my six bullet day with olddigger

[GRAY GHOST]

hello all, after nearly two weeks of rain, olddigger and myself finally got in a 3 hour hunt today. we decided to go to the old mansion site in the woods, it being about a half mile from my house, and about a half mile from the battle of arrowfield church. we soon left the old house site and began hunting the surrounding woods. coming to a slight rise, we began finding shot 3 ringers and figured the yanks were shooting at the rebel forward pickets. i also found an odd shaped shot enfield, and a shot .44 ball. olddigger found a like amount, as well as some brass and lead whatzits. the complete iron watering bit i found is being cleaned now. it wasn't a boatload of finds, but we sure did have a good time. one can tell there was some cavalry action around, we must have found 10 horseshoes. enjoy, and hh,

 

[mattockman]

Either they were bad shots and was shooting the horseshoes off the horses or there was a battle and whoever won camped there and did some reshoeing at camp and discarded the shoes there...maybe its worth some research and deeper digging.....cool....great finds.....! look for a spot in all metal with tons of targets and you may find a bottle dump with all kinds of relics.....you never know.....

 

[treasurefiend]

Nice

 

[Cal_Cobra]

Gray Ghost how do you clean your iron ?

 

[on-edge]

cool are these what they call miniballs?

 

[GRAY GHOST]

hi, on-edge. the three-ring types shown are indeed called minie balls. they came in .58 and .69 calibers, and are big and heavy. some of the bullets shown just barely glanced off the ground, while some of the others hit hard objects and mushroomed out. it would be a really bad day to get hit by one of these things. it's no wonder amputations were so common. hh,

 

[GRAY GHOST]

hi, calcobra. a lot of the iron stuff i find is heavily deteriorated and crusty. i have always simply knocked off all the encrustations with a small tack hammer, then wire brush the piece. depending on the look i want to achieve, i will clearcoat the piece with polyurethane, or paint it with a high quality, rust-resistant paint. renaissance wax - the stuff museums use - is expensive, so i don't buy it. the key of it all with preserving iron is to stop oxygen from reaching the metal itself, and stopping the rusting process. it works good for me. i found a complete civil war era watering bit, hook and all yesterday, 2 pieces still joined, so it's next on the agenda. hh, and thanks.

 

[coinnut]

Nice finds there Gray Ghost. You must have quite a collection of bullets by now. Seems you find a bunch almost every time you go out. They are rarer here. I have these 4 and the carved chess piece and maybe 2 or 3 others somewheres. That's over the course of many years hunting. You seem to get them regularly. Great finds. Love seeing them pop out of the ground. And I agree, they probably amputated your arm, without a doctor's help Seems up here, all they can do is lose them. Maybe they just can't aim straight Not many seem to be fired, but I guess they must have been. Keep finding them. HH