Todays Finds: CW Cleaners

silverbar · Nov 23, 2014

I was able to get out for a bit today here in NC. I did not find much, but was able to come up with a couple of Type lll Williams Cleaners. I found a zinc piece to another and rechecked the hole, but the bullet was not there. The little brass piece came off of a valise. HH!

HomeGuardDan · Nov 23, 2014

WTG man... I remember my days digging in Raleigh, Cleaners type III were by far the most common bullets we dug. One camp alone I dug over 500 of them out of with perhaps as little as 50 three-ringers. Def in sherman's corp camps from 65 if you are digging them. Good luck bud.

silverbar · Nov 23, 2014

Thanks HomeGuardDan! I have hit this spot hard over the past year. I have found a bunch of ringers, including some from the Richmond Labs but these are the first two Cleaners that I have found. From what I have read the troops did not like them and just tossed them to the side. I hope to find more. I'd love to find 500

HH!

CaptainCoil · Nov 23, 2014

Nice digs!

UnderMiner · Nov 23, 2014

Love finding bullets. Nice ones! :thumbsup:

HomeGuardDan · Nov 23, 2014

silverbar said:
Thanks HomeGuardDan! I have hit this spot hard over the past year. I have found a bunch of ringers, including some from the Richmond Labs but these are the first two Cleaners that I have found. From what I have read the troops did not like them and just tossed them to the side. I hope to find more. I'd love to find 500 HH!

If finding Richmond labs then you are also on part of Wheeler's cav movements. I found a few pockets of them near Morrisville and ended up digging some nice SC buttons. True about the cleaners, but also there were stockpiles left by 1865 and that is what the US Army resupplied the troops with...they went from 1 cleaner for every 5-10 bullets to mostly all cleaners. We found them in the camps from Wilmington's and Goldsboros's resupply points through to Raleigh. Perfect example is that we found an average amount on federal point (prior to the fall of fort fisher) though after the fall of wilmington, the camps to the north were full of them. (post resupply).

Raleigh was fun to dig...I managed to find some really nice undug camps all around the city and that was not too long ago (2000-2006).