Wood fused 24-pounder, wall thickness of 1.13 inches - Confederate Polygonal?

[Eli Wright]

Hey all, I've got this wood fused 24-pounder shell with a base wall thickness of about 1.13 inches, and according to Jack Melton's half shell book (pg. 144), this thickness matches that of a Confederate polygonal shell. It has a very prominent mold seam as well, which I've heard is often indicitive of Confederate manufacture.

I'd love to hear your expert opinions. Thanks!

[emike123]

It very well maybe a polygonal cavity shell, but as you can see from the book photo you posted, the placement of the casting core was not a thing of great precision. 

I recently bought a nice, digital bore scope for $55.   If the fuse hole is open sufficiently to insert the camera & the inside is not full of junk, this is the best way to see if there are interior lines of weakness that would confirm it to be a polygonal cavity shell.

I recently got half a dozen 24# spherical shells from the Spanish Fort area and saw vis the bore scope that half of them were polys (& half weren?t) so that?s my sample size from an area where they are found.

[Eli Wright]

Hey Mike, thanks for the reply,
In the time since my initial post, I have bought a 5.5 mm borescope (just barely small enough to fit through the wood fuse) to try to take a look at it, but because of the long wood fuse, it has a very limited field of view, and can unfortunately only see the very bottom. Again, because the borescope just barely fits through the wood fuse, I can't angle it to get a better look at the walls either. If you could, would you be able to share some pictures of your polygonals to give me a better idea of what to look for through the borescope?

Thanks!,
- Eli

(included is a sketch of the limited field of view given by the fuse)

[emike123]

Most of my photos are lucky to show one segmentation line inside the polygonal cavity shell, but I got lucky on this one.

[rommack]

Mike I do not think any Polygonal 24 pounders have come from Port Hudson is that because they came out for use later than 1863 ?