Exotic projectiles?

[CorporalofMarines]

I am trying to ascertain which exotic loads were actually used and how.
I cannot locate the document that I read a while back but there is some proof that the patriot militia used links of chain during the British retreat to Boston in '75. Whether these were loaded still connected or taken apart and used as buck-shot it did not say. The idea of a wound created by a length of chain is entertaining to say the least.
(^If you have any information on the use of 'chainshot' in muskets I'd like to hear about it please).

There was also talk of 'split-shot' or musketballs cut in half (or in some cases even quarters) This make sense, one discharge gets you multiple projectiles (the gas seal is reduced unless patched). The problem is that when these were excavated on sites they were not found in areas that indicated their use as ordnance but as tokens in board games.

If you know of a creative musket projectile, please share it.

 

[coloradoclyde]

:hmm: I thought chain shot was a cannon round......

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

:hmm: I thought chain shot was a cannon round......

Same here ...

 

[George]

Exotic loads such as you mention, including egg-shaped balls, balls with a cavity behind (probably the first conical), balls molded in 4 parts held together only at one small place so they would break apart on impact, and a kind of chain shot, but not made from chains, are described, I don't know if they were actually put into action, although some testing was done with some of them.

The chain shot was two balls fastened together by a short length of flexible wire, similar to that used in cannon, but no chain

Problem is, these were all devised for rifles, not smoothbores or muskets. My reference is the English book Scloppetaria, 1808, by Capt. Henry Beaufroy, originally published as “Scloppetaria, by a Corporal of Riflemen”

Spence

 

[CorporalofMarines]

Thanks Spence
Some confusion may be arising out of our expectation that everything made from lead was a musket projectile. Splitshot (below) sounds like something you would discharge from a musket but its apparently a fishing device (sinker?).
Here's a pic: http://1715fleetsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/181.jpg

Could you perhaps list the ammo types you've encountered in your research?
I'm always willing to learn about the creativity of the people of this general period.

 

[George]

I don't recall many other than those I mentioned, unless you count 179 buckshot as being exotic.

The Pennsylvania Gazette
March 15, 1770
BOSTON, February 26.
"The People on hearing the Report of the Gun, seeing one wounded, and another as they thought killed, got into the new Brick Meeting, and rang the Bell, on which they soon had Company enough to beset the House Front and Rear; by the latter of which they entered, and notwithstanding the Menaces of Richardson, and his faithful Aider and Abettor George Wilmot, seized on both, and wrenched a Gun from the latter, heavily charged with Powder, and crammed with 179 Goose and Buck Shot."

John James Audubon, from Audubon and his Journals:
"... both hunters went after the Buffalo, slowly at first, to rest Owen’s steed, but soon, when getting within running distance, they gave whip, overhauled the Bison and shot it twice with balls; this halted the animal; the hunters had no more balls and now loaded with pebbles, with which the poor beast was killed.“


Voyage of Discovery, Wm. Clark’s journal: September 11, 1804
"...he [George Shannon, one of the nine young men from kentucky”] had been 12 days without any thing to eate but Grapes & one rabit, which he killed by shooting a piece of hard Stick in place of a ball”¦Thus a man had like to have Starved to death in a land of Plenty for the want of Bulits or Something to kill his meat."

THE VIRGINIA GAZETTE
September 22, 1774
LONDON, July 11July 13. We hear from Haltwistle, that on Thursday last, a Collection of wild Beasts being in a Barn, a large Russian Bear broke loose, and instantly devoured two of the other Animals of the Collection; then made an Attempt upon one of the Keepers, who narrowly escaped with his Life. Upon this Alarm, the whole Town assembled together around the Barn, and fired several Times at the Beast, but to little Purpose, as they could not readily procure Balls, but at last a young Gentleman shot it dead with a small Marble.

I assume that last was with smoothbore, possibly a fowling piece, same for the first, but the second and third may have been with rifles.

Spence

 

[robinsroost]

Marbles I can believe Spence. When I was a wee small lad, I had a collection of clay marbles. They were nearly round and glazed in a few different colors, and about the size of a .45 or .50 caliber round ball.......Robin :hmm:

 

[George]

Splitshot (below) sounds like something you would discharge from a musket but its apparently a fishing device (sinker?).

The examples I cited were only one source, and the "chain shot" described there was only for that source. It doesn't mean no one else ever did it a different way.

In fishing, the splitshot I know is just that, a small round lead piece split/cut in the middle, so you can place it on the line and easily squeeze it closed to secure it there. I don't recognize the objects in your picture.
http://www.bulletweights.com/Products/FishingSinkers/SplitShot-Reusable.aspx

Spence

 

[BrownBear]

In fishing, the splitshot I know is just that, a small round lead piece split/cut in the middle, so you can place it on the line and easily squeeze it closed to secure it there. I don't recognize the objects in your picture.

