2- Your ball's corrosion looks like the surface of the Moon. That means it is quite posible that about .2-inch of its original surface has corroded away. Such severe corrosion could reduce its original weight by about 2 pounds. The final chart in the civil war Ordnance Manual's data-charts says a 22.0-pound ball made of cast-iron is 5.476-inches in diameter... which is extremely close to your ball's size. Scroll down to the bottom of the webpage at www.civilwarartillery.com/shottables.htm

So, in my professional opinion, your ball is a severely corroded 24-Pounder caliber Solid-Shot cannonball. Although such very-severe corrosion of cannonballs is comparatively rare, in the past 30-something years in this field of relic-collecting and study I've seen some that were dug from salt-rich Seacoast soil which were that badly corroded.

 

[OldSowBreath]

I really appreciate the information, TGBG, and a nice discourse viz-a-viz iron vs. steel cannonballs! I guess without any more info you couldn't hazard a guess as to whether this would more likely be a RW, or CW piece? Thanks again. I always enjoy your posts.

 

[austin]

As my posting-name indicates, cannonballs -- and other Historical Artillery projectiles -- are my specialty area of relic study (for nearly 40 years). Thank you for providing the much-needed measurements, and closeup photos. They show me two important things for identifying the ball:
1- The irregularly-shaped corrosion of its suface is characteristic of cast-iron corrosion, not steel corrosion. That means we can exclude the various versions of Steel balls (such as ball-bearings and Mining Industry ore/rock-crusher balls). In all of Artillery history, there were no steel cannonballs, except for a very-few civil war era British-made experimental 10"-caliber cannonballs which were made of steel, in the hope they'd be able to crush their way through an ironclad warshiip's armor.
2- Your ball's corrosion looks like the surface of the Moon. That means it is quite posible that about .2-inch of its original surface has corroded away. Such severe corrosion could reduce its original weight by about 2 pounds. The final chart in the civil war Ordnance Manual's data-charts says a 22.0-pound ball made of cast-iron is 5.476-inches in diameter... which is extremely close to your ball's size. Scroll down to the bottom of the webpage at www.civilwarartillery.com/shottables.htm

So, in my professional opinion, your ball is a severely corroded 24-Pounder caliber Solid-Shot cannonball. Although such very-severe corrosion of cannonballs is comparatively rare, in the past 30-something years in this field of relic-collecting and study I've seen some that were dug from salt-rich Seacoast soil which were that badly corroded.

If you have time, please take a look at SallySue's cannonball on her post Look what we found. (Texas)... Thanks, Austin

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

OldSowBreath wrote:
> I guess without any more info you couldn't hazard a guess as to whether this would more likely
> be a RW, or CW piece?

[Edit-note by TheCannonballGuy: The paragraph below refers to a cannonball in a different discussion, and was posted in this discussion by error -- sorry about that.]
I said in my previous reply that it absolutely cannot be from the Revolutionary War (1776-to-1783), because this specific type of antipersonnel explosive cannonball was not invented until several years after the end of that war. I also said it cannot be from the civil war, because I was told it was found in a lake waaay up North, where there was no civil war artillery action. The civil war era yankee-manufactured version of this shell used a metal fuzeplug, not a wooden one, which this cannonball had.

> Thanks again. I always enjoy your posts.

You're welcome. I'm pleased to be of assistance to my fellow relic-diggers and collectors.

 

[Doubter in MD]

OldSowBreath wrote:
> I guess without any more info you couldn't hazard a guess as to whether this would more likely
> be a RW, or CW piece?

I said in my previous reply that it absolutely cannot be from the Revolutionary War (1778-to-1783), because this specific type of antipersonnel explosive cannonball was not invented until several years after the end of that war. I also said it cannot be from the civil war, because I was told it was found in a lake waaay up North, where there was no civil war artillery action. The civil war era yankee-manufactured version of this shell used a metal fuzeplug, not a wooden one, which this cannonball had.

> Thanks again. I always enjoy your posts.

You're welcome. I'm pleased to be of assistance to my fellow relic-diggers and collectors.

I think this is an answer to the wrong thread.

In your first response in this thread you said, "your ball is a severely corroded 24-Pounder caliber Solid-Shot cannonball" and your answer here seems to be referring to Candiver's find...

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

You are right, Doubter in MD. My reply was about CanDiver's ball, and due to after-midnight brain fatigue I put it in the wrong discussion-thread.

OldSowBreath, I apologize for that error. I'll try again.
You asked:
> I guess without any more info you couldn't hazard a guess as to
> whether this would more likely be a RW, or CW piece?

Because your Solid-Shot cannonball's original surface is so severely corroded away, to the extent of having lost two pounds of its weight, any "visible" ID-clues which might have told us its time-period are gone. It could be from the Revolutionary War, the War-Of-1812, or the Civil War. Knowing the location it was dug at could have helped for time-dating it, but that info was lost before you bought the ball.