What were these used for? Why were they made?

[ken135]

I have found these over the last 4 yrs while metal detecting an old 1860's fairground site in Indiana. I know they are small flattened lead pieces but have no idea why they were made.
My first thought was they were small checker pieces for kids to play with, being a fairground site....a little something for the kids.



Thanks for taking a look.

 

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[Lenrac2]

Omg! We have been finding similar square flat lead pieces in a similar type area that we are wondering about!!
About the same size too!

 

[Red-Coat]

I don't see any relationship between the two types of lead piece nor any resemblance, but might the first items be flattened slugs from fairground shooting galleries?

 

[flinthunter]

I think Red-Coat nailed it. They do look like fired/flattened 22 rounds.

 

[crashbandicoot]

Just a thought but most of these shooting galleries use a frangible bullet that essentially turns to powder when it hits a hard back stop.Sintered lead I think.Don,t know if they had them in the 1860,s.

 

[Red-Coat]

Just a thought but most of these shooting galleries use a frangible bullet that essentially turns to powder when it hits a hard back stop.Sintered lead I think.Don,t know if they had them in the 1860,s.

We don't know how old these might be, but injuries from lead bullet fragments ricocheting off metal targets at 20th-century amusement park shooting galleries encouraged development of frangible bullets in specialized .22 Short gallery loads.

From “A Brass Cup, A Pinch Of Powder, and A Lump Of Lead: A Short History of the .22 Rimfire Cartridge in the United States” by Hap Rocketto:

The frangible bullet was designed to disintegrate upon impact and was manufactured for the shooting gallery market. They were sold by Peters Cartridge Corporation as the Krumble Ball, Remington offered the Splatter-Less and Special Gallery, while Western Cartridge Corporation promoted Kant-Splash, and Winchester produced Splatterpruf. The most common bullet weight was the traditional Short weight of 29 grains but a lighter 15-grain composition bullet was available. During the 1930s and early 40s the market for this type of bullet was quite large as this was the era when no self respecting arcade, carnival, amusement park, or county fair would be found with out a shooting gallery.

 

[Garscale]

Those are flattened bullets from hitting a steel plate.

 

[ken135]

I never thought of them as bullets because they were so small and in various sizes/weights.

From google: 1 gram = 15.43 grains

 

[petejc]

Those frangible 22 bullets were not invented til modern times and they were called "Crumble balls"...Don't think they were made back in the 1800's. Just my opinion.

 

[Red-Coat]

Those frangible 22 bullets were not invented til modern times and they were called "Crumble balls"...Don't think they were made back in the 1800's. Just my opinion.

As per my post #7, frangible .22 bullets were at their height of popularity in the 1930s-1940s and had been developed largely in response to ricochet accidents at shooting galleries in the earlier 1900s. Before that, cast lead .22 Shorts were used.

 

[pepperj]

The shooting gallery that I ran for a bit (early 80's) was steel BB shoot, full auto, 100 per customer .
After hours it was a case of unhooking the safety chains and seeing how far one could blast a beer can down the runway.