Having survived the Depression, my grandpap was a crafty sort who hated to spend money. Rather than buying split shot, he had a bag of buckshot he also used loading shotshells. He'd lay shot on a steel plate, press down with a butcher knife, and hey presto. Split shot. He was so tight fisted in fact, that when he came across free lead or his homemade split shot got too beat up to use, he'd use a little ball peen hammer to pound out round "shot" of assorted sizes, then back to the steel plate and butcher knife for more split shot.

You ought to have seen what he managed with pigs and chickens from his yard, and game from the hills. Nothing left but the squeal, and not a penny spent.

Sure reminds me of everything I've heard and read about folks living on the frontier "back in the day."

 

[coloradoclyde]

A friend of mine was going to throw away a broken dead blow hammer... I snatched it right up.....I got a good 5 pounds of shot out of it...

 

[CorporalofMarines]

Thankee, very interesting.

 

[CorporalofMarines]

Historically they have been used by the poorer European armies for practice. Several Russian regiments trained with ceramic balls instead of lead. I've personally used modern glass marbles (5/8" bought in bulk for pennies on the dollar) in .69 and .75 cal muskets. They can be rolled into paper cartridges but even when double shotted they give off about 50% recoil. Their lighter density means that they don't retain the kinetic energy as well. Same for clay marbles. Very few easily pliable substances are actually as dense as lead. I know the Russians also tried used garnet type rock which could be shaped easier. This too was too light to be of any practical use.
I did find that the glass marbles will penetrate particle board of about .5" thickness at 50yds.

 

[George]

There are other exotic projectiles described in Scloppetaria, apparently for rifles, but the section starts with "Attempts have been made to approximate the effects of the plane to rifled barrels, by varying the figure and shape of the ball..", which makes me think the same had been done in smoothbores and was then being tried in rifles. Two of the experiments were pretty radical.

"...some were found to answer well, which were cast as to their foremost hemisphere and zone, just as common balls, but whose after part terminated in four fliers. not unlike the sails of a smoke jack, and which were set at a certain angle to the axis of the ball. The wind acting on these fliers caused the ball to spin”¦"

For the non-historical amongst us, a smoke jack is a mechanism for turning meat roasting before a fireplace. A gadget like a modern electric fan with big blades set at an angle was put up the chimney, and the rising heat made it revolve. Hooked to the spit through gears, the meat revolved.

"Another method also, which we have seen tried successfully enough at 100 yards, but no further, was to bore in a common musket ball a small hole about two tenths of an inch diameter : a piece of string from four inches to fourteen, doubled in the middle being inserted into the hole, and the lead beat over it, the two ends were left hanging loosely from the lead : on firing balls prepared in this way against the common spherical ball, the former had a decided advantage, as to the up and down direction, the deviation to the right and left being comparatively trifling, while the latter were in all manner of directions round the target."

I've seen several discussions on the smoothbore boards about that one with the string tail, usually in a thread which starts with dimpled balls, like golf balls.

Spence

 

[Farren55]

I know of one type of exotic shot and that is cut-let (aka Cut-lead) balls simply put lead is melted into a simple channel (usually made from 3 pieces of wood nailed together into a U) taken out and then rolled into a small roll.

When shot the bar it cut with a knife, axe or bayonet so the shot are roughly the size of a roundball. In some modern testing the cut-let balls were found to be more damaging on impact with comparable accuracy to the roundball.

This round was popular with the Ottomans between the 15th-end of the 17th century to my knowledge.

 

[tom deinek]

My daddy was so cheap he washed out his tobacco-pipe cleaners & reused 'em.

May he RIP

 

[SCATTERSHOT]

I have read more than once of the exploits of Sir Samuel Baker in Africa. Once he found himself with no bullets for his muzzleloading rifle and a down but not out animal that was bent on rearranging his anatomy. He pulled a handfull of sixpence coins from his pocket, loaded them, and proceeded to take care of business.

Maybe not quite what you had in mind, but an interesting story, anyway.

 

[RAEDWALD]

A French load was the balle ramee (stick shot) which was two musket balls joined by an iron rod 1 or 2 cm in length. This was a 16/17th century item generally.

Two balls connected by a much longer length of wire was more likely an anti rigging load for use at sea.

 

[Britsmoothy]

A French load was the balle ramee (stick shot) which was two musket balls joined by an iron rod 1 or 2 cm in length. This was a 16/17th century item generally.

Two balls connected by a much longer length of wire was more likely an anti rigging load for use at sea.

From cannon?

Often wonder what a tear drop shaped bullet saboted somehow would fly like.

I have loaded a single glass marble for short range and it does work well for smallgame but err so does shot, wait a minute.

B.

 

[RAEDWALD]

The Balle Ramee was a musket load.