Musket balls recovered from Fort William Henry

By kind permission of the Royal Sussex Regimental Museum Association Trust

The musket balls seen here are believed to be both British and French, dated to the 1750s. The balls were fired from firearms such as the Brown Bess Land Pattern musket [link to 3D Brown Bess page]. The Brown Bess had a 0.75inch bore taking 0.693inch diameter ball and Charleville-style French muskets had a 0.69-inch bore taking a 0.63-inch ball. So most  musket balls used by the French were smaller.

View the Brown Bess Land Pattern Musket (replica) in 3D on this site which also explains more about the flintlock firing mechanism.

Identifying musket balls from the Revolutionary War

The artefacts shown here were recovered during excavations in the 1950s when a group of local businessmen bought the site of the Fort to protect it from development. Later an accurate replica of the fort was constructed on its original footprint and opened as a living history museum.

See the Royal Sussex Regiment for the historical background on the siege and capture of Fort William Henry by the French and their allies.