two ring Bullit

[jimzz977]

I hunted a old butterfield stagecoach stop called Mason Fort in Nm. I found this bullet wondering what rifle in was shot from

 

[BosnMate]

Pat Garrett probably shot it at Billy the Kid. In other words, your guess is as good as mine. We need some exact measurements in 1/1000 of an inch, to come up with a caliber of the gun, hence the probability of which type of firearm it was fired from.

 

[BosnMate]

I took the liberty of rotating your picture so it can be seen without getting a crik in the neck, hope you don't mind.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Lead bullets for "hand-held" firearms have been made in more than a dozen calibers, ranging from .17" to .71" in diameter. As BosnMate said, to be able to make even an "educated guess" about your bullet, we need you to borrow a digital caliper and measure your bullet's diameter in hundredths-of-an-inch, as shown in the photo below.

We also need a closeup photo of your bullet's base. Is it flat and solid, or does it have some kind of cavity in the base, such as a cone or bowl-shaped depression?

While we wait for the diameter-measurement and base photo:
In general, pistol bullets from the late-1800s to the present tend to be shorter than rifle bullets. Going by that rule-of-thumb, your fired bullet is more probably from a pistol than a rifle.

Also, if a bullet's encircling body-groove has multiple tiny parallel ridges in it (which iscalled a "reeded" or "knurled" groove), it was not manufactured any earlier than about 1878, and could from be from ANYTIME since then up to the present.

That being said... body-grooves without the tiny parallel ridges don't automatically mean a bullet is from before 1878, because bullets are still being made today without the tiny parallel ridges in the body-grooves.