Is this what I think it is?

[tabdog]

I found this close to what I believe was a Confererate
artillary installation.

It is copper and soldered very well.

It's 2 3/8" tall and 2 1/8" in dia.

It looks like a cup.

I think it is a 3 lb cannon shot cup.

I have not been able to ID it for shure.

I put some musket balls in it for this photo.
It will hold over fifty of them.

I found this mini ball within 50' of the ? cup.

Happy Hunting,

Tabdog

 

[RelicDigger1]

Tab, the bullet is a CW-period minie ball while the copper cup will have to go into the "remains a mystery" category. It is not a round for an artillery piece (ie, cannon).

There is a rimfire-type lip on the bottom of which no artillery rounds from the CW or earlier were rimfire.

The seam along the one side would exclude it as a projectile immediately as it wouldn't fit a weapon's bore snugly, providing too much windage, or gap. With too much of a gap, there would only be a big "whoosh" when the tube (cannon) is fired and the projectile with the large gap between the bore and the projectile's sides would land traveling about 15 feet before impact.

The OD of the piece itself also rules it out as a projectile. What many who haven't studied artillery assume is that there is cannon for the three inch round shot they found. If a six pounder was 3.58" in OD, then a three inch OD ball must be a four pounder or five pounder. And a two inch is a three pounder, etc.

There are no CW tubes (cannons) below a 6-pdr, which has an ID of 3.62 and, therefore, a windage of .04.

There are, however, smaller iron projectiles you'll see in the museums listed as "4-pdrs" etc. But they are usually from a site that dates to the 16th and 17th centuries on the U.S. east coast or in Europe.

Well, at any rate, you didn't ask for all of that. My apologies for the lengthy talk on artillery rounds. Wish I had better news. But the bullet is a CW era minie ball.

Richard