Some serious shooting here!!

MaineRelic · Jun 24, 2009

Hit an intown spot today ! I was surprised by the # of signals this little tucked away spot it town had !! A lot of big lead !!!!!!! I picked up the fancy shoe buckle as well !! and the coin next 2 the brass buckle, it is a badly corrided shield nickel! This will give u a size comparison to the lead!!50 cal an inch and 1/2 long , I also picked ip a badly corrided cameo frame !! and the eagle button!!I am curious what took place here with all that big old lead in the ground!!!! Any Info on these lead shots would be appreciated !!! MaineRelic.

steif · Jun 24, 2009

Hi,
They look like standard issue 45/70 or 50/70 bullets, used in the trapdoor springfields and a lot of other rifles, they could be bought from sears and roebuck in the 1890's for $3-$4. they were and still are popular deer hunting rifles, it looks like you might have stumbled onto a old target range, or the guy was a bad shot and never hit his deer.... ::)

neat finds and it is unusual to find a bunch like that together, I first thought it might have been where someone was casting a few bullets to reload and dropped them, but some are fired and smooshed where they hit something, so it was probably a target range..

Montana Jim · Jun 24, 2009

Well... Steif - great ID I was JUST ABOUT to post...

Your lead bullets are either .47-70 or .50-70 rounds... no clue if they are late 1800s or newer as they are still made by hand and fired today by enthusiasts.

Springfield trapdoor rifle.