Help with identifying my projectile

[Ringo#01Cat]

Hi,

I inherited this bullet/ projectile from my grandfather. His family was all from Alabama and fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. I've taken it to a military historian who works for the U.S. Parks Service and he was stumped. The curator at my local museum who deals with military history was also at a loss and is now researching it but I haven't heard anything back from her yet. I measured it using a set of calipers and it's a .58 caliber so it's not small. The main issue is that it's not made of lead but it's actually steel and quite heavy. It's the size of a minie' ball but it's solid at the bottom. I'm guessing it's possibly a Confederate bolt of some kind or an experimental type of round. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated by me and my family.

Thanks,
Jerry Hooper

 

[Joe Whitworth]

What's it measure at it largest diameter, is it .58 or is that the base? My gut feeling is it's missing a lead or brass driving band that would bump the diameter up some. YMMV

 

[Rhea Cole]

Hi,

I inherited this bullet/ projectile from my grandfather. His family was all from Alabama and fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. I've taken it to a military historian who works for the U.S. Parks Service and he was stumped. The curator at my local museum who deals with military history was also at a loss and is now researching it but I haven't heard anything back from her yet. I measured it using a set of calipers and it's a .58 caliber so it's not small. The main issue is that it's not made of lead but it's actually steel and quite heavy. It's the size of a minie' ball but it's solid at the bottom. I'm guessing it's possibly a Confederate bolt of some kind or an experimental type of round. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated by me and my family.

Thanks,
Jerry Hooper

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I am always reluctant to speculate on something that is not obvious. That being said, there are a couple of possibilities that include a very mundane & a very special round.

Williams cleaner bullet has a base & plunger that could be what you have. Read more here.

Link

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Williams-Cleaner-Bullets-and-loose-cleaners_fig3_372373401

Link

Williams Cleaners

This selection of Williams Cleaners from my personal collection shows each of the three types that were produced during the war. From left t...

dan-masters-civil-war.blogspot.com

A less likely but much more interesting possibility is this being an explosive round. Read more here.


Link

https://americansocietyofarmscollectors.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Gardiners-explosive-musket-shell-Civil-War-Hamilton-v120.pdf

 

[UCVRelics]

Being steel there is no way it's a Williams or exploding bullet . It's also not Confederate as we could not make steel during the war.

 

[Rhea Cole]

If you are not familiar with Fuller's The Rifled Musket it will be a revelation. Not only does it cover every model of long arm purchased by the U.S., the projectile chapter is informative. The exploding bullets used by both sides at Gettysburg are a bit of a surprise. Internet Archive is free with a registration. It is a vast resource. Read more here.

Link

The Rifled Musket : Fuller, Claud E. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

archive.org

 

[DoctorKingSchultz]

Exploding bullets are my first inclination, while also imagining alternatively, some visible factory molding... I will not claim or say anything though with certainty yet. Looking forward to seeing what the thread cooks up. I am as stumped as your USPS historian if this is steel. Something @Rhea Cole you might want to note is that fact, for Gardiner bullets are still ultimately lead. Likewise this looks nothing like any of the various commercial British designs of exploding bullets either, looks very American. I guess that is a lead then, unless anyone can shed light this is certainly an American design. It shouldn't be confusing why the projectile being steel, unless there is some kind of guiding sabot like with a rifled artillery projectile makes this all the more odd.

As with many of these types of posts, identifying exactly what this fuze-like shape fused into the tip of this projectile is, would be of great help in figuring this all out. It would also be invasive, but... what is inside? if you really don't want to cross-section this - and if it is as odd and rare as it seems, probably not desirable, anyhow - an x-ray should show us something, if there is an inside shell cavity, or if the strange shape at the top is indeed a priming fuze like in a Gardiner design. I don't know much about x-raying such small ordnance but it definitely tells you a lot about artillery projectiles.

This is the key to figuring it out as far as I can help and think. I will not pretend to know exactly what this is or how to figure it out, but I hope we can get somewhere with these thoughts. That's my two cents.

 

[Ringo#01Cat]

At the moment the bullet is on loan to the Guilford Museum of History and I'm, therefore, not able to furnish any measurements or weight at the moment. I recall measuring it with a digital caliper and figured that it was a .58 caliber. I think, given the tip, that it is some sort of exploding round. Could it have been a bolt, given that it's made of steel, instead of a rifle bullet?

 

[DoctorKingSchultz]

At the moment the bullet is on loan to the Guilford Museum of History and I'm, therefore, not able to furnish any measurements or weight at the moment. I recall measuring it with a digital caliper and figured that it was a .58 caliber. I think, given the tip, that it is some sort of exploding round. Could it have been a bolt, given that it's made of steel, instead of a rifle bullet?

Maybe someone can shed light but - it almost has to be a rifle bullet. What "artillery" is .58? If it was for something like a Billinghurst Requa Battery Machine Gun (Machine gun is on the patent!) then it would ultimately still be a rifle projectile (Billinghurst Requa is like having a dozen Maynard carbines mounted together). Can't think of any "field" piece below 1" bore diameter. Various manual machine guns are .58 or close though so I guess it should still be on the table. It doesn't look like any particular design I've seen. With that again in mind, there are even buck and ball cartridge designs for the Gatling gun..


While bolts also refer to the solid shot of a rifled gun; an explosive cavity and/or fuze of some kind would make it something other than a bolt, i.e. like a shrapnel/case or shell shot.

