Oddball "Enfield"

[emike123]

We have seen a few of these in the last couple years.  Enfield pattern bullets with the "L" stamp in the cavity for Ludlow et al of Birmingham, England, but smaller than .577 caliber of normal Enfields, in this case he says closer to .45 but it looks a little bigger to me in the picture.

I told our good friend who dug this most recent one that I thought they were "stretchies" fired from breechloaders.  That was before I saw the picture and now I am a little uncertain about that.  

We may have solved this riddle before, but what do you all say about this bullet (shown next to a normal Enfield for comparison)?

[ETEX]

Mike,

An interesting looking Enfield. Looking at the picture I notice a couple of things. One I don't see any land and grooves but thats not saying they aren't there. Two it doesn't look to be carved to me but does appear to have some ground action on damage on the nose (right side of the photo). Three the cavity is wall is very thin. Here is a question for someone with more knowledge than I can possibly answer. Would a cavity wall blow out being that thin or would the wooden/clay plug the English used for shipping the Enfield be sufficient to prevent blowout of the side walls. (On the blowout topic what would have prevented damage to the MM-407 with the thin side walls on that bullet.) Four the bullet does not look to be cut off. Mike is it possible for you to get the dimensions because I don't have a clue to what this bullet is or what happened to it to make it the smaller size. After seeing some of the Teenie Minie's Steve has dug in Arkansas I would believe any bullet was made in a baby size.

I am sure that this has been a topic before and would appreciate inputs on this bullet.

[Tom Stelma]

Emike & etex,

I am going to offer two what the bullet may be.

1. A 50-caliber Enfield nose cast bullet along these lines .486 diameter x .861 long with a .27 deep plug cavity. These dimensions are from a known 50-caliber Enfield bullet so the dimensions could be in the plus/minus area as well as each bullet is a little different.

I an inclined to go with the first one.

2. Not knowing the dimensions it could be a Terry carbine bullet but that would be speculation without knowing the dimensions but the cavity & thin wall look good to go.

A humble opinion.

Tom Stelma