A musket ball is an early form of ammunition fired from a smooth-bore musket. The balls were generally made of lead, and were loaded into the barrel muzzle of the musket wrapped in a loosely-fitting paper after an appropriate amount of gunpowder was poured in the musket barrel. With the widespread adoption of the bullet cartridge and the rifled barrel, muskets and musket balls grew out of fashion due to their tedious loading procedure and inaccuracy.

      The diameter of a musket ball usually varied from .5 to.75 inches depending on the bore of the musket barrel it was intended to be used with. The balls were cast in an iron bullet mould and usually had a small ridge of excess lead around their circumference which resulted from a slight gap existing where the two halves of the mould met. This ridge was usually lost when a ball was fired. Do you think that any of these three balls have been fired?

at I gather off Time Team and Two Men In a Trench, if the musket ball retains its moulding pimple it hasnt been fired. Of those above probably three have been fired, the centre one has impacted. The top centre one I believe to be a ball bearing of some sort as it is iron. These all come from a couple of local woods.