Thing to extract a bullet?

[Dave Wilma]

What was the tool with the curled sharp end used to extract a bullet stuck in a barrel?

 

[huskerblitz]

A worm?

 

[rosefiend]

I was thinking "a probe" until I saw that you were removing a bullet from a barrel, and not from an actual person.

 

[Jobe Holiday]

The "...curled thing with a sharp end..." is a worm for cleaning patches. What you want is called a "ball puller" and looks much like a wood screw with a fast taper.
J.

 

[Legion Para]

Civil War bullet/ ball puller.

 

[Cumpston1862]

A couple of bullet extractors found still embedded in the round.

A minie with the tell tale marks of a bullet worm.

 

[frontrank2]

A worm screws on to your ramrod ( or cleaning rod ) and is used to extract linen cleaning patches. It will not extract a stuck minie ball. You need the ball puller in order to accomplish that task.

.58 cal. worm

 

[jpro]

The photo shows my pulled bullet collection that I've managed to recover here in Nashville. I do like digging them.
Means soldier had to touch it 2x!!!! LoL

 

[Patrick H]

I think it's very good to have the difference between a worm and a ball puller shown here. I've seen both tools previously. I didn't know until tonight that a worm was exclusively for pulling out patches, wads, etc. Good to know!

 

[Dave Wilma]

Great information. Going into the novel. This tool will be used to extract a bullet from a flintlock pistol in 1920. Thanks to all.

 

[Poor Sharecropper's Son]

I was thinking "a probe" until I saw that you were removing a bullet from a barrel, and not from an actual person.

"from an actual person" was my first thought as well

 

[Frederick14Va]

I think it's very good to have the difference between a worm and a ball puller shown here. I've seen both tools previously. I didn't know until tonight that a worm was exclusively for pulling out patches, wads, etc. Good to know!

Granted the intended purposes for the worm was to extract foreign objects such as wads, cleaning patches, debris etc.... However necessity being the mother of invention... There is evidence that occasionally the worm was utilized to extract projectiles.... Excavated conical bullets bearing these marks are occasionally found...

In one location years ago while relic hunting in the yard of a period home that was on the border of a battlefield.... I found about two dozen extracted bullets in about a ten foot circle... probably some Sergeant or Ord guy tending to fouled up or misfired weapons... Interesting mix of Minie's, Gardiners, and Enfields... most were pulled using screw extractor... but about a third of them had been extracted obviously using a worm..

 

[rosefiend]

This is what I think of any time the topic of bullet extraction comes up. This is Georgeanna Woolsey on her first day in a hospital ward (she was training to be a Civil War nurse):

"I remember it gave me a little shock that first day in the ward to hear the young "house" [physician] say peremptorily: "Nurse, basin!" I presented the basin promptly, and as promptly tumbled over in a faint at seeing a probe used for the first time."

Yep, that would do it.

 

[Rebforever]

The photo shows my pulled bullet collection that I've managed to recover here in Nashville. I do like digging them.
Means soldier had to touch it 2x!!!! LoL

View attachment 83281

Make good hollow points.