Civil War bullets

jhamner

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I found a can of these old bullets in our antique mall today. There were 26 of them for $8--pretty good deal! What I can't figure is about half of them have holes in them and many have some fiber-like material in the holes. Were these exploding bullets,( I don't think so) or are the holes just from extracting them from a weapon, The fiber may be the remains of a patch, but I am not sure about any of this conjecture-I need help! Thanks!
 

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Your Minie-bullets with a (coarse-threaded) hole into the nose are "wormed" bullets, because the soldier used a Bulletworm on the end of the rifle's ramrod to unload the rifle by "pulling" the unfired bullet. See the photos below.

Explanation, for anybody here who doesn't already know:
Most civil war rifles were Muzzleloader firearms, meaning, the bullet was loaded into the front (the muzzle) of the gunbarrel, and the rifle's ramrod pushed the bullet down to the back end of the barrel (the breech). The only way to unload a Muzzleloader is to somehow pull the bullet all the way back up the gunbarrel and out of the muzzle. So, the soldier would attach a "bullet-worm" onto the non-rammer end of the ramrod, insert it down the barrel to the bullet, and twist the ramrod clockwise until the bulletworm screwed itself deep into the soft lead bullet's nose well enough to grip it and pull it back out of the gunbarrel.

As the photos show, there were two forms of bulletworm.... one shaped like a tapered coarse-threaded screw, and the other shaped like a DNA-style "double helix."

One of the photos shows an incredible rarity... a bullet which was fired while the ramrod (with bulletworm) was still in the rifle's barrel.
 

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Your Minie-bullets with a (coarse-threaded) hole into the nose are "wormed" bullets, because the soldier used a Bulletworm on the end of the rifle's ramrod to unload the rifle by "pulling" the unfired bullet. See the photos below.

Explanation, for anybody here who doesn't already know:
Most civil war rifles were Muzzleloader firearms, meaning, the bullet was loaded into the front (the muzzle) of the gunbarrel, and the rifle's ramrod pushed the bullet down to the back end of the barrel (the breech). The only way to unload a Muzzleloader is to somehow pull the bullet all the way back up the gunbarrel and out of the muzzle. So, the soldier would attach a "bullet-worm" onto the non-rammer end of the ramrod, insert it down the barrel to the bullet, and twist the ramrod clockwise until the bulletworm screwed itself deep into the soft lead bullet's nose well enough to grip it and pull it back out of the gunbarrel.

As the photos show, there were two forms of bulletworm.... one shaped like a tapered coarse-threaded screw, and the other shaped like a DNA-style "double helix."

One of the photos shows an incredible rarity... a bullet which was fired while the ramrod (with bulletworm) was still in the rifle's barrel.

While I know a lot of what you post, not everyone does obviously. I've always like how you explain everything with detailed information, with pictures to back it up. Makes for an awesome learning environment that is for sure......
 
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As usual Cannonballguy is right on!! I would guess that they were saved or collected to be remelted later.
 
Upvote 0
Your Minie-bullets with a (coarse-threaded) hole into the nose are "wormed" bullets, because the soldier used a Bulletworm on the end of the rifle's ramrod to unload the rifle by "pulling" the unfired bullet. See the photos below.

Explanation, for anybody here who doesn't already know:
Most civil war rifles were Muzzleloader firearms, meaning, the bullet was loaded into the front (the muzzle) of the gunbarrel, and the rifle's ramrod pushed the bullet down to the back end of the barrel (the breech). The only way to unload a Muzzleloader is to somehow pull the bullet all the way back up the gunbarrel and out of the muzzle. So, the soldier would attach a "bullet-worm" onto the non-rammer end of the ramrod, insert it down the barrel to the bullet, and twist the ramrod clockwise until the bulletworm screwed itself deep into the soft lead bullet's nose well enough to grip it and pull it back out of the gunbarrel.

As the photos show, there were two forms of bulletworm.... one shaped like a tapered coarse-threaded screw, and the other shaped like a DNA-style "double helix."

One of the photos shows an incredible rarity... a bullet which was fired while the ramrod (with bulletworm) was still in the rifle's barrel.


Thank you very much for this detailed and excellent explanation! I was thinking along those lines, but you explained it so eloquently, and also with a lot of information that I did not know!
 
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While I know a lot of what you post, not everyone does obviously. I've always like how you explain everything with detailed information, with pictures to back it up. Makes for an awesome learning environment that is for sure......

Thanks very much for your post.
 
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thanks for the insight CannonballGuy, very informative for a beginner like me.
 
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Whoever had the rifle go off while worming the bullet had a really bad day. Or last day. I've got some wormed minies as well. They are pretty common if you find dropped bullets.
 
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The helix style can also be wrapped in tow (linen fibers) and used to clean the firearm.
 
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Whoever had the rifle go off while worming the bullet had a really bad day. Or last day. I've got some wormed minies as well. They are pretty common if you find dropped bullets.


Yes, I hope he still has (or had) all his parts after the smoke cleared.
 
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