Confederate "mid-sleeved" Read Long Model shell with pre-rifled brass sabot

[CSA2K]

Rare summer hunt for me pays off in iron and copper

 

[DiggerinVA]

Awesome find man!!!

 

[vpnavy]

Nice find! Thanks for sharing...

 

[Irregular]

D-A-N-G. A rare hunt results in a find maxing out on the rarity scale?

Incredible, congratulations on that find! Superb!

 

[tennessee digger]

If you want to know everything about your excellent find post it on the "what is it" forum and let TheCannonballGuy look at it. He is an expert.

 

[CASPER-2]

 

[kray]

Nice find! That thing must be heavy. Is it still live?

 

[danimal03]

super nice find. rare to see complete ones dug anymore. awesome find and definitely a big congratulations!

 

[Lygore]

I'm an unexploded ordnance technician, and your projectile is still fuzed. You need to call your local police station and let them know you found a live civil war projectile. You could probably ask them if they could inert it for you and they should be able to for you. If they say no, you could ask for a fragment of it for your collection, at least. Good luck and be safe. It's a 3.3" Read-Parrott shell. High Explosive. Originally, a wrought iron cup was secured by cold or hot forging to the base, or by actually having the body cast on the cup.this was later changed to a brass ring that you see on yours. When it was seated in the barrel and the propelling charge detonated, pressure expanded the ring to the bore and ejected the projectile. Confederate shelled differed as they had two borrelets and were lathe finished while the union shells were forced through a type of die to finish them to bore specifications. The brass fitting on the nose is the McEvoy time fuze adapter that was common on these rounds.

 

[danimal03]

I hope not to see this shell destroyed. The time fuze opening should have allowed moisture into the shell and over time the blackpowder should degrade. I would not risk having it destroyed by a local EOD. Look what happened to the Lawrence Christopher collection. They destroyed his entire collection though most shells were clearly defused. They even blew up solid shot that never even had power in it. I have heard his was a multi-hundred thousand collection with some exceedingly rare and historic pieces and now gone.

There are a few dealers who will safely remote drill it for you for a small fee. You can google around and find these guys if you do not know who they are already.

There are two particularly dangerous (when disarming) shells out there due to the type of waterproof fuzes, configuration, etc but this is not one of them. Congratulations an on awesome find. would be nice to see pics after cleaned up. hopefully it has pretty iron underneath.

 

[DigIron2]

nice nice NICE CS parrot,might be a lead side load plug under some of that rust.About how deep was it?The cannonball guy should see this one.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Lygore, I accept your statement that you are an EOD tech, and I respect you for that. But I have to contradict several things you said in your reply. My credentials for doing so are:
I'm the co-author of the 552-page encyclopedic reference-book "Field Artillery Projectiles Of The American Civil War." I've been studying them, collecting them, dealing them, and professionally Inerting them for nearly 40 years. The US National Park Service has used me to inert several they've found at battlefield parks. By invitation, I've given lectures about civil war artillery projectiles and their fuzes to police Bomb Squads here in Virginia. I've been classified as an Expert Consultant on the subject for court testimony by the US Justice Department. Also, the Chesterfield County VA police department used me as a forensics consultant after the Sam White accident a few years ago, to determine the type of projectile and the cause of the explosion.

The fuzing in CSA2K's civil war Read shell is not a McEvoy timefuze adapter. It is simply the typical Confederate copperbrass adapter-plug for a paper timefuze. The end of the paper timefuze is showing in the center of the adapter-plug on CSA2K's shell

The police and military now automatically destroy any artillery projectile that gets turned in to them. There is ZERO chance that any of those organizations will inert his shell and hand it back to him. They will confiscate it and destroy it -- period. CSA2K, I'll send you a T-Net PM to put you in contact with a professional Inerter in your area to get your excavated CS Read shell emptied.

CSA2K's excavated civil war Confederate Read shell is not "active" in the usual sense of that term for Ordnance. Its fuzing is now completely non-functional. There's a chance that this excavated shell has some unspoiled blackpowder in it. But that EXCAVATED civil war shell is absolutely not shock-sensitive. I've done very-extensive research on that subject. Relic diggers have excavated over 100,000 civil war (and earlier) artillery projectiles... and there seems to be no report of even one of those EXCAVATED 100,000+ pre-1880s artillery shells exploding from being struck by the shovel during the digging-up process. (Nor from being dropped afterward.) Much-more extreme "provocation" is needed to get a civil war (or earlier) shell to explode, if it is still capable of doing so.

Let me be quite clear:
I am NOT saying it's okay to take unnecessary risks with an artillery projectile, such as using a power-tool on one. I'm just saying there's no need to be fearful about simply digging or dropping a civil war (or earlier) artillery projectile. If you are not 100%-CERTAIN it is from before the 1880s, post photos of it in T-Net's "What Is It?" forum and I'll identify it for you. .

In the photo, the shell appears to be too long to be a bourreleted (ringed) 3"-caliber (or 3.3"-caliber) Read. It looks more like a 2.9"-caliber. Please measure its length and tell us that measurement. Because there are dozens of variations of Read shells, I'll need to see photos of it after cleaning to tell you the specific variety you found, and its rarity-rating.