One thing seems certain in that the projectile is unique. It is steel but that doesn't prevent it being for smallarms; steel bullets isn't a foreign concept, and there are many experiments throughout that century, much as with ours in projectiles. For obvious reasons it makes it unlikely to be for any muzzleloader, but I can't really assume that for certain, especially with the appearance seeming to suggest it.

Looking forward to seeing how all the research on this thing goes.

 

[Rhea Cole]

At the moment the bullet is on loan to the Guilford Museum of History and I'm, therefore, not able to furnish any measurements or weight at the moment. I recall measuring it with a digital caliper and figured that it was a .58 caliber. I think, given the tip, that it is some sort of exploding round. Could it have been a bolt, given that it's made of steel, instead of a rifle bullet?

Musket rounds were made of lead. No steel was produced during the Civil War for making rifle projectiles. There is no reason to identify this round as anything but a lead clean out round with an iron base & plunger.

 

[Ringo#01Cat]

Musket rounds were made of lead. No steel was produced during the Civil War for making rifle projectiles. There is no reason to identify this round as anything but a lead clean out round with an iron base & plunger.

I'm going to have to disagree with you regarding the materials the projectile is composed of. I've had it looked at by a National Park Ranger as well as other Civil War historians and they all agree that it is steel and has no lead content. I think my next step is to send it to an ordnance expert company who can, hopefully, make a definitive determination about it's age and use. As of right now, I'm leaning towards it being something experimental or something that comes from a later time period than the Civil War or European. The only other idea that hasn't been mentioned is that it might, perhaps, be part of a tool mold for creating bullet molds for field use.

 

[Ringo#01Cat]

Also, if you'll notice there is no change in the patina throughout the projectile from the top to the bottom and on the tip there's a slight chip that shows rust and the base has no creases where it should show it would be attached to the top portion. It's very solid aside from where the tip/ fuse(?) goes into the top of the bullet. My research has found that iron was used during the Civil War albeit for artillery purposes/ rounds and not for something this small.

 

[Rhea Cole]

I'm going to have to disagree with you regarding the materials the projectile is composed of. I've had it looked at by a National Park Ranger as well as other Civil War historians and they all agree that it is steel and has no lead content. I think my next step is to send it to an ordnance expert company who can, hopefully, make a definitive determination about it's age and use. As of right now, I'm leaning towards it being something experimental or something that comes from a later time period than the Civil War or European. The only other idea that hasn't been mentioned is that it might, perhaps, be part of a tool mold for creating bullet molds for field use.

I am glad they have done so…

No steel was produced in the U.S. until late 1864. No commercially significant steel production was produced until after the war was over.

On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of clean out rounds were included in standard issue ammunition.

At Stones River the site where the reserve ammunition train was during the afternoon of December 31, 1862. Soldiers considered the pink paper wrapped clean out rounds were a wasted shot. Over 300 of them were found where soldiers dropped them.

Apparently, you will want to refer to park rangers familiar with Civil War ordinance. There is nothing unique or unusual about this example.

This all I am going to contribute on this thread.

 

[Joe Whitworth]

No doubt it's ferrous and a casting is line visible. It definitely would need a brass or lead driving band(s) to be fired or inserted into a brass cartridge case. The rod in the nose appears to have been hammered on, perhaps to drive it in which chipped the nose. We have no way of knowing if there is a cavity in the bullet or merely a drilled hole with the rod pounded in but I think the rod goes the whole way thru and is peened over on the base. If I'm wrong either way, the bursting/incendiary charge would be very small plus the problem of fusing. You wouldn't want to drop a round using an external nose detonator. I'm sticking with the theory it's an iron projectile drilled thru and an iron rod hammered in place for what ever reason. YMMV
BTW my US M1842 pistol made by Johnson and dated 1853 has the barrel marked "STEEL".

 

[Ringo#01Cat]

No doubt it's ferrous and a casting is line visible. It definitely would need a brass or lead driving band(s) to be fired or inserted into a brass cartridge case. The rod in the nose appears to have been hammered on, perhaps to drive it in which chipped the nose. We have no way of knowing if there is a cavity in the bullet or merely a drilled hole with the rod pounded in but I think the rod goes the whole way thru and is peened over on the base. If

Thank you for your comment. I'm going to try to think outside of the box about this based on your observation regarding the rod being driven into it. Could this, instead of it being a bullet, be something more mundane such as a plum bob? The only thing with this idea, however, is that there's no way to attach a line to it because there's no eye on the end of it and the lubrication grooves which make it more bullet-like as well as the overall shape of it.

 

[R. Porter]

Thank you for your comment. I'm going to try to think outside of the box about this based on your observation regarding the rod being driven into it. Could this, instead of it being a bullet, be something more mundane such as a plum bob? The only thing with this idea, however, is that there's no way to attach a line to it because there's no eye on the end of it and the lubrication grooves which make it more bullet-like as well as the overall shape of it.

I was going to suggest that maybe it's not a bullet. If it isn't, we may never find out what it is.

 

[iron bender]

It kinda reminds me of a scale counterbalance.

 

[Ringo#01Cat]

I don't think it's a weight. It's not stamped with a weight on it and it's not made to stack or hang.

 

[RetiredCanuck]

Easiest way to verify steel/iron vs lead is to put a magnet on it.

 

[Ringo#01Cat]

It kinda reminds me of a scale counterbalance.

I really appreciate your help with my investigation. I saw that you were in Texas. I'm from Texas also but my late wife kidnapped me and took me to North Carolina against my will. At least that's what I tell people who ask how I ended up out here. My third great grandfather was actually a signer of the Republic of Texas Constitution and I will always consider myself as a Texan no matter where I live.