Found My First Musket Ball... How Do You Tell New From Old?

AusTexDude · Mar 7, 2014

I will get a pic up as soon as the batteries for the cam charge.

It's about 12 MM diameter.

Wishbone · Mar 7, 2014

Do they make new musket balls?

EccentricInTexas · Mar 7, 2014

Yep they still make them, you can even buy moulds to cast your own. Does it have a white patina that is a dead give away that its old.

G.A.P.metal · Mar 7, 2014

Dude
Any old musket that has been in the ground for a very long time around here.... will have a white crust all over it ....can`t remember the name of the stuff ... Lead oxcide ??
Gary

EccentricInTexas · Mar 7, 2014

Yep Lead Oxide, its basically Lead Rust.

l.cutler · Mar 8, 2014

Caliber is measured in inches, converting your 12mm to inches gives us .472. A .50 caliber muzzleloader fires a .490 ball or so, so depending on the accuracy of your measurement it is definitely in the ball park for a .50 caliber. .50 caliber is too small to be a musket, but is a very popular rifle caliber so quite likely a rifle ball. As far as age, .50 is probably the most popular muzzleloader caliber today, but was also common in antique guns. The white patina as stated would indicate an older rifle ball, you can also check for a sprue which is a flat spot where the excess metal was cut off after it was removed from the mould. Some of the modern balls were swaged, or pressed so do not show a sprue mark.

AusTexDude · Mar 8, 2014

There is a sprue. Here is a pic.

gunsil · Mar 8, 2014

Looks pretty modern, no thick coating of lead oxide. I have cast thousands of them in many sizes. Even in fifty years in most soil conditions the white lead oxide will appear. Modern muzzle loading target shooting and hunting is very popular and there are more of these turning up all the time.

l.cutler · Mar 8, 2014

Yup, unless you polished the patina off, I would say it is modern.

deadeye 22250 · Mar 8, 2014

I agree it looks like it's newer.

Davers · Mar 8, 2014

l.cutler said:
Yup, unless you polished the patina off, I would say it is modern.

Id agree..
Back in 98 when I first started hunting I found a 36 cal ball & in my excitement scrubbed most of the patina off about (70% of it if it matters).
I still have it , as it was my first older CW? era bullet/ball.
IMO It's hard to tell age on the small cal balls ,esp, If they were fired.
I usually try to go by "Context" of where they were found & the look of them (Casting Spurs or marks where they were touching other balls ,like in a buck & ball load ,patina ;etc).
I still save them tho "JIC" or for if I ever start casting my own bullets ,{for the next Civil War; LOL}