I am sure someone will have made this observation before, but one interpretation of clod shot is that it is an early, and probably quite instinctual, appreciation of the principle of armour piercing munitions. When a lead ball hits a steel plate its first instinct is to flatten, therefore its kinetic energy is distributed over a wider area. Thus if it does succeed in penetrating the plate the hole is usually rather larger than the ball itself. With clod shot the iron core presumably doesn’t significantly deform, the same energy is concentrated on a smaller area, therefore more likely to penetrate the plate. The same principle was used in more modern armour piercing munitions where a hardened steel projectile is encased in a softer sabot one function of the sabot being to help stop the projectile being deflected when hitting an oblique target which was a problem with early armour piercing projectiles. The same principle would seem to apply to clod shot. The angular core might have been found to, or believed to, increase its armour piercing potential, if this interpretation is sound then it ought to be a useful dating guide for early battle sites where the presence of clod shot would imply a date where armour was still considered a viable defensive option. With the demise of armour and better gunpowder clod shot became redundant,
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