How Do You Determine Musket Ball Caliber?

JakePhelps · Mar 8, 2010

Hey, some of u might remember me from 3 or 4 yrs ago, I haven't been around for awhile i went thru some bad times and things ::)

sry for disapearing but if u dont mind me coming back i will become a member once again when my paypal is set up. But anywayss.. I was wondering if anyone knows how to determine the caliber of musketballs? I have a dozen or so small musket balls dug from my area and i'd like to know what caliber they are and maybe what gun fired them to date the projectiles and the site im working at. I know calipers would work but i'm limited on funds and cannot afford them plus I dont trust them because not all musketballs are perfectly round. That is why im leaning towards a method I have heard of using a digital scale to weigh the round in grains or grams and convert that to caliber. Do any of you know how to do this properly? Thank You, JakeP

ashleen · Mar 8, 2010

Hey Jake.....good to 'see' ya! Still hunting at the Cape?
I don't know anything about musketballs, just wanted to say WELCOME BACK

JakePhelps · Mar 9, 2010

thanks, i havent been to tha cape in a yr and a half but mite go vacation there or somewhere this summer. from wat I'v discovered so far you are suposed to weigh bullets espescialy ones that have been fired because they get slightly or completely deformed.

Boilermaker27 · Mar 30, 2010

You cannot weigh a minnie ball to determine it's caliber. You must use a micrometer which will give you a precise reading. You could conceiveably weigh a round ball and kind of come up with it's caliber, however balls and minnie balls are way different. Most balls I find are pretty much the same caliber, whereas minnie balls vary wildly. A .58 minnie ball can measure anywhere between, and this is just a approximation, say .55 and .575 and still be a 58 minnie ball.

There is a great book, that you will have a hard time getting your hands on, called "CIVIL WAR PROJECTILES II; SMALL ARMS AND FIELD ARTILLERY" by McKee & Mason. This book give all the information on thousands of minnie balls. Even with this information it is only about 50% of the time I can identify a minnie ball from this book. It lists minnies by the types of base and number of rings. Then it give the caliber which you must measure with a mic. and also the length of the ball. It also give the weight of the ball in grains. I use a gram scale and then convert to grains. You can also just place a minnie ball over the picture as the pictures appear to be life sized pictures.

If you can get this book, your problems are over, but be prepared to pay a pretty penny if you can even find the book.

2bits · Apr 3, 2010

Hi Jake,
Being a reloader myself, I would go to a sporting goods store and purchase a good set of calipers ( a dial caliper about $20, digital $30-$60) You can then accurately measure the diameter of your projectile. Get the calipers in inches not in milimeters! For instance my .45 Long colt shoots cartridges calling for a .452" cal bullet. This is based on what my Smith & Wesson chamber likes. Some guns need a .454" Bullet to fire accurately. So a .50 cal round ball might actually be a .490" ball, taking into consderation patch size. A 54 cal muzzle loader will generally shoot a .530" round ball. HH
Doc

dick99344 · Apr 3, 2010

Doc Holliday said:
Hi Jake,
Being a reloader myself, I would go to a sporting goods store and purchase a good set of calipers ( a dial caliper about $20, digital $30-$60) You can then accurately measure the diameter of your projectile. Get the calipers in inches not in milimeters! For instance my .45 Long colt shoots cartridges calling for a .452" cal bullet. This is based on what my Smith & Wesson chamber likes. Some guns need a .454" Bullet to fire accurately. So a .50 cal round ball might actually be a .490" ball, taking into consderation patch size. A 54 cal muzzle loader will generally shoot a .530" round ball. HH
Doc

