For the panel

[405]

A friend asked me to ID a small box full of old original cartridges and bullets the other day. There were the usual 45-70s, 38-40s, 44-40s, 38-55s, 38-56s, a 56-50 Spencer, even a 40-90 paper patch Ballard :)

In the box were two cast minie balls that I'm clueless about. They appear to be unfired and have the look of 150yrs of sitting in/on the ground with the hard oxidation crust. They are soft lead. They are smooth sided. They have a fairly thick skirt and the hollow is .425" deep. They measure about .565" diameter and weigh about 500 grs.

If you were to 2x wrap paper patch these with thin cotton paper they'd end up about right for a 58 cal minie shooter at something like .572-.575" diameter.

So, for the historians out there and there are many on this forum:

were paper patched, smooth-sided minies used in the mid 1800s?
could these have been meant for something like a 24 ga smoothbore?

[gnoahhh]

Looks for all the world like an Enfield bullet. They, unlike our .58 Miniés, were intended to be loaded greased cartridge paper and all down the bore. Pretty hard to get a true diameter with 150 years of oxidation on it.

[405]

Good idea!! European origin was in back of my mind also. Since both specimens measured within +/- .002 of .565 I'm guessing that measurement is fairly close. While the bullets do have the classic layer of hard, light colored oxidation, the photos seem to exaggerate it a bit. The surfaces aren't so degraded when viewed in person. The .565" would surely suggest the paper cartridge idea or something similar. I haven't seen enough old, original Enfield bullets for comparison.

[405]

Bingo! I believe gnoahhh gnailed it :) I knew the panel would come thru.

After a short focused bit of research I found it is near certainly a British Enfield bullet. I found a couple of good references to swaged and cast 57 caliber hollow based, smooth sided, round nosed "minie type" bullets used for the Enfield- called the Pritchett bullet. One directly referenced a 500 gr bullet nearly identical to this one. When issued, they were either carried as paper patched bullets in boxes sometimes with wooden plugs in the bases to protect the skirts or carried in boxes already in the form of a paper cartridge.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Gnoahhh did nail it. These are in fact minies typically purchased with and for the Enfield type rifles the Feds quickly bought in England when the war broke out and are commomly found on early eastern battlefields such as those of the Peninsular campaign. The Confederates imported these kinds of rifles and their munitions and accouterments via the "blocade".

BvT