need help with bullet id

[rickbrk]

Can anyone help with possible caliber and age range of these bullets. There were all found in one field. The dime is for scale, I thought it mite help.

 

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[Joseph Gilbert]

Can anyone help with possible caliber and age range of these bullets. There were all found in one field. The dime is for scale, I thought it mite help.

<img src="http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=726303"/>

Um the top one looks like a mini ball

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

The dime in the photo is helpful, but not enough to be sure about the caliber of each bullet. For that, we need super-precise measurement of each bullet's length and diameter, done with a Digital Caliper, in hundredths-of-an-inch.

Until you can provide that data, here's the best I can do at identifying your bullets, and their age-range:
Bullet at top resembles an unfired civil war era US .52 Sharps bullet, but there's something odd about it which MAY mean it's not a Sharps. Need more photos, showing that bullet's base (it is too dark in the current photo), and a true "sideview" so wee can see the nose's curvature and whether the nose has a flat tip.

Bullet at right has tiny parallel lines inside the body-grooves. That is called "reeded" grooves. No American bullets had a reeded groove until about 1880 -- so that bullet can't be any earlier than 1880 and is very like a lot younger than that. Based on the dime, it looks like a .45 pistol bullet. Precise measurement will tell us the caliber.

Lower right, a large lead ball which may or may not be a musketball. Based on the dime (which measures about .70-inch), the ball looks a good bit larger than .70-inch in your photo. There were almost no musketballs used in America that were larger than .72-inch diameter. Need precise measurement.

Bullet at lower left appears to be a .38-caliber 20th-Century bullet.

Bullet at left is a fired civil war era 3-groove .58-caliber Minie-ball. Being fired and very "smushed," there's no way I can be sure whether it is a yankee or Confederate one.

 

[rickbrk]

Thank you cannonballguy i will get more pics and detailed measurements asap. They were found in a field 30 miles south of san Antonio tx. There were Spanish settlers in the area due to the many Spanish missions in the area ie the Alamo. Could the musket ball be Spanish or possible Mexican?

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Yes, depending on its diameter, the lead ball may be a Spanish (or other Colonial-import European) musketball. In the 1500s through early-1800s, there were a few gigantic-caliber muskets, such as the French .807-caliber Model-1840 and .858-caliber Model-1831 muskets.

Or, it could be "just a lead ball." Super-exact measurement will tell us, because if a lead ball doesn't precisely match up with any known "smoothbore" firearm, it's not a bullet.

 

[rickbrk]

I have taken several measurements around the lead ball it goes between .720 and .725

 

[rickbrk]

Here are a few better pics and measurements. Diameter is .504 and the length is .860 hope this helps.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

That measurement is precisely appropriate for a British .75-caliber "Brown Bess" musket of the 1700s to early-1800s.

The Brown Bess musket which your .75-caliber musketball was intended for might have been captured by Americans from the Brits in the 1814 Battle of New Orleans, and afterward got carried not-so-very-far westward across the Louisiana border into Texas. That is just "theorizing," of course, but it is a very possible explanation.

 

[rickbrk]

That is very exciting. That makes this possible the oldest item i have dug so far.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

About the .504" diameter bullet you provided new photos of:
As I said, it very closely resembles a civil war .52 Sharps bullet, but is a bit different. The new photos, and precise diameter and length measurements, indicate it is a .Sharps .50-caliber Model-1869 Rifle bullet. That type came in a metal cartridge. If you look extra-closely at the bottom of the bullet's nose, a bit above the upper body-groove, you'll see a tiny line that is called the "crimp-mark" from the metal cartridge.

Sorry to have to tell you, it misses being a civil war era bullet by just a few years. There's a possibility yours was from the yankee Occupation troops in Texas during the Reconstruction period. But it also could be from buffalo hunters there during the same time-period and years afterward, until the buffalo were pretty much wiped out.

Pardon me please, I forgot to mention earlier:
Rickbrk, welcome to TreasureNet, and to its What-Is-It? forum, which is the best place on the internet for relic-identification.

 

[rickbrk]

Thank you cannonball for your help with the id. I love to learn about the little pieces of history I find. Now i will work on figuring out the clay marbles I found. Thanks again.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Please be sure to save any metal cartridge casings you find which are .44-caliber or larger. Some of them could be from the civil war or the postwar yankee Occupation years. For example, the metallic casing from your .50 Sharps bullet should be somewhere in the same vicinity.

 

[rickbrk]

Well i do have this one and maybe a few more. It's .502" right under the head and about 1.5" long of what's left of the length. The head stamp has an F at 12:00 and 94 at 4:00 could this be it's casing?

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Based on what you said, it sounds like the distinctive "headstamp" marking on the base of cartridge-casings manufactured at the US Frankford Arsenal. The "94" would be for 1894, which is well-after the primary time of use of the .50 Sharps rifle. Also, your .50 rifle bullet was made by the Sharps Co., not at a government arsenal. Need to see a well-focused closeup of the markings on the casing's base to be sure.

 

[rickbrk]

Here is the best pick i could get.



you can barley make out the f and 94 the casing and bullet were not found together but in the same field.

 

[rickbrk]

Maybe a little better

 

[BosnMate]

[SIZE=+2]"Arms of the Mexican Infantry 1835-1836[/SIZE]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]by Ed Dubravsky[/SIZE][/FONT]

[SIZE=+2]W[/SIZE]hen Mexico won its independence from Spain, the fledgling country found itself with a large supply of Spanish weapons. By the time of the Texas Revolution there were still thousands of Spanish weapons in the armories of Mexico. Since Mexico had no major facilities for producing the additional weapons necessary for its army, it subsequently procured arms from other sources. Available records show that they possessed a number of arms orginating from different countries including the United States.
In the mid 1820s Mexico bought a large number of British arms and issued these to its regulars and active militia battalions. It's doubtful that Mexico used any weapons other than those supplied by the British during the Texan campaign because weapons standardization for the purposes of supply and spare parts was a vital issue.
Though there exists no precise description of these arms, some evidence has surfaced through archaeological research. This evidence suggests that Mexico armed its infantry with the India Pattern musket, a 39 inch barrel of .752-.760 caliber. It weighed nine pounds, eleven ounces and came with a seventeen inch socket bayonet that itself weighed one pound. In essence, it was a cheaply made version of the famous "Brown Bess". It was not subject to the same rigid standards and testing as the usual army muskets and many of these were quite inferior."

The battle of the Alamo was in 1836, which predates percussion caps, which I think were invented in 1836. At any rate, it looks like the Mexican Infantry was armed with the Brown Bess musket at the Alamo. I've owned an original India pattern Brown Bess, and other than the barrel and lock markings, I couldn't see much of a difference between it and the musket the British issued their own troops, although at the time I wasn't really looking, and I didn't have the guns side by side, I owned them at different times. That's beside the point, there are plenty of reasons that Brown Bess musket balls could be found in Texas. Approximately 1500 Mexican troops attacked the Alamo.