Lead ball inside powder horn

I was give an old powder horn awhile back. I decided to get it back in usable condition. The leather was falling apart, butt end needs bees wax ,and the plug needed replaced. The horn had a small amount of old powder, it had drawn moisture. But now that the horn is empty, it rattles because there is something in it. If I shine a light in the spout, I can see what appears to be an old small caliber lead ball. It is to large to come out the spout. Was this put in to help break up clumps when it was made?

Never heard of that before. But, your guess seems to be on point. Actually, not a bad idea.

An early "Shake and Bake", er: "Shake & Shoot"

Seems you would be grinding your powder to dust as you walked.

Phil Coffins said:

Seems you would be grinding your powder to dust as you walked.

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I kinda wondered about that. The horn won't see to much use in the future, probably just the friendship woods walk a couple times a year. It's got a family connection to it, that's the inspiration to make it functional again

I'm going to guess that someone tried to use the ball to replace the missing cap, and then the ball got accidentally shoved inside.

TrapperDude said:

I'm going to guess that someone tried to use the ball to replace the missing cap, and then the ball got accidentally shoved inside.

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This sounds very likely. It took some time, but it is finally out of the horn. I had to flick the horn to get the ball stuck near the spout end and drilled it a few times. Finished getting it with a couple needle files

Wondering how it got inside if it had to be drilled and pulled out in pieces...is it a screwtip horn?

Interesting post. I have an old family horn, no idea who it belonged to. It has a rattle also. The plug for the spout is gone and I've always figured it was part of that rattling around. Who knows?

It's not a screw tip, just a regular plug. I kinda wonder if it wasn't put in before the wood plug on the butt end, but why I doubt I'll ever know. The last person I know used it passed long before I was thought of. It hung on a wall all my life.

Before graphite coated powder, moisture would cause it to clump. My homemade will clump if left in flask a few months. A small ball would be a great way to assist in clump breakage

A ball inside a horn sounds like a bad idea to me, every time you tip the horn for powder the ball would roll forward and close off the spout.

J. Paul said:

Before graphite coated powder, moisture would cause it to clump. My homemade will clump if left in flask a few months. A small ball would be a great way to assist in clump breakage

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I suppose if an agitator was necessary, something like a metal jack (aka knucklebones) would mix without pulverizing the powder. Also wouldn't block the spout like a sphere would.

The non sparking lead ball would remain near the bottom of the powder column in the flask when in use until the flask is fairly low on powder but could be intentionally moved to break clumps by fully rotating the flask. I don't see a small lead ball causing much powder grinding until the powder level is at or below the top of the ball. Powder acts to somewhat stabilize movement of the ball...unlike a spray paint can with liquid contents.

It's to break up clumps of powder.

In use, the powder itself prevents the ball from moving much and won't grind it.

My guess would be the previous owner did not want to carry two horns; one with 2f for main charge and one with 4f for priming.
So, you just fill the horn with 2f, drop in the ball. Now you can load your main charge then give it a shake to grind it down for your pan; that would be three shakes for 3f, four shakes for 4f, now for a really fast charge give it five shakes for 5f but Do Not shake it more or you will be returning to the forum to post "Help, I have a Ball Stuck in the spout" and then one member will tell you to "shoot it out", another will tell you " Use a grease gun", and another will tell you "Don't use Ballistol because it is worthless and smells bad".

But then, I could be wrong; it could have just been put there to make noise like a bell so you don't startle a bear while in the woods...

A large caliber lead-ball pounded square or similar stone would prevent clumping & not plug the spout

I guess you couldn't consider that a "Dry Ball".
It may be an emergency stopper, in the heat of the moment you may forget to put the stopper back in. The heavier than powder ball would roll down faster than the powder and block off the hole before all the powder was wasted on the ground.
I would think the clumps would break themselves up just by shaking the horn. Kinda like salt in a salt shaker.