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cannon ball question?

birdman

birdman

Member
I just found my first cannon ball and do not know if it has powder in it. I am stationed in Germany and just found this cannon ball at a French/Prussian battle site (1793). It is very corroded and I can not see a plug of any kind.I was told that this ball is a mortar round by a retired army guy I hunt with.I am not sure if the plug(if it has one) is covered with corrosion. What is the chance of this thing still being live? I would like to ship it back to the states in a year but I am sure they would frown on a live round being shipped. It was about two and a half feet down and I found it with a CZ 5 . Thanks for the help. :usaf:
 
Man I dont know thats a hard one i was worried about bringing back beer when i was stationed at wurzburg in 91 but a cannonball? I hope you can get it back thats a great find good luck.
 
I don't know about over there but in the lowcountry of SC they usually form a sort of corrosion cocoon around them. You really have to wash them off good and maybe even do a little gentle tapping/scraping to remove this cocoon. If it has a fuze it could be covered up by this. Another thing you could do is to look for some reference material for artillery for that area/time period and measure and weigh the ball. That could tell you. I've cleaned lots of round balls as well as other artillery shells from the American Civil War and often on the round balls you cannot see the fuze until you clean it enough. You might try running your fingers firmly around it to feel for a slight recessed area. Good indication of a fuze. Be careful and good luck.
Jerry
 
I believe this one has that same "ca coon" I washed it of but I need to get a wood mallet or something to lightly tap some of the corrosion off of it. Thanks for the Information. HH:beers:
 
Just be very careful. If it has a fuse and it's a percussion fuze, it won't matter what you're hitting it with. It doesn't care if it's wood or steel. If you have any doubts at all about what you're doing please get some professional help. These things, if they have powder in them, can still be extremely dangerous. A couple of guys were killed some years back around here by banging on an old Civil War shell they found. And even if you find a fuze, you'll still have to make the ball safe and the only way to do that and keep it intact is to drill it and flush the powder out. Not exactly something you should be doing for the first time without someone experienced around. Good luck and let us know what happens with it.
Jerry
 
Maybe go to a deep rock quarry and drop it over a cliff. That will shake the rust off of it. Just make sure no one is at the bottom. ;)
 
Hi Birdman, congrats on the cannon ball. You earned that one! The lead ball on the left, the larger of the two, could you tell me about it? I am new to relic hunting. I found one this weekend at a cellar site near my home. It looks just like yours. It is a little larger than a green pea and has a nodule on it as if it was broken off of a tree mold. Any idea of the vintage? I'm trying to figure out my site as well as the targets I have recovered so far. Thanks for your help.

Ed-
 
Electrolysis is the first step in the preservation process and this can take a long time in some cases. For shells dug near saltwater it can take up to a year to do it right and even then you might lose the shell if there's been too much salt corrosion. But whatever you do don't start the electrolysis process until you disarm the shell if it's not a solid ball. The electrolysis could cause the powder to ignite. If you go to an EOD team, either police or military, they are probably going to blow the thing to render it safe and then maybe you can keep some fragments. Check with some of the other relic hunters you know and try to get in touch with someone who knows how to do this. It isn't hard but you have to know what you're dealing with and CAUTION is priority one. If you can't find anyone to help you please don't try to do it yourself, assuming you have no experience, just go ahead and talk to an EOD team. No artifact is worth risking your life. Best of luck.
Jerry
 
Thanks to all for the great information.:beers: Ed ,I am not sure what cal. the larger round ball is .I have found several different sizes here.I have some from the states and they are the same size. Must be a common caliber. HH
 
Birdman wrote:
"I just found my first cannon ball and do not know if it has powder in it."

