Musket ball..

[Dusty]

Shot in the dark (  pun    ) but is it possible to date a Musket Ball?



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[herbie]

I know this doesn't really help with dating them, but was talking to FLO about them a couple of weeks ago,he was saying that they used to be made in tall towers and the liquid lead would be dropped in at the top, as it fell it naturally formed a spherical shape and then plunged into cold water at the the bottom of the tower, that was how they made them en mass, but obviously when on campaign there wouldn't have been this facility so they were the cast on site from two halves, so if you find any with a rim around the middle it may be an indication of some kind of military action / encampment in the area.

[Chef Geoff]

Not with any great certainty no. And this is why
 

The greater certainty comes from the right hand (large) one as these weigh aprox 2oz and their circumference fits just inside that of a decimal penny when placed on it and viewed downwards, these are generally from match-lock muskets of the civil war (mid17thC).
Unfortunately shotguns are a relative new invention and so hunters/farmers/poachers would all use musket balls of differing sizes, dependant on game and obviously the larger bore would overlap that of the later military type.
The smaller ones also have multiple possibilities.......Pistol/Petronel/Fowling Piece or even a Punt gun.

The Shot Tower method that Herbie's FLO is referring too, doesn't really appear until after it was patented in 1782, before this all shot was moulded.

[Dusty]

Ah well not to worry, much thanks anyway!

Still, a nice bit of history to add to the collection