Are these Civil War Era 3-ringer Minie balls?

Went back to the park that produced an 1877 seated dime and an 1894 Barber half dollar on the same hunt, hoping for a repeat. Instead, pulled out 2 silver Roosevelt dimes a mercury dime, and 2 mushroomed lead bullets.

These 2 bullets were only a few meters apart, and around 5 inches deep. The severely mushroomed bullet weighs 34.64 grams, and the other 34.41 grams. They are both about 15mm wide. The hollow back is around 9.5mm deep.

It’s hard to image finding 2 Minie balls on the same day, only a few meters apart, in a Northern California park. After 4 years of detecting, have only found a single Minie ball at a salt water location.





Here are the 2 possible 3- ringers.
The upper left 2 photos are of the severely mushroomed bullet.
The upper right 2 photos are of the other one.

I’m trying to picture how these 2 fired bullets wound up so close together. They appear to have passed through something (or someone).




Here is the salt water found Minie ball, found back in June of 2012.
It weighs only 30.65 grams.

Detecting since Feb, 2010
E-trac with 18"x15" SEF, 13" Ultimate coil, Pro coil, Minelab 8" coil, 4.5"x7" SEF, Sunray target probe
CTX3030 with 17"x13" DD coil, 11" DD coil

Looks like the civil war ones I have found.

Size and weight is right...

yet the bottom ring looks sort of different...

it's black powder..

keith

Keith Southern Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Size and weight is right...
>
> yet the bottom ring looks sort of different...
>
> it's black powder..
>
> keith


The rings do look different from dropped Minie balls that I’ve seen on the internet.

I’m guessing that the rings seem different because of the lead compressing after hitting something, or that it’s a later version of a Minie ball.

Thanks for the replies.

Detecting since Feb, 2010
E-trac with 18"x15" SEF, 13" Ultimate coil, Pro coil, Minelab 8" coil, 4.5"x7" SEF, Sunray target probe
CTX3030 with 17"x13" DD coil, 11" DD coil