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Confederate 12 pound cannonball

BladeRunner

Junior Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2013
Messages
41
Hi all.

Just wanted to show off my shell that I found at the beginning of May at a skirmish site where the yanks burned down a train trestle. The site has been hit hard over the years so I was shocked when I dug it up.

It's a Confederate 12 pounder with a copper time fuse adapter. Based on the weight, I was told it's a "standard" shell with only black powder inside which is more rare than the side loader versions with case shot.

It's been flushed, ran through electrolysis and given a wax bath for preservation. As rusty as it was, I thought it would be more pitted, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

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You can definitely make out the mold seam around the center.

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Thanks for looking. GL & HH.
 
Love it, I have been on so many battle sites dreaming of a whole piece of artillery!
 
Thanks everyone!

Super find! How deep was it?

The top of the ball was about 7 or 8 inches down. It was at the base of an old, raised railroad track bed. It was a loud signal. I'm lucky it hadn't been found yet. I know the area has been hunted hard. Lots of railroad related iron sitting on stumps and old logs left by previous diggers.

Here is a pic of the other items I've found at the site. It's not a lot, but I love finding stuff that you know for sure was related to a certain battle. A canister shot, 3 ringer, 2 round balls, Eagle I cuff button, some friction primers and a railroad seal I found the same day as the shell. The other items were found over the course of probably 10 or 12 hunts. There were times I was lucky to find one relic.


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outstanding find and restoration! way to go! You don't find those every day.

How did you get the black power out?

Thank you. I'm not sure how detailed I should get. I was chastised on another forum for disarming it myself and not letting somebody with more experience handle it for me.

With this fuse type, it was pretty easy to go through fuse hole instead of having to drill through the iron. There is already a small hole in the time fuse adapters, so I used a sharp object and punched through the dirt that was clogging the hole. I then put some water in there and used a couple different drill bits to slowing increase the size of the hole. Always making sure it was wet. It honestly probably didn't take 10 minutes to make a hole big enough to start flushing it. I just kept squirting water in there into the black powder mostly stopped coming out.

I have no experience, so don't take any of this as advice or instructions on how to do your own shell. If it had been a Bormann fuse then it would have required drilling the iron since you don't want to mess the fuse up. I'm not sure I would have felt comfortable drilling in the iron instead of the soft copper fuse.

Thanks again!
 
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