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In addition to composite shot, a single example of solid lead shot also was recovered. While heavier in weight, its diameter, 4.04 cm, is quite close to those of the bodoque shot, suggesting that it was also intended to be fired from a verso-type swivel gun. Versos were the most common type of light artillery aboard ships of the 16th century. These portable, rapid-firing weapons, were served by interchangeable powder chambers, and could be strategically mounted in sockets along the rails of a vessel wherever they were needed. First to be studied from an archaeological context, several examples were recovered from the 1554 Padre Island wrecks (Olds 1976; Arnold and Weddle 1978). Versos with their chambers were also found at the Highborn Cay Wreck (Peterson 1974), and on the Molasses Reef Wreck (Keith, 1987). The latter site produced 16 versos of three distinct types: the verso normale, which was the most common; the verso doble, a longer and heavier version; and the verso liso, a shorter and lighter version. Typical bore diameter of these weapons was approximately 4.5 cm (Keith 1987:197), and their ammunition around 4 cm, or nine-tenths the diameter of the bore of the guns.
Fig. 65. Iron shot may have been ammunition for a common 16th-century wrought-iron cannon called a bombardeta.