The Collaborative International Dictionary
Minie ball \Min"ie ball`\ [From the inventor, Captain Mini['e], of France.] A conical rifle bullet, with a cavity in its base plugged with a piece of iron, which, by the explosion of the charge, is driven farther in, expanding the sides to fit closely the grooves of the barrel.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
kind of rifle bullet, 1853, named for its inventor, French army officer Claude-Étienne Minié (1814-1879), who designed it 1847-8.
Wikipedia
- redirect Minié ball
Usage examples of "minie ball".
Well, I fought along with the cavalry for a spell till I got a minie ball through the shoulder.
A twig the last Minie ball had clipped fell on the back of his neck.
Stuart had it in the knee and a minie ball went through Brent’.
A soldier, mind blanked in panic, would ram home minie ball after ball, until the blaster was totally blocked with up to a dozen unfired rounds.
During the American Civil War era, a bullet called the minie ball did away with the need for a patch, but it never caught on well with hunters and sportsmen.
The bullets were formed with a hollow base, a deep cavity meant to be upset against the rifling grooves by the powder gases in the manner of a Civil War minie ball.
Fifty-eight-caliber, the rifle shoots a Minie ball five hundred yards.