I forget is grape shot packed loose between wadding (like a black powder shotgun or Blunderbuss) or is more of a sabot/canister round, where the voids are filled and the sabot/canister separates as it leaves the barrel?
Packed on a wooden base sabot with a central pole for grasping to load. Resembled a cheap paper-towel dispenser. Shot was then held to a diameter with a sleeve sorta like chicken wire.
Otherwise, it would not fit the bore or would take a whole bunch of people to load it into the cannon like a family picking berries and they'd never get the shot
fired before the gun bunnies were sabered to death by those who were a tad anal as to opposing the receiving of metals they had not placed a PO for.
Side note: The notorious "Charge of the Light Brigade?" Due to a miscommunication, they were ordered down the length of a long valley instead of towards enemy guns directly across the short span ahead of them.
Lost in the horror over the losses they suffered, is the hard fact that they
succeeded, reached the "wrong " guns, over-ran them, outright slaughtered the gunners, then rode back, shattered again, but victorious ANYWAY!
When an artilleryman was loading grape shot, he was one desperate gunner, the body odour of many enemy bent on gutting him already within his nostrils. It was useless at much more than pitched rocks range.