The 8008 608

Not likely, for several reasons: - lead is heavy (yes, that is usually why it is used for bullets, I know) and on a ship0, weight counts, - cast iron is a lot lighter, so you can carry a lot more cannon balls for the same weight, - performance of the old smooth bore black powder guns wasn't all that great, so using the much heavier lead instead of iron probably wouldn't have been worth the trouble, - I guess that solid lead balls for cannons would also have been a lot more expensive than cast iron, - you can't use solid lead balls as incendiary ammunition - but this was done with iron balls (put cannon balls into fire, heat until glowing red, insert into cannon, fire and if you hit the other ship (and the ball remains stuck in the ship) you can start a nice fire over there)

Aside from the above: while I've seen plenty of both stone (yes, solid stone) and solid cast iron cannon balls in the usual museums, I've never encountered solid lead ones. So I guess that if solid lead cannon balls were used at all, they weren't common.

Regards, Alex. 0 Keep in mind that naval war ships weren't the only ones to carry cannons, there were also plenty of freight ship (merchantmen as well as the "treasure ships") armed with cannons and on those, the weight difference between lead and iron cannon balls would have meant real money. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison