Stone Ball for comments

[fernando]

Originally Posted by broadaxe

Catapult projectiles are much less dressed, they show lots of dimples and bumps, as they don't have to go through a barrel.

... Like in post #7 above. However in certain contexts stone cannon balls were not that perfect. Minding that, when masons went with armies and had to maintain stocks while in field campaign, those didn't come out necessarily perfect. That was the main reason to recast cannons every (circa)100 shots; the barrels were destroyed by the rough load.
For what is worth, here is how Rainer Dahehnardt describes some stone balls (pelouros) in his collection.
The pair on the left are in marble, which were used in small navy 'berços' ; the pair on the right are in granite and were ammo for gross bombards.


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