Flat Bottom

[CarlS]

Good day all!

A fellow came by to pick up a Bormann shell we drilled and while here he showed me a Hotchkiss shell he purchased in August at the Marietta Show.  It was reportedly found on a small farm at the base of Kennesaw Mountain where the June 1864 battle of the same name was fought.  As you can hopefully see in the images this Hotchkiss as a flat base with a beveled edge.  Outside of that it looks just like one of the typical Hotchkiss shells of which many were found at this battle.  I've seen these bases before but only on the very late war Hotchkiss shells such as those found at Nashville.  For an example of one of those see:
     http://www.civilwarartillery.com/projectiles/rifled/IIIA67.htm
But I have not seen that base on a typical ACW profile.  The owner seemed sure of it's provenance but is it more likely a post war version?  Has anyone else seen one of these?

Base with flat edge of iPhone:


Base View:


Side View:

[redbob]

Since the flat top/flat bottom Hotchkiss was coming out about this same time and since the bottoms of both the round top and flat top Hotchkiss' looks identical; if they had run short of the rounded bottoms as production ramped down couldn't they have substituted the flat bottoms? Or were the bodies cast in one piece?

[CarlS]

Perhaps they could have substituted a different cup during manufacture and that might have been the case here.  If this one is really from the Battle of Kennesaw then it is about 6 months earlier than Nashville and nearly a year earlier than Spanish Fort; the two places the flat-nose with the flat bottom style are reportedly found at.

The Hotchkiss shell is really 3 major pieces as you can see in this exploded view:
      http://www.civilwarartillery.com/projectiles/rifled/IIIA63.htm
so the flat cup likely would have fit the standard style nose.  I am not aware if the flat-nose variant had a different size post that would have prevented this.

[Tigerdude]

Could you repost photos. thanks

[Lamar]

Photobucket has gone into rip-off mode, charging an arm & a leg to be able to post a picture on a site like this.

[Pete George]

  Because there are no photos, I have to ask whether it is fired, and has the proper white patina on the lead sabot.

  Also, you said "it looks just like one of the typical Hotchkiss shells of which many were found at this battle." Are you saying the nose section is the same pointy version as the typical 1864 Hotchkiss 3-inch shell?

Regards,
Pete