Ammo Hard Rammed Minies

Tom Hughes

Sergeant Major
Joined
May 27, 2019
Location
Mississippi
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Here's a couple of .69 calibre minie balls that I found at a Vicksburg campaign site that were hard rammed down the musket barrel during the fight.
Black powder musket barrels fouled easily and the more it was fired, the more difficult it was to ram the bullet home, leaving a deep distinct ramrod impression in the tip of the soft lead bullet. You can only imagine the soldier putting his shoulder into ramming the bullet down the barrel in the heat of a fight and probably mumbling a few choice profane words in the process.
These type of minie balls are fun to find and tell a story about the use of small arms as a battle progressed.

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Another example from the same battlefield. This one is a .58 minie.
 
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That's not surprising. I can just see a soldier thrusting the rammer down over and over trying to seat a minie in a hopelessly fouled bore. A Williams bore cleaner round helped some. But don't seat that round and you'll end up singing with the Choir Invisible
 
View attachment 337519
Here's a couple of .69 calibre minie balls that I found at a Vicksburg campaign site that were hard rammed down the musket barrel during the fight.
Black powder musket barrels fouled easily and the more it was fired, the more difficult it was to ram the bullet home, leaving a deep distinct ramrod impression in the tip of the soft lead bullet. You can only imagine the soldier putting his shoulder into ramming the bullet down the barrel in the heat of a fight and probably mumbling a few choice profane words in the process.
These type of minie balls are fun to find and tell a story about the use of small arms as a battle progressed.

View attachment 337529
Another example from the same battlefield. This one is a .58 minie.
Tom this picture of the .58 right here looks like an Ramrod fired minnie. See the small teat at the top as well as the compressed sides/base
 
That's not surprising. I can just see a soldier thrusting the rammer down over and over trying to seat a minie in a hopelessly fouled bore. A Williams bore cleaner round helped some. But don't seat that round and you'll end up singing with the Choir Invisible
Or as I read somewhere recently, using something to hammer the ramrod and get a minie to seat in a heavily fouled bore, or ramming the rammer against a tree etc
 
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