✅ SOLVED Need Help With .570 Diameter Bullet ID Please

[flinthunter]

Found this today. Its been fired so the length might be a little short. The diameter is pretty consistant at .570 and the length is .710. There have been quite a few 69 caliber minnie balls found in the area that this was found in but I don't believe this dates that early. Any help with caliber and or age is appreciated. Thank You.

 

[parsonwalker]

I thought Enfield for sure until I saw the flat base. Is the small round part in the center of the base lead or brass? If brass, perhaps a broken Williams cleaner?

 

[flinthunter]

I thought Enfield for sure until I saw the flat base. Is the small round part in the center of the base lead or brass? If brass, perhaps a broken Williams cleaner?

Its all lead.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

On a no-bodygrooves bullet, that flat base with a snipped-off circular mold-sprue is typical of .54-caliber "Country Rifle" bullets. To see sideview and baseview photos of one, click on the following link and scroll most of the way down the webpage to the 9th-from-last bullet.
19th Century Bullet Collection - Tom Henrique

Or perhaps this link, going directly to that bullet, will work:
19th Century Bullet Collection - Tom Henrique

But you say your bullet's diameter is .570-inch. If you are sure that measurement is accurate, it can't be a .54 Country Rifle bullet... and no .57 or .58 Country Rifle bullet is listed in any of my bullet reference books. However, because there are several known calibers of Country/Picket rifle bullets (such as .40 and .42 and .54-caliber), I suppose there is at least a theoretical possibilty that somebody made a mold for .57 or .58-caliber "Country Rifle type" bullets.

 

[ivan salis]

look at a 58 cal Williams cleaner type bullet --it looks as thought it might have once had a "zinc base" like the wiliams cleaner type bullets do.

 

[flinthunter]

On a no-bodygrooves bullet, that flat base with a snipped-off circular mold-sprue is typical of .54-caliber "Country Rifle" bullets. To see sideview and baseview photos of one, click on the following link and scroll most of the way down the webpage to the 9th-from-last bullet.
19th Century Bullet Collection - Tom Henrique

Or perhaps this link, going directly to that bullet, will work:
19th Century Bullet Collection - Tom Henrique

But you say your bullet's diameter is .570-inch. If you are sure that measurement is accurate, it can't be a .54 Country Rifle bullet... and no .57 or .58 Country Rifle bullet is listed in any of my bullet reference books. However, because there are several known calibers of Country/Picket rifle bullets (such as .40 and .42 and .54-caliber), I suppose there is at least a theoretical possibilty that somebody made a mold for .57 or .58-caliber "Country Rifle type" bullets.

Thanks for the links. I was a machinest for 40 years so I am sure of the diameter. The area it was found in was a staging area in Central Illinois for local troops before they were sent south to fight in the Civil War.

 

[flinthunter]

look at a 58 cal Williams cleaner type bullet --it looks as thought it might have once had a "zinc base" like the wiliams cleaner type bullets do.

Thanks for the info. I'll check into it.

 

[Bob-E-Pin]

Cannonball guy is on the money as usual!

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

I am reasonably certain it is not a Williams "Cleaner" bullet because:
1- Williams bullets always had body-grooves, and your bullet has none.
2- Williams bullets never had a moldseam on the base of the bullet's main body -- and a moldseam is clearly visible on your bullet's base "outside" the snipped-off circular mold-sprue at the center of its base.

 

[flinthunter]

Thanks everyone for all the replies. Unless someone can prove different I am going with TheCannonballGuy's opinion and call it a country rifle bullet.

 

[ivan salis]

good choice.