I have not looked deeply into these things but all of the references that I have seen suggested that their use was naval. Though, I am sure, that they have been used in land warfare.
We have something called s bolo round for shotguns. It consists of two lead balls connected by a wire which is supposed to cause "devastating" damage. We carried them for a while and I looked into their performance. The word "marketing" comes to mind. Picture below shows a bolo projectile about 30 yards from the muzzle. As you can see the balls, if I might use the term, have not separated very much. This is consistent with other data that I have come across. Why would they separate? The gauchos twirl their bolos to get the balls separated. Firing from a gun simply shoves them in a general direction. I doubt very much that you see a 5" separation in impact.
That said, would a chain/bar shoot behave much differently? Why would they?
I think that if these things were "devastating" to rigging etc etc they would have been a lot more present in ships stores and therefore a lot more around today on the collectors market.
I think that they probably disappeared when rifled ordnance became common. I think that they were not common much after our CW.
I will check my references and see what I can turn up.
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