Hey Guys,
Although I'd be very surprised to learn that I was the first person
to do this, here goes:
Given the frequency of finding round lead ball and shot on historic
sites, and the fact that it has often been distorted in use, making
it difficult to accurately measure, I came up with an Excel table
that allows you to simply weigh the large shot or ball, and determine
gauge and/or caliber. Of course, this assumes the shot or ball was
originally round and is still essentially whole ...
I created the conversion table to range from 1-200 Gauge or 1.671 -
0.28 caliber, which should cover most anything firearms-related (and
even small cannon :-) ). I realize that there were 2 and 4 gauge
market shotguns out there, but it would be unlikely for them to be
shooting solid full-bore projectiles. By the same token, anything
smaller than .28 caliber would almost certainly fall into the
buckshot or shotgun pellet range, where caliber measurement would be
largely unnecessary.
Note that I have cross-referenced GAUGE, CALIBER, GRAIN WGT, GRAM
WEIGHT, and ROUNDED GRAM WEIGHT and ROUNDED CALIBER. This should
cross-correlate with historic sources, as well as modern literature,
and lab data.
I have not added information about standard sizes of buckshot,
shotgun pellets, etc., as that data is pretty readily available on
the web (Wikipedia).
If anybody wants a copy, please send me an e-mail and I will forward.
Mark
P.S. Again, if somebody has already done this in a easily accessible
format, just ignore.
--
Mark C. Branstner, RPA
Historic Archaeologist
Illinois Transportation
Archaeological Research Program
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
209 Nuclear Physics Lab, MC-571
23 East Stadium Drive
Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: 217.244.0892
Fax: 217.244.7458
Cell: 517.927.4556
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"I hope there's pudding" - Luna Lovegood (HP5)
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