Great reply. I use .015" thick Cotton Pillow Ticking patch ( the material weave that bed pillows are made of ) on my .490 round balls. This brings me up to .505" in my .50 cal Frontier carbine. My .530 round balls come up to .545 in my Thompson Center .54 cal Hawken rifle with the same patch material. I get excellent accuracy with one inch groups out to 75 yards off the bench with bore swab cleaning between rounds fired. This is of course after the barrels have been properly shot-in and the loads developed regarding patch size, patch lube, and material, powder charge and type, and the choice of cap brand. For my .50 cal I use: .490 ball/.015 patch lubed with crisco. 85 grains by volume of Pyrodex Select. Homemade #11 caps made with a Tap-O-cap punch from beer/pop cans, using toy cap gun caps with a small Pyrodex P booster charge ( This makes for a very hot cap ). After many hundreds of rounds fired, these are the combinations that work best for me. With good calipers, you can get into the ball park and knowing about the approximate patch thickness, I think, should help avoid some confusion about what may be found regarding round balls. Ball diameter and patch thickness will vary depending on bore diameter of the weapon and the diameter of the swagged or cast round ball. HH

JakePhelps · Apr 27, 2010

Thanks for the replies! So you cannot take a fired musketball and weigh it to determine what caliber it is? as for the unfired ones i guess i will have to go to dicks sporting goods and get a set of calipers :P I have contacted someone that specializes in musketballs so il see if they have any expert oppinion to add and I will post it. Thanks, Jake.

Monty · Apr 27, 2010

Jake, good to see you back! I was just talking to another member about you the other day and wondering what happened to you.

If you knew exactly what the composition of the lead was you might be able to determine the caliber by weight. But it would be a complicated formula I am sure. In most muzzle loading handbooks I have read it gives the caliber and weight of round balls with the reloading information. I believe it is based on the weight of pure lead being used by the person who did the testing for the book. Some people may not use pure lead and it might vary some, but usually pure lead is recommended for a roundball. You might check online under the manufacturers of modern black powder rifles and see what the dimensions and weights they have recommended. Otherwise you will just have to measrue them with a caliper and weigh them converting to grains as stated above. Monty

JakePhelps · Apr 27, 2010

Hey Monty its good to hear from you again, it has been way too long away from tha forum :'(

It's good to be back though. What you are saying makes sense and i know its only possible on round balls not conical projectiles, im assuming lead made hundreds of years ago is not that pure so it will probably be impossible by scale, only calipers.

dick99344 · Apr 28, 2010

Monty said:
Jake, good to see you back! I was just talking to another member about you the other day and wondering what happened to you.

If you knew exactly what the composition of the lead was you might be able to determine the caliber by weight. But it would be a complicated formula I am sure. In most muzzle loading handbooks I have read it gives the caliber and weight of round balls with the reloading information. I believe it is based on the weight of pure lead being used by the person who did the testing for the book. Some people may not use pure lead and it might vary some, but usually pure lead is recommended for a roundball. You might check online under the manufacturers of modern black powder rifles and see what the dimensions and weights they have recommended. Otherwise you will just have to measrue them with a caliper and weigh them converting to grains as stated above. Monty

Great reply Monty. I will submit the following: My .44 Cal round ball (.454) weighs in, before loading, at 141.6 grains. A small ring of lead is removed from the round when it is loaded. The .50 Cal (.490) at 177.5 grains, and the .54 Cal (.530) at 247 grains. These are swagged round balls made by the Speer Bullet Co. and are considered to be dead soft lead (No additives such as tin or antimony) as recommended for muzzleloading use. The lead available today is different than that of yesteryear as to purity. These were weighed unfired straight out of the box. The .44 Cal is used without a patch so it is reasonable to assume that it will lose a slight amount of weight when fired. The other balls are used with a patch and I would think that they would not lose much in the way of weight, in a significant amount, until they hit something. Cast balls can vary in weight due to the sprue that needs to be cut off. I know that at one time round ball calibers were designated by the pound. A certain caliber would be designated by the number of balls in a pound. This is an old way to do it and is not, to the best of my knowledge, used any more. I believe the best way to determine approximate caliber is by the use of calipers as you have said. A soft lead round ball caliber would be difficult, to say the least, to determine by measurement after it has struck something. Determination by measurement of a dropped unfired round would be easy by comparison as you know. HH

JakePhelps · Apr 28, 2010

Thanks for your imput, some of my musketballs weigh in close to that so maybe they are that caliber. I guess the best way is to weigh them to get a general idea and use the calipers to positively identify and compare them. Thanks guys, that so called expert hasnt written me back but if he des il post his 2 cents. Thanks, JP.