Help Identify, please!

Cast iron ball (30lbs) with a wooden handle (approx. 12-14” long). Any ideas?

 

Explosive device?!

 

Homemade one of these????????????..........
https://www.strengthshop.co.uk/mace-12kg.html

 

I don't think it is any type of weapon. The ball weighs 30 lbs. That, combined with the short handle, makes it horribly balanced and almost impossible to swing like a hammer or mace. My first thought was something for crushing something in a bowl shaped container. It seems the be weighted in a way that would keep the heavy ball downward and the handle vertical. The sphere shape seems to lend itself to a pestle type of tool. The weight of it would do well at crushing, as it did on my finger when it slipped off of the handle. Just guesses.

 

Ouch! That's kind of what we do around here when no one knows the answer to a question right off: we guess & speculate; do some Googling around following our guesses & surprisingly often eventually come up with the right answer.

I'm not even sure what was in my head, just a very dim recollection of some old explosive thing that was thrown. If you tip it to one side, does it rock itself back to upright?

 

Seems like a tamping tool of some sort... but that's as far as I can go with it.

 

Maybe a metalworking mallet

 

Highland Games hammer throw ?