Is this grapeshot?

[stevengugas]

Found a few items today. Not sure if this is grapeshot or not. I've pictured it next to a 69 cal musket ball found close by it. It's round but not smooth like a musket ball. It is also larger, its 3/4" in dia. and appears to be iron not lead. Also found what looks to be brass. It's 1 1/2" long by 1/4. Almost looks like kind of a stud for a bayonet but its very small. Also found my first arrowhead next to the musket ball. Very excited about that find!

 

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[Charlie P. (NY)]

The brass piece is the plunger from a coil-spring plunger latch.

 

[Old Pueblo]

Excellent ID, you beat me too it.

 

[Old Pueblo]

Great stuff! That arrowhead is awesome, and if you found it next to a musket ball, maybe there was a Rev War battle with the Indians there.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

First... my answer assumes you found those balls at a spot where a civil war battle happened. An unfired musketball is pretty much "perfectly round." Your somewhat out-of-round lead ball is either a fired musketball or (I think more likely) an artillery Case-Shot ball, which is an antipersonnel ball from inside an explosive artillery shell. (See the photo of a sawed-in-half US Dyer Case-Shot shell, attached below.) That ID is suggested by the iron ball you found "close by." The iron one is too small to be a Grapeshot ball. I think if you beat all the rust-encrustation off it with a hammer, it would be about the same size as the lead ball. It could be either a Case-Shot ball or a Canister-ammo ball from a Rifled Cannon canister. For example, Hotchkiss 3"-caliber Canister ammo contained over 100 iron balls the same size as the one you found.