Gentlemen, Artillery Experts, I come to you with another question
I sent a similar version of this post to Harry Ridgeway at Relicman.com because he has a few pictures of a few recovered Selma 5.82 Rifled shells. and I am not sure if he is a member here.
This is of the "possible" shell
http://www.relicman.com/artillery/Artillery%205640%20Selma%205.8in.htmlI have a fragment/piece of what I am guessing is a Selma 5.82 Shell. I have referenced "Civil War Heavy Explosive Ordnance, A Guide to Large Artillery Projectiles, Torpedoes, and Mines, by Jack Bell". Please let me explain why I think this might be the case, Im laying this out just to see if this makes sense and if my logic on it seems valid.
The piece of shell I found was located in Dumfries/Triangle Virginia. Dumfries/Triangle butts right up to Quantico Va, During the Civil war Quantico was known as Evansport. Per "Civil War Heavy Explosive Ordnance", pages 384-385 Selma had made a 5.82 Rifled gun which was sent to Evansport. When the Evansport defenses were abandoned in early 1862, the Confederate forces blew up their magazine which was located on what is now the Golf course. Where I found this Fragment was about 700-900 yards west of there. It has part of what I think is a Bourrelet ring, and when I did some math to determine circumference based on measurements I come up with 5.70 give or take .02. the Frag was rusted severely and I used electrolysis to remove it.
At first I thought it might have been a modern shell fragment, but the area where it was found was off base and was never used for artillery weapons. based on the attached pictures and measurement, do you think it is that, or might it be a piece of frag from a Union 24Lb rifled gun that might have been on one of the Potomac flotilla that shelled Evansport? The reason why I dont suspect this is only due to the fact that none of the ships I have been able to reference as taking part in the Evansport shelling had a 24Lb rifled gun listed, it just lists them as 24LB which I take to be smoothbore guns firing roundballs.
Now I also understand that there is no 100%answer on this as it is not a complete shell either, just trying to possibly narrow it down
The images can be viewed here,
https://ibb.co/album/nauArF