Ever heard of a cannononball .. ovoid?

[laEspadaAncha]

Originally Posted by Dmitry

The shape of this ball could also be a result of poor casting.

In support of the above comment, I have a cannonball recovered off private land at the site of the Battle of San Pasqual, and it too is deformed.

It is not nearly as big as the one above, at a little under 3 inches... possibly used by the Sutter Gun, a provincial small 4-pounder. Shot produced in frontier California tended to be of a lessor quality than what the Dragoons likely would have brought as part of their ordinance.

Anyway, as shown from two perspectives orthogonal to one another - you can see it is still (more or less) "in the round" when viewed from the top-down, but when viewed from the side, well, it's kind of ovoid...