 

[danimal03]

nice post CannonballGuy and well said. I think we are all grateful for your wealth of knowledge. I have your book sitting on my shelf and it is a top notch publication in every aspect. I found even the introduction exceedingly informative and well written. For those who do not have a copy of it; I highly suggest finding one.

 

[CSA2K]

Lygore, I accept your statement that you are an EOD tech, and I respect you for that. But I have to contradict several things you said in your reply. My credentials for doing so are:
I'm the co-author of the 552-page encyclopedic reference-book "Field Artillery Projectiles Of The American Civil War." I've been studying them, collecting them, dealing them, and professionally Inerting them for nearly 40 years. The US National Park Service has used me to inert several they've found at battlefield parks. By invitation, I've given lectures about civil war artillery projectiles and their fuzes to police Bomb Squads here in Virginia. I've been classified as an Expert Consultant on the subject for court testimony by the US Justice Department. Also, the Chesterfield County VA police department used me as a forensics consultant after the Sam White accident a few years ago, to determine the type of projectile and the cause of the explosion.

The fuzing in CSA2K's civil war Read shell is not a McEvoy timefuze adapter. It is simply the typical Confederate copperbrass adapter-plug for a paper timefuze. The end of the paper timefuze is showing in the center of the adapter-plug on CSA2K's shell

The police and military now automatically destroy any artillery projectile that gets turned in to them. There is ZERO chance that any of those organizations will inert his shell and hand it back to him. They will confiscate it and destroy it -- period. CSA2K, I'll send you a T-Net PM to put you in contact with a professional Inerter in your area to get your excavated CS Read shell emptied.

CSA2K's excavated civil war Confederate Read shell is not "active" in the usual sense of that term for Ordnance. Its fuzing is now completely non-functional. There's a chance that this excavated shell has some unspoiled blackpowder in it. But that EXCAVATED civil war shell is absolutely not shock-sensitive. I've done very-extensive research on that subject. Relic diggers have excavated over 100,000 civil war (and earlier) artillery projectiles... and there seems to be no report of even one of those EXCAVATED 100,000+ pre-1880s artillery shells exploding from being struck by the shovel during the digging-up process. (Nor from being dropped afterward.) Much-more extreme "provocation" is needed to get a civil war (or earlier) shell to explode, if it is still capable of doing so.

Let me be quite clear:
I am NOT saying it's okay to take unnecessary risks with an artillery projectile, such as using a power-tool on one. I'm just saying there's no need to be fearful about simply digging or dropping a civil war (or earlier) artillery projectile. If you are not 100%-CERTAIN it is from before the 1880s, post photos of it in T-Net's "What Is It?" forum and I'll identify it for you. .

In the photo, the shell appears to be too long to be a bourreleted (ringed) 3"-caliber (or 3.3"-caliber) Read. It looks more like a 2.9"-caliber. Please measure its length and tell us that measurement. Because there are dozens of variations of Read shells, I'll need to see photos of it after cleaning to tell you the specific variety you found, and its rarity-rating.

Thanks buddy I doubt I'd have been so diplomatic

 

[CSA2K]

Its 8.5" from top of fuze to bottom of sabot. I thought I saw bourrelets but having removed some of the crust my eyes may have been playing tricks. Need to get it inerted and into the electrolysis tank.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

As I indicated in my reply to Lygore, I have considerable respect for EOD techs. The problem is that most of them are NOT trained to distinguish "modern era" artillery projectiles from the comparatively safe pre-20th-Century ones. That has caused a great many historical archeological artifacts to be NEEDLESSLY destroyed. (The destruction of Lawrence Christopher's entire civil war artillery projectile collection is a glaring example of that.) My purpose is to provide rock-solid, well-credentialed Education on the subject of "antique" artillery projectiles and their fuzing. Some people are open to learning the actual facts about them, and others are not. We'll see how it goes.

 

[tennessee digger]

Excellent replies to this post Pete. Very educational and we all appreciate your input. Thanks. I didn't know that they blew up Lawrence's artillery collection. I knew him well but I figured that his collection simply got sold. What a shame!

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Thank you for reporting its length. At 8.5-inches, it is definitely a Read Long-Model shell, and almost certainly 2.9"-caliber, not 3"-caliber. The copper-saboted version you found first shows up in combat in early-1863, and was "plentiful from then though early-1864 1864, but gets quite scare after summer 1864, because the Confederacy lost possession of the great copper mines at Ducktown TN in late-1863.

I should mention, the Confederacy manufactured the iron-saboted version from the war's start to the very end... so, your copper-saboted Long-Model Read is much rarer than the iron-saboted version.

There are several variations of copper-saboted ones. After the rust-crust is removed, I'll be able to tell you which specific variation it is, and give you a rarity-rating for that variety. At the moment, I can only say that it is at least a 7 on the scale of 1-to-10 (with a 1 being the most common).

 

[ModernMiner]

Congrats on that outstanding find! This post has been very informative.
Thanks Guys,
MM

 

[Ia.FurTrade]

It's good to see some "common sense" answers here!
Congrat's on a GREAT find!!! Be sure & post some pictures after the clean-up!