Exploding Bullet??

[rpkennedy]

Thank you. I hope your "piling" system is more organized than mine.

I can assure you, it's not.

Ryan

 

[Package4]

I have a hard time believing it was wormed and reloaded. Remember that civil war ammunition was rolled into cartridges. To reload a minie ball that had been wormed, you'd have to tear open another cartridge to get the powder. Why not use the fresh minie ball that is perfect and will fly true? If it is a blow out, it had a casting imperfection.

If the round was wormed, but could not be removed, then fired to remove it, this is what it would look like. Definitely not an explosive or Williams bullet. Many wormed rounds were from soldiers coming back from picket duty, if the round stuck you had two options, back it out of the breach or fire it.

 

[Package4]

It could be a williams cleaner with the center shaft and disc missing.

The Williams bullet cavity is very different compared to a standard .58 Burton:

 

[treebie2000]

I would very much appreciate having the references you cite for my folder on exploding & poisoned bullets.

I just read this last week...I believe it was cited in Pfanz': Gettysburg, Day Two, but can't swear to it...

http://npshistory.com/series/symposia/gettysburg_seminars/9/essay5.p

"We drop a comrade's tear"
Colonel Edward Lyon Bailey
and the Second New Hampshire Infantry at Gettysburg
Karlton D. Smith

"During this time, "a shell struck and burst on the cartridge box of Corporal Thomas Bignall, of Company C. The cartridges were driven into his body and fired, and for nearly half a minute the devilish 'musket shells' issued at Washington were exploding in his quivering form. But death was mercifully quick." A fragment of shell also burst the cartridge box of Sergeant James M. House, Company I, and the "rapidity with which he tore off the infernal machine hanging by his side was astonishing ...""

 

[Rhea Cole]

I just read this last week...I believe it was cited in Pfanz': Gettysburg, Day Two, but can't swear to it...

http://npshistory.com/series/symposia/gettysburg_seminars/9/essay5.p

"We drop a comrade's tear"
Colonel Edward Lyon Bailey
and the Second New Hampshire Infantry at Gettysburg
Karlton D. Smith

"During this time, "a shell struck and burst on the cartridge box of Corporal Thomas Bignall, of Company C. The cartridges were driven into his body and fired, and for nearly half a minute the devilish 'musket shells' issued at Washington were exploding in his quivering form. But death was mercifully quick." A fragment of shell also burst the cartridge box of Sergeant James M. House, Company I, and the "rapidity with which he tore off the infernal machine hanging by his side was astonishing ...""

Thanks for taking the time to look it up.

 

[Taureau]

View attachment 343670
Here's a fired bullet from a .58 calibre Springfield. This was standard ammunition used by the Union troops at Vicksburg.
This bullet is unusual, however. When I found it, I noticed that it had some type of internal trauma resulting in an outward explosion.

View attachment 343671
Here's a view looking at the top of the bullet. It almost looks as if it was hollowed out and supported a black powder charge.

View attachment 343672
Here's a view from the bottom of the bullet.

I've dug bullets before that had been fired and distorted as the result of casting flaws before, but nothing like this one.
Any ideas out there? Could this indeed be some type of improvised exploding bullet??

I have read in "The Professor and the Madman" that during the battle of Wilderness, northern troops had a new type bullet that exploded on impact. However, it did not explain anything else about it.