Another Bullet Question (also Ammo Box Buckle)

[Oilfield Diver]

I saw on another post "Bullet Question" that identifies a three ringer Minie. The ones below have three rings but a different cylindrical shape. I am finding quite a few of these. Are they also 1861 - 1865 Minies?? Does the smashed one mean it possibly hit somebody or just a tree or something? Also, I was told the ammo box buckle was the early style 1830's or something, is that correct? Thx.

 

[duggap]

Well the plate looks like it may be civil war era, but they did use them for a few years after the war, but your bullets are post civil war, probably 1870+. I think they are called 45-70 bullets.

 

[nova treasure]

Well the plate looks like it may be civil war era, but they did use them for a few years after the war, but your bullets are post civil war, probably 1870+. I think they are called 45-70 bullets.

the US oval box plates were used from 1839-1864 if memory serves me right and the 45/70 bullet wasn't in production until 1866.
the earlier box plates were smaller until about 1850 and than the larger size was issued.
Bill

 

[duggap]

When they sent the troops out west to fight the indians after the war, they were still using some of the civilwar equipment. Oval plates have been found on some of those early sites.

 

[High Plains Digger]

Just watched the Little Bighorn program where they detected after a range fire. Custer was shooting .45-70s and some of the indians had the rifles to shoot the same back at him. They seemed a little surprised at that find. I had understood that the .45-70 didn't come around until about 1870 or so, at least in the West.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Oilfield Diver wrote:
> I am finding quite a few of these. Are they also 1861 - 1865 Minies??

Duggap and Nova Treasure are correct, those bullets are .45-70 bullets, which date from a few years after the end of the Civil War. Specifically, the .45-70 bullet first appears in 1873, as metallic-cartridge ammunition for the breechloading .45-70 Springfield (or .45-70 "Government") rifle.

If you want to learn more about the .45-70 rifle, and see a photo of an unfired .45-70 cartridge, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.45-70

Sidenote:
Part of your question asked if your bullets are "Minies." Your bullets are not a Minie-type, even if they dated back to 1861-65. The #1 distinguishing characteristic of Minie-type bullets is the presence of a large and deep cavity in the bullet's base, to enable its expansion into the gunbarrel's rifling grooves. Bullets for breechloading firearms (which are loaded into the gunbarrel's back end, called the "breech") do not need to expand, so there was no need to use Minie-type bullets in breechloading firearms.

> Does the smashed one mean it possibly hit somebody or just a tree or something?

Almost all of use civil war relic diggers have asked that question on the first time we dug some fired civil war bullets. The FACTUAL answer is, there's almost always no way to tell the difference between a fired bullet that hit somebody or just hit a tree/rock/dirt. We know that's true because some soldiers actually kept the bullet which wounded them, as a souvenir. Photos of those soldiers' wounding-souvenir bullets show they almost never look "distinguishably" different from the millions of fired bullets we've dug.

I should also mention that statistics compiled by the US Army during the civil war show that the VAST majority of fired bullets missed their human target. The US Ordnance Department said that based on comparing the number of bullets issued with the known number of enemy casualties, "it took a man's weight in bullets to kill one."

> Also, I was told the ammo box buckle was the early style 1830's or something, is that correct?

The following info is mostly for other readers here, who may not already know the info. It's not an "ammo box buckle." The front of a civil war Oval US belt-buckle and the Oval US cartridge-box plate look identical. The belt-buckle version had three large brass attachment-hooks on its back, and the cartridge-box version had two simple small loops (almost always made of iron wire) on its back. The cartridge-box version is called a "plate," not a buckle. Note: Very often, on excavated cartridge-box plates, one or both of the iron-wire loops will have rusted away to nothing.

 

[kuger]

Cartridge box's didnt have "buckles"...to keep them closed either,the weight of the plate did

 

[Oilfield Diver]

Thanks everybody, I know that some of these questions have been answered before and appreciate all of your patience with us newbies - and CannonballGuy you of course are correct in distinguishing a buckle from an ammo plate. I should have posted a back picture of the plate and size reference. There still is one loop and the remnant of the other on the other end. It is a somewhat small size to be a buckle as well. Does this confirm an ammo box plate? I found a musket ball as well, does that thing date back to the 1830's?

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Yes, it is definitely an Oval US cartridge-box plate, the Model-1839 style, which continued to be manufactured into the civil war years. Actually, the great majority of the Model-1839 US boxplates were made during the war, because of the vast increase in the size of the US Army in those years. Please pardon me for being nit-picky about the name for it. The term "ammo box" makes many people think of a large wooden (or metal) crate of ammunition. (Google-search the terms "ammo box" and "cartridge box" -- you'll get very different results.) A soldier's cartridge-box was a small-ish box made of leather, worn on the soldier's belt, or at the end of an over-the-shoulder leather sling.

You also asked, "I found a musket ball as well, does that thing date back to the 1830's?" What thing? The US boxplate, or the musketball? As mentioned above, the statistical odds favor your specimen being made during the civil war, not the 1840s/1850s, despite it being an M1839 boxplate. If the musketball is what you meant... musketballs were used by soldiers in America from the Colonial era all the way to the end of the Civil War. They became obsolete in that war, but the yankees were still using them in 1863 (we Virginia diggers find large numbers of them at both US and CS trenches from the May 1863 battle of Chancellorsville) ...and some Confederates still had them at the 1865 surrender-sites. That was pretty much the complete end of their use by soldiers in America. So, I would guess that your musketball dates from no later than 1865, not from the Indian Wars era ...unless an Indian was using t, which is possible. If I recall correctly, the Indians used some at the Custer battlesite, but definitely none of Custer's trooper did.

(I modified this post to add some clarifying info.)

 

[High Plains Digger]

CBG: You're right--"the program" said they found musket balls that based on the location found, would have been shot by the indians. I am sure they had plenty of old rifles hangin around, and an old Springfield would be amoungst them! I also was amazed at how many body parts were still there to be discovered.

 

[Oilfield Diver]

Thanks again everybody and CannonballGuy. You are an encyclopedia. And thanks for the picture (it is worth a thousand words). I wondered what they looked like.