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Weighing round balls

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dledinger

40 Cal.
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Finally got around to weighing 500 swaged round balls. Hornady .530s. Imagine my dismay when I realized the spread was 216.9 - 226.0 Grains!

When I picked up that 216.9 grain ball, before ever placing it on the scale, my wife said that one looks small! How she could pick that out from the other 499 shiny balls on the table is beyond me, but she was sure right.

The majority of the balls ended up in 3 sorted groups:

223.5-223.9
224.0-224.4
224.5-224.9

Only about 20 balls weighed more than that 224.9. I had about 150 balls that were all over the map between 220 and 223, and only a couple under 220.

Now on to measure the 32s, 45s and 50s!
 
I usually just take an average. Using your example looks like I'd (hypothetically) select 224.4,,
Then any ball that falls +/- .5 from that is a keeper, so the spread of 223.9 through 224.9,,

An that's being fussy, most folks will go +/- a full grain.
I get cull rates around 10-15% of a casting run.

Measuring? Nope, not this cat. The weight alone is enough to cull bad cast from the mix. These are sphere and not at all like a CF bullet that can (or need to be) be separated by bearing surface.

Some guys don't bother at all and the argument is that it doesn't matter and for the most part it doesn't, but if your seeking the elusive X as your game eliminating as many variables as possible is an advantage.
 
No disrespect but unless you are paper punching targets tens grains shouldnt make that much difference. Mike
 
Shouldn't this post be titled "Weighing Roundballs Again", "Weighing Round Balls, Part XV", or some such??? :grin:

Enjoy, J.D.
 
jdkerstetter said:
Shouldn't this post be titled "Weighing Roundballs Again", "Weighing Round Balls, Part XV", or some such??? :grin:

Oh, no doubt. I figured as much, but didn't find anything in a quick search :) I'm sure they're out there!
 
All parts of any hobby have different levels of interest to different participants. Speaking for myself, I used Hornady & Speer swaged balls in a variety of calibers for about 15 years and never wasted a minute of my time weighing them, never had any strange inaccuracy problems, etc. Same with cast balls I've been using for the past several years.

Personal opinion is unless you're participating at the national match level of competition and measuring group sizes with a micrometer, there are too many variables in the entire string of loading activities for Joe Sidelock to notice the difference of a few grains weight on a base of a hundreds of grains weight to begin with. Having said that, different levels of interest give different degrees of satisfaction to different participants...enjoy the journey.
 
I never have weighed mine. I have in fact measured some but that is when I'm having problems with a particularly fussy mould and a tight fitting ML. Like stated if you aren't shooting competition, you'll probably never know the difference. Take some of your sorted RBs and shoot a group with tight tolerances and shoot another with a wide spread and see what you get.
 
mike3132 said:
No disrespect but unless you are paper punching targets tens grains shouldnt make that much difference. Mike

Have to disagree. Ten grains is a huge variance. It could put a well aimed shot outside