Musket Ball?!!!?? :hot:

[digmeahole]

From all I cant tell researching this on the net its a real musket ball 1/2 inch in size and heavy as heck for a small ball. Found it today in my backyard! Please confirm or bust my bubble

Thanks!!!

 

[dixiedigger57]

i believe half inch is .50 caliber? looks like a musketball to me! if its lead, its gotta be. there were some 72 calibers, 69 calibers, a a lot of different odd ones. if its steel, ball bearing. too small for grape shot i think.

 

[digmeahole]

i believe half inch is .50 caliber? looks like a musketball to me! if its lead, its gotta be. there were some 72 calibers, 69 calibers, a a lot of different odd ones. if its steel, ball bearing. too small for grape shot i think.

Feels like lead... I can make a slight indentation with my fingernail.....But the only weird thing is that is shows up on the x-terra as 28 and from what i understand lead would be around 10. I know they used what ever metals that had available back then but 28 seems high to be just lead..... Any ideas??

 

[Jim West Pa]

n/t

 

[digmeahole]

n/t

Even i can tell this not modern...look at the pics! what ever it is has been around longer then me...

 

[dixiedigger57]

well it could be a few decades old. a local relic counterfieter, known by collectors locally, he buries modern musket balls and stuff in a sewage type creek full of waste water from a farming industry. the phosphates turn lead white white chalky. he sells at antique shops as civil war relics. crook! the soil conditions could possibly do it. in the civil war era as today, some people swaged or cast shot out of what they had, could not have been pure lead. i cannot think of another reason for a round lead ball. Georgia soil in some places is just plain mean!

 

[Treasurechic]

I have dug alot of Musket balls of all sizes and they do read higher than you would expect on your detector, As they are pretty dense. It sure looks like one to me, sometimes they come up looking white and then sometimes they have a brownish patina. On another note I have a bowl full of these things, I can't believe someone actually counterfeits them!

 

[digmeahole]

I have dug alot of Musket balls of all sizes and they do read higher than you would expect on your detector, As they are pretty dense. It sure looks like one to me, sometimes they come up looking white and then sometimes they have a brownish patina. On another note I have a bowl full of these things, I can't believe someone actually counterfeits them!

Seriously! I found 2 in my backyard and i just found 1 of these...mini balls they were called?

 

[Treasurechic]

Yep, the bullet shaped one is a mini ball, if you find a musket ball that looks like an egg in a frying pan it means that it had hit a target, most round ones are those that were dropped accidentally as loading them was cumbersome.

 

[digmeahole]

Yep, the bullet shaped one is a mini ball, if you find a musket ball that looks like an egg in a frying pan it means that it had hit a target, most round ones are those that were dropped accidentally as loading them was cumbersome.

The mini ball looks like it found its target! Wish it could talk!

 

[dixiedigger57]

believe it or not, some jerks sell the counterfeit balls for a couple bucks each for souvenirs. heck, i just give them away to locals who show an interest in history. has opened some doors, or lots and land, i should say, for digging more!

 

[Kossie]

Not all musketballs are Brown Bess calibre. Just like todays rifles and pistols come in different calibres, so did they in the old days.
COuld be pistolet balls or small game riffle calibre.