✅ SOLVED Bullet #2

[fyrffytr1]

Thanks to TheCannonballGuy for identifying my first bullet as a civil war "Bartholow". Here is the second bullet in my collection that I need help with. Again, this one came from the Hagerstown, Md. area. That is in west central Maryland very close to Antietam and Gettysburg, Pa. Thanks for any and all help. I took the diameter measurement just above the rings if that helps.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

It is a fairly scarce variety of 1862-63 Confederate-made 3-groove .54 caliber Minie-bullet, intended for use in the .54 "Mississippi Rifle." It has a very-crude "plug" cavity, similar to an British-made Enfield's cavity but much cruder. It is shown in the McKee-&-Mason book on civil war bullets as #419, which says it was made at the Selma (Alabama) Arsenal. It is bullet #132-E in the "Handbook Of Civil War Bullets & Cartridges" by Jim & Dean Thomas... which does not say it is from the Selma Arsenal, so apparently the authors could find no documentation that this variety was made at Selma, despite their very-extensive research of Confederate Ordnance Department production records.

Part of the reason I recognized your bullet is that back in the early-1980s I dug some of that variety in a Texas regiment's winter-of-1862/63 camp at Fredericksburg VA. You never forget the scarcer varieties of Confederate bullets you've dug.

 

[fyrffytr1]

"You never forget the scarcer varieties of Confederate bullets you've dug."
I wish I could say that! But, at the time we were digging these relics IDing them was not at the top of our list. Now, 35 years later I figured it was about time to do it.
Keep watching as I will post some more in the near future and thank you for all the help.