Relic Hunter X-Rays Civil War Musket, Finds Stacks of Minie Balls (Video)

Beau Ouimette, who chronicles his metal detecting hobby on his Aquachigger channel on YouTube, dug a musket that turned out to contain more than mud and rust.

After he found a barrel obstruction while trying to preserve the piece, he knew he was on to something. Sending the barrel with his wife to be x-rayed, it turned out there were at least six bullets in one part and potentially several more down towards the chamber. He then offers up possibilities as to why this often happened (see Paddy Griffith’ Battle Tactics of the Civil War or Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s On Killing for more analysis).

The ‘Chigg also touches on the oft-repeated martial lore of the masses of muskets collected off the battlefield at Gettysburg which comes from Major T.S. Laidley’s assertion of the period (See: “Breech-loading Musket,” United States Service Magazine 5, January 1865; pg. 69) that of 27,574 muskets collected after Gettysburg, 24,000 were loaded, and that several had multiple loads including one that somehow had 23 bullets inside its barrel.

Check out that account below:

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