Musketball babbit?(new slug added 5/3/11)

naturegirl · Apr 24, 2011

I found this hunk a lead (I guess), it looks to have been melted at one point. Not really close by, but in the same area I found what I'm fairly sure is a musketball. So, my question, for youn's that find alot of this stuff, is it too much of a stretch to think this babbit came from making musketballs? It's got a nice patina, about the size of a half dollar. Thanks!

aka da Prof · Apr 24, 2011

Re: Musketball babbit?

I think it looks like a 'modern' slug that passed through its target at close range

naturegirl · Apr 24, 2011

Re: Musketball babbit?

Thanks aka da pro, from what I've been reading, I guess weighing it will tell me something useful. I can't find an image of anything close, if it's a fired slug. it does look like something forceful happened to it. thanks :icon_thumleft:

TheCannonballGuy · Apr 24, 2011

Re: Musketball babbit?

Naturegirl, the rather wide "spread" and very thin "splattered" edges of that fired bullet, and also its white-ish patina, indicate it is a "pure-lead" bullet from the middle-19th-Century era. So, you may have found a civil war era bullet. From approximately the 1880s onward, most bullets were made of a "hard-lead" alloy -- which doesn't develop the white-ish patina we very often see on excavated "pure-lead" bullets from the civil war era.

As accurately as you can, please measure all of your bullet's dimensions (width, length, & thickness), and tell us the measurements. That will help us estimate its caliber -- and perhaps its time-date. Knowing a bullet's caliber is very important for time-dating ...because after the 1870s, almost all nations quit manufacuring pistols & rifles which were larger than .45-caliber.

naturegirl · Apr 24, 2011

Re: Musketball babbit?

Thanks cannonball guy-will do. I also found another lead ball with the same patina not so far from this one. If they date to 1850ish, given where I live, there is a chance the indiginous people fired the gun, not many white people here at that time.
I'll get measurements.

aka da Prof · Apr 24, 2011

Re: Musketball babbit?

and thank you, Mr. C.G.-- I will us this info in the future-- da Prof

TheCannonballGuy · Apr 25, 2011

Re: Musketball babbit?

aka, da Prof wrote:
> I will use this info in the future.

Since you plan to use the info in the future, I'll add a bit more for your use.

In the back-side photo of Naturegirl's bullet, look at the bullet's lower center. You'll see a medium-grey (but not shiny/silvery) area. That's where some of the Pure-lead's thick patina flaked off. (Probably happened when she was digging the bullet.) In comparison to Pure-lead's patina, Hard-lead patina is significantly thinner -- it doesn't get thick enough to flake/scale off.

naturegirl · Apr 25, 2011

Re: Musketball babbit? {new pics}

First-thank you for your input CG, I appreciate it. Here are two clearer pictures, and I've included a round musketball I found two weeks ago in the same 10 acre area. I knew when I dug it up the color was special because of the Cival War bullets I've seen posted here. Thanks for explaining the patina, notice the round one is somewhat whiter than the splat. The round one's measurement across is 13.3mm, and it weighs exactly 9 grams. Buckshot, a t-netter, has a 44 caliber cast ball and it weighs 9 grams exactly also. Do you think that's what it is, then, a 44 caliber?

Here are pictures of the splat's measurements, (digital callipers are just fun!)And it weighs a whopping 24.8 grams! It was big, wasn't it? I dug it up next to a large dead tree, maybe it hit the tree?

Last, because I'm just shaking my head at the coincidence, I included a picture of the Long Rifle I'm sculpting at work. Last Friday, buckshot explained all the mechanics of the gun to me and I read some history on the guns too. Then I left work, went detecting and found the splat! :headbang:

Thanks for looking
naturegirl

Charlie P. (NY) · Apr 25, 2011

Re: Musketball babbit?

I like the sculpted musket. :thumbsup:

I do a lot of muzzleloading with flintlocks.

As a bit of side "splatology". If you find concentric rings on the backside it was some kind of conical - not a round musket ball. Likely either a hollow-based shotgun slug or Miniè type bullet. Revolver conicals and many more modern bullets had a solid base and usually some portion of that survives (unless it hits a truly immovable object).

PS - Babbitt is a metal - usually an alloy of tin, that was used for bearings. Up to the 20th century most cast bullets were pure lead. Once smokeless powders came out (1880 +/-) folks started adding antimony (or a tiny amount of tin) to harden the lead for the increased velocity to keep it from smearing into the rifling when shot.

PPS - I have recovered some of my own lead musket balls (I recast/recycle) and they have that much patina/oxidation in just 15 years of soil immersion. Depends on ground minerals & other factors. If the new owner is a detectorist they may think a Revolutionary War battle was fought there. I also find dozens of modern slugs (deerslugs) and those from the 1930's look about like those from the 1980's. Remember: no site that isn't a National or State Park is sealed from modern "inclusions". I found a bunch of WWII era .30-06 brass & bullets at a local tot-lot. It had been a field 30 years prior and possibly an "unofficial" shooting range before that.

TheCannonballGuy · Apr 25, 2011

Re: Musketball babbit?

Naturegirl, thank you for providing the size-measurements, and especially, the precise weight. The precise weight is super-important in this case, because damage from impact tends to change a bullet's shape but not its weight. So, yes, the smushed ball you found is most probably a .44-caliber pistol-ball.

As Charlie P. mentioned (thanks, Charlie!), the large cavity in your bullet's base means you found a type of bullet known as a "Minie-ball" (even though it isn't actually a ball). That, and its large caliber, excludes your bullet from being a 20th-century bullet ...unless it is a Reproduction made for modernday Blackpowder hunters -- but its very thick patina strongly indicates it isn't a Repro.

Because you gave me the precise weight of the "splat" bullet, I was able to do some checking for you. I weighed three different calibers of dug civil war Minie-balls (a .54-caliber, a .58, and a .69), to determine which caliber you found. Your bullet's precisely-measured weight (24.8 grams) is right in line with the 25.3 grams weight of my .54-caliber minie. (The .58 weighed 32.6 grams, and the .69 weighed 45.2 grams.) I also weighed a .44-caiber Colt Dragoon revolver bullet. It is 16.1 grams, so your "splat" bullet is definitely a lot heavier than any caliber of pistol-bullet.

I expect you'll be hoping to learn your "splat" Minie-ball's specific ID. Unfortunately, that can be difficult to determine with much certainty when a bullet is smushed/smashed/splattered. However, I seem to see 3 indented grooves encircling the base of your bullet. The third groove is visible in only one area on your bullet, the lower left edge in the photo, but I'm pretty sure it's there. Most (but not all) 3-groove minies were yankee-made, so that is very probably what you've got.

In view of your bullet's "splatter," your guess that your minie struck the very-nearby old rotted treetrunk has a good chance of being correct. Please keep hunting that site, because where there's one fired bullet, there's usually more of them. And, let us know if you have some more luck there.

Lastly... just in case Buckshot didn't mention it, regarding your sculpted musket... it is the "Flintlock ignition" type, meaning its hammer used a piece of flint to strike a spark which would ignite the gunpowder. Flintlocks date from the 1600s into the early-1800s. Flintlocks were officially obsolete by the time of the civil war, but some did get used in it.

naturegirl · Apr 25, 2011

Re: Musketball babbit?

Charlie and C.G- thank you! I have learned alot, and it's been very interesting. I'm new to metal detecting and these are the oldest items I have found, what a blast! This site has a lot of possibilites and I can't wait to get back out there. It's rural, lot's of hunting done there, but maybe 3 old homesteads and other interesting history. Seems my first insite to it's history will be the hunters. Never been a gun person, but with these bullets and the gun I'm working on, I find them pretty interesting :laughing7:

I knew about the flintlock because I have a thing for flint too. Having to sculpt one really makes me appreciate the workings of the gun. And now the evolution of firearms. I'll give this one a 'green check',

Thanks so much!

naturegirl · May 3, 2011

Re: Musketball babbit?

Not sure if I should have added my new find to this thread or started a new one in 'today's finds', but I wanted Cannonball guy and Charlie to see this new slug. I went back to the tree and just a few feet from the splat, I dug another slug. It's weight is a hair over 25 grams, so I'm guessing it's a 54 caliber also. The patina isn't as white, or is it? Anyway, it's very interesting to me. The tree they were under was a really big one, big enough to hide behind. I wonder if these might have been fired at someone hiding behind the tree? I know, no way of knowing for sure, but I can wonder.

Can anyone tell me how far these slugs might have traveled? I plan on expanding my search out from this tree. Here are pictures of the new one, please tell me if it isn't the same thing as the splat. Thanks for looking! :hello:

TheCannonballGuy · May 3, 2011

Thank you for taking the time to make the excellent photos, and for providing measurements of both diameter and precise weight. The measurement data allows me to confirm what an eyeballs-only inspection indicated. Sorry to have to tell you, your newest find is not a Minie-ball, nor any variety of civil war bullet. Your "slug" (as you called it) is indeed a slug -- from a shotgun. It is a type of shotgun slug manufactured in the late-1800s on into the 20th-Century.

Identification-characteristics:
Although such shotgun slugs do have a cylindrical body, it is a very short cylinder, not even as tall as its width. For comparison, you will notice that cylindrical bullets for pistols and rifles are generally 50%-to-100% taller than they are wide. (Translation: a typical civil war .58-caliber bullet -- meaning, "about" .58-inch wide -- is "about" an inch tall.)

It is true that a "tall" cylnder can be shortened by "splattering"/"mushrooming" sideways -- which is what happened to the .54 Minie you dug. But, notice that the "top" of your slug shows only a very small amount of sideways splatter. That shows the slug wasn't very tall to begin with ...probably at the most, no taller than its (pre-impact) width.

An eyeball-estimate of your slug's width, based on the nearby ruler, is "about" 3/4-inch. That width indicates it is a 12-gauge (bore-diameter .729-inch) shotgun slug ...but there's a chance it is from an antique 14-gauge (bore-diameter .693-inch) shotgun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_(bore_diameter)

I've never bothered to Save a photo of a 20th-century shotgun slug. Perhaps somebody here has such a photo. I know there is a US Patent for a "rifled" shotgun-slug -- but yours obviously is not that kind.