Yup just a small hole. What you have is a Cohen 3 variety, distinguished by the second 8 of the date touching the Bust of Liberty. It is considered a Rarity 1.
This coin may have been punched and used as a washer; many large cents were. Small hardware was expensive and hard to find in the first quarter of the 19th Century. As the railroad industry started up and prospered, manufactured parts became widely available.
It's not really a hole per say. Lady Liberty decided she needed to have her ear's pierced and then gauged.
Unfortunately no the rifles and muskets of the better part of 19th c shot either a round lead ball or a molded lead projectile all were much larger caliber then this hole also the propellant was not powerful to blow a hole theough it like this a coin in the shirt pocket hit by a bullet would have been bent and dented but would not have been blown through and if it hit a pocket coin it would likely have saved your life there's stories of silver dollars and gold pieces stopping bullets a modern day bullet tho would blow through it also remember copper is a much harder metal then lead
Or a drill which got hot I'm well aware of this just was trying to explain for everyone why it wasn't a bullet just looked like one on thinner gauge metal a .22 hole looks just like that tho I've had many antique copper weathervanes that have been shot with assorted calibers but the metal is far thinner then a half cent
Not an early cut or wrought nail as they would have left a square hole I believe it was drilled and the heat from the speed of the bit gave it that melted shot look that or a heated metal punch like at a blacksmiths shop would do the same too bad really as it was a nice coin without this minor problem
Early nails left hand wrought (pre 1800) right cut (1790-1880) modern wire (round) nails developed shortly after the civil war widespread use by 1880 as they were stronger less brittle and cheaper to make
