not a great story but it just shows how great this hobby can be and getting others involved even if they don't metal detect, i went detecting with melonhead & beachboy sunday morning to swansea beach , beachboy told us different spots to go around the area . as a detecting days goes it was not the best even tho the tide was right out and myself melonhead & beachboy got our detecting heads on the signals were not to many and the wind was very strong most of the morning. we got together a few times to chat and show little what the three of us found and it was not very much ,as the day went on we were finding a few shrapnel bits , and i did find a button ,and i did get a type of bullet (lead ) meeting up with the guys again beachboy found three bullets and melonhead i think two,that's was the finds of the day for us . i had enough by 2pm and as my foot was playing up and also my pinpointer packed in and the spare battery i had was flat as well, we decided to go . thanked beachboy for the maps he had done of places for us to detect on in the futher so melonhead and i went homeward, as i was driving home thinking not a very good day out at all company great as ever but finds were on the minus as far as i was concern. when i got in and emptied my very little finds i did have a think on the bullet i found and thought i would take it in to work to show Jonola a D.W. member but don't go out now and as he is a ex military man and loves anything to do with military stuff would show him the bullet, so took it to work yesterday to show Jonola but he did not know what type it was and never seen one before !!!. so i took it into our office as there are work engineers there and i know that one guy there his father works in the main admin office who deals with ballistics asked him would he show his dad and tell me any info he could get on the bullet ......................... so today in work at break time i went to see the guy and there were three guys in the office i said " come on guys have we any info on the bullet i found and have i any info off the ballistics man" one of the other engineers had got more info off the internet and the three of them had done some looking up for me and were very keen and interested in the bullet and they had photo copied this for me on the bullet................................ used by the Indian regiment in the British army between 1850 to 1858, ok i know you can find lots of these on a beach but its just getting folks involved and interested in stuff we find down to just a single bullet that i never really was interested in until now , seeing what was involved with it in its time of use.
photo below shows the kit issued to the Indian regiment at the time and the Jacobs rifle that the bullet was used in the same rifle that the Indians used when they turned against the British,and the bullet i found.
One of the more unusual sharpshooter rifles was the Jacob’s, the brainchild of John Jacob, one of those brilliant, eccentric British Army officers who spent his career in India.
He had spent 25 years improving rifled firearms, carrying on experiments unrivalled even by public bodies. A range of 200 yards sufficed in cantonments, but at Jacobabad he had to go into the desert to set up butts at a range of 2000 yards. He went for a four grooved rifle and had numerous experimenal guns manufactured in London by the leading gunsmiths and completely at his expense.
Jacob, like Joseph Whitworth, was renowned not only as a soldier but as a mathematician, and his rifle was as uncoventional as its designer. Rather than using a small .45 caliber bore Jacob stayed with more conventional .57-58 caliber (Bill Adams theorizes that this would allow use of standard service ammo in a pinch). In any case his rifle used four deep grooves and a conical bullet with corresponding lugs. Though unusual the Jacob’s rifle, precision made in London by master gunsmiths like George Daw, quickly gained a reputation for accuracy at extended ranges. They appealed in in particular to wealthy aristocratic scientists like Lord Kelvin, who swore by his. Jacob wanted to build a cannon on the same pattern, but died early at age 45.
