I received a PM asking me to reply to various comments in this discussion. Here are my replies, in no particular order.
The bullet appears to be a fired yankee "generic" 3-groove Minie-ball... and based on size comparison with the quarter-dollar it seems to be a .58-caliber one.
In bullet-identification, the term "ring" has a different meaning than "groove." A ring is raised (like a wedding-ring around your finger), and a groove is indented. But relic-diggers have been calling the Minie-ball found by Bountyhuntergirl a "3-ringer" for over 50 years, so getting them to change to the correct bullet-ID terms probably isn't going to happen.
Rifling-marks on the bullet does not automatically mean it is from after the civil war. Beginning with the Model-1855 Springfield Rifle, the US Army issued rifled guns to its troops. The majority of yankee troops in the civil war were armed with rifled guns.
In response to Argentium's question:
Yes, Minie-balls were used in America for many years after the end of the civil war. When the war ended, the US Army began replacing its Minie-ball-firing muzzleloader rifles with metal-cartridge-firing breechloaders, and it sold vast quantities of the no longer needed war-surplus muzzleloader rifles to the public for game-hunting. For example... reportedly, famous World War One sharpshooter Sgt. Alvin York used a Minie-ball-firing civil war muzzleloader rifle for deer-hunting when he was a teenager in the Tennessee mountains, around 1900. Therefore, we relic-diggers have to do our best to find out if there was any civil war combat (or raw-recruits firearms training) in the area where we've dug a fired Minie-ball.
nice finds!