Birdman, I am the "authority" who Vlad mentioned to you about your cannonball. I have 32 years of experience in dealing with (and deactivating) pre-1866 American artillery projectiles. I co-wrote a major reference book about them, titled Field Artillery Projectiles of the American Civil War.
I cannot be certain about your cannonball's actual diameter from your photo, but it appears to be either a 24-pounder or a 32-pounder (caliber) cannonball.
Since (at the moment) you can't see a fuze on your cannonball, the best way (at the moment) to determine whether it contains a bursting-charge or not is to measure it and weigh it. Measuring it will tell us its caliber - and then weighing it will tell us whether it is a solid-shot or a hollow (exploding) shell. For example, if a cannonball is 6.3 inches in diameter, it is a 32-pounder (caliber) projectile. A 32-pounder solid-shot weighs 32 pounds, and a 32-pounder shell will weigh several pounds less - because it is hollow.
Here are the most common calibers for cannonballs, followed by the projectile diameter and weight for solid-shot and shell versions of that caliber.
6-pounder: diameter 3.58", solid = 6.0 pounds, shell about 4 to 5 pounds
12-pounder: diameter 4.52", solid = 12.0 pounds, shell 9 to 11 pounds
24-pounder: diameter 5.72", solid = 24.0 pounds, shell 19 to 22 pounds
32-pounder: diameter 6.3" solid = 32.0 pounds, shell 25 to 30 pounds
42-pounder: diameter 6.88", solid = 42.0 pounds, shell 32 to 40 pounds

Birdman also wrote:
"What is the chance of this thing still being live?"

The chance is small. Most (but not ALL) pre-1866 artillery shells which have been buried in the ground for about 140 years will have "leaked" some groundwater into their powder-cavity. It is NOT safe to assume the powder has spoiled in ALL of them. Therefore, when I deactivate them I absolutely MUST treat every single one of them with at least the same caution I'd treat a modern pistol bullet-cartridge. (You can accidentally drop a live modern bullet on the floor but you'd better be darn careful when "tinkering around" with one.)

Birdman also wrote:
"I would like to ship it back to the states in a year but I am sure they would frown on a live round being shipped."

To ship it from overseas you will have to SHOW the inspector that it is completely empty (or that it is definitely a solid-shot).

Hoping this info is helpful,
ThatCannonballGuy
 
I think I should mention here that the electrolyte-recipe for doing the Electrolysis method of rust-removal on an iron relic calls for only a small amount of lye (one heaping teaspoon of lye added to several gallons of water). By the way, use only pure CRYSTALLINE lye, not a liquid like DrainO or LiquidPlumber.
Regards,
ThatCannonballGuy (Pete George)
 
28 pounds and about 7 and a half inches long. Still needs to be cleaned up so I am not sure how much the weight is off. Thanks for all the great information!! :usaf::detecting: :beers:
 
Birdman wrote:
"28 pounds and about 7 and a half inches long."

Ummm... on my computer-monitor you seem to be holding a cannonball (a roundball). But you say it is "7 and a half inches long." Is it actually a cylindrical (bullet-shaped) projectile, or is it a spherical (roundball) projectile?

Anyway... if it is a roundball and it weighs 28 pounds it is almost certainly a 32-pounder (caliber) cannonball, and definitely a shell - not a solid-shot. A 32-pounder excavated cannonball could easily have enough rust/dirt concretion on it to make it 7 & 1/2 inches in (uncleaned) diameter. That would also explain why a fuze-hole isn't visible on it at the moment.

If it is indeed a shell from a 1790s-era battle, it will have a "wooden-fuze" hole ...usually about 1 to 1&1/2-inch diameter. (Apparently the rust/dirt concretion on the excavated shell is hiding its fuzehole.) When you find the wooden-fuzehole you can soak the shell in a bucket for a day and then use a hammer & screwdriver to chisel out the rotted remains of the wooden fuzeplug. Keep putting water into the fuzehole as you dig deeper into it. (In other words, keep what you're working on REALLY WET.)

And please, NEVER USE A DRILL ON AN ARTILLERY SHELL unless you are properly trained for doing shell-deactivations. There is no such thing as a "small" mistake in Explosive Ordnance Disposal.

