Sabot Question

[callicles]

I know this is likely another ignorant question, so I beg forgiveness up front. A few years back I dug a 3” Archer bolt with Sabot attached. At the same site I also found other slung lead sabot. In trying to learn if there was a way to determine whether any particular sabot I was finding was from an Archer, Pete George (and here I paraphrase from memory so I may be wrong in my recollection) had indicated Archer sabot contained dimples of some sort on it. Based on this, I was able to determine the slung sabot I had found were likely from Hotchkiss projectiles and not Archers.

However, today I returned to the site and found the below pictured sabot. My question, of course, is whether this sabot could be from an Archer? Specifically, I’m focusing on what I’m wondering might be two dimples, just to the left of the 2 inch and 4 inch marks on the tape measure. Because I have never seen any slung Archer sabot before to compare, I appeal to the experts here. Thanks for looking.

[emike123]

Those two reverse dimples look similar to ones I have in an Archer sabot so I think you got one.

[Ripcon]

Great find, Callicles!

[callicles]

Well that is certainly good to hear, emike!! Thanks so much for taking a look and giving me the good news!

[CarlS]

It does look like one of the narrow sabots from an archer.  A 3" archer would have about a 9.4" circumference sabot if you have the whole thing.  Of course it could well be stretched a little as well.  Is there any sign of the cannon's rifling on the other side?

[callicles]

Thanks for looking and for commenting, Carl. On the fired 3” Archer bolt I found with sabot attached, very little rifling is evident. Pete George informed me that such was caused by the “leading of the cannon’s bore.”  The slung sabot I found contains faint rifling too, so I wonder if it too was fired from the same barrel. Nevertheless, I picture below a shot of the outer sabot I found this past weekend and a close up of the bolt’s attached sabot I found several years ago.

[callicles]

Below is close up of sabot on the 3” bolt. If any experts here can enlighten me on what type of gun fired this, I’d appreciate it. I’m assuming it would have been a typical 3” ordnance. Would that be correct?

[CarlS]

Congrats on the find of an Archer with a sabot.  That's a good find in that it is an Archer and especially since most lost the sabots.  The rifling no your sabot is pretty decent actually.  As to the gun I'd guess an ordnance rifle.  it should have 7 lands-n-grooves if so.  The Parrott rifle had 3 lands-n-grooves and of course there were some other odd CS guns with other configurations.

[callicles]

Thanks Carl. As concerns the sabot attached to Archer, what is pictured is the only rifling visible. The rest of the sabot is smooth. I thought I’d dug a dropped projectile at first.

As to your mentioning Parrotts. Which Parrot could fire a 3” projectile? Would a 10 pdr Parrott fire one?

[CarlS]

Sorry for the late reply but an Archer should have been fired from 3-inch Parrott.  According to the measurements on Jack's site for the common Archers it has a diameter of about 2.93" or so which would have been too big for the 2.9-inch gun.  The US parrots and many of the CS Parrots had 3 lands-n-grooves.   Your sabot seems to show more like 7 which would be an Ordnance rifle or perhaps if 5 or 6 lands-n-grooves it is a CS rifle.