AMERICAN CIVIL WAR MUSKET BALL AMMUNITION - ORIGINAL

These are original Musket balls, ammunition used in muskets. The balls could be made from any metal alloy, but many were made from lead. Lead can be melted at reasonably low temperatures and so lead musket balls could be made over a camp fire.

A well-trained soldier could fire three or four shots in a minute, or every 15 or 20 seconds. The soldiers would carry about 30 pre-rolled musket cartridges in a cartridge box they wore on their hip.

It took about 30 seconds to reload a musket. Muskets had a range of around 100 yards (about 92 metres). They were not accurate even at this range and so were best fired in a volley (a group all firing at the same time) to make sure they hit the enemy.

We have a number of these balls and you might receive on that is not pictured above.