When you reach the powder-cavity, flush the cavity out extra-thoroughly, preferably with high-pressure water (not just from a kitchen faucet). Remember, to ship it back to the USA you will need to show a big empty fuze-hole (AND powder-cavity) to the Inspector.

Birdman also wrote:
"Still needs to be cleaned up so I am not sure how much the weight is off. Thanks for all the great information!!"

You're welcome. I learned a lot of it from my shell-mentor, Tom Dickey, prior to his death from cancer back in 1987. Now I try to do for others what he did for me. Meaning, the giving of accurate shell (and fuze) knowledge, for free, to sincerely-interested persons.

Regards,
ThatCannonballGuy [Pete George]
 
Vlad wrote:
"What's somewhat unusual is you must have found it at a shallow depth."

Just for clarification... Birdman said (in his original post about it) that it was about 2 & 1/2 feet deep.

Regards,
ThatCannonballGuy [Pete George]
 
Birdman wrote:
"28 pounds and about 7 and a half inches long. Still needs to be cleaned up so I am not sure how much the weight is off."

Here's a "PS" to my previous reply.
At 7 & 1/2 inches and 28 pounds, another posibility is that it is a 24-pounder ball (diameter 5.7 inches) ...with a very thick rust/dirt-concretion cocoon building the original 5.7-inch iron body's diameter out to about 7.5 inches now.

Or it could be a 32-pounder hollow ball (diameter 6.3") with enough concretion on it to give you a 7.5" diameter now.

By the way, looking at the "texture" of the concretion shown in your photo, I'll hazard a guess that the ball came out of wet soil AT THE BOTTOM of the 2 & 1/2 foot deep hole you dug. That type of thick & "very blobby" concretion is most often produced by a very-damp (or actually wet) soil-environment when you dug down 2 & 1/2 feet. Was it very-damp/wet at the bottom of that hole?

Regards,
ThatCannonballGuy [Pete George]
(who has dug 156 artillery shells in the years since 1974)
 
Someone can get lots of opinions and advice about a great number of things and the worse that taking the wrong advice will usually cause is damage to the artifact. In a case like this much more is at stake. Thanks for bringing your expertise into this topic. It may have saved an artifact but more importantly it may have saved a life. Granted, most ordnance, especially that which has been wet for all these years, is probably safe but who wants to stake their life on it. As I stated earlier, a couple of boys were killed around here many years ago by a shell exploding while they were banging on it. They were probably the last two casualties of the Civil War in the Charleston area. Thanks again and have a good one. BTW, I can't get to any of my books right now due to some remodeling but I think I have yours.
Jerry
 
Ed-NH wrote:
"The lead ball on the left, the larger of the two, could you tell me about it? I am new to relic hunting. I found one this weekend at a cellar site near my home. It looks just like yours. It is a little larger than a green pea and has a nodule on it as if it was broken off of a tree mold. Any idea of the vintage? I'm trying to figure out my site as well as the targets I have recovered so far."

I'm not the digger of that lead ball (it was Birdman), but from your description of the one you found, I have some ID-thoughts for you.

(1) You described your lead ball as being "a little larger than a green pea" ...so it sounds like a .44 caliber pistolball.
(2) About the "nodule" on the ball ...the cast lead ball will (frequently but no always) show a "casting-sprue" on it ...which is a remnant formed by the hole where the molten lead was poured into the mold. It was intended that the sprue be clipped off the ball after the lead hardened, but sometimes that was done only partially.
(3) About the "vintage" ...Among manymanymany other manufacturers, Colt supplied a bullet-mold for its revolvers. But I should also note that .44-cal single-shot pistols had already been in existence for centuries prior to Colonel Colt's revolvers. So, you will have to deduce a time-period from other relics you find at that cellar site ...such as the oldest metal buttons, coins, shoebuckles, etc. You might want to try taking some digital photos of such items and posting them here for ID and dating.

Regards,
TheCannonballGuy [Pete George]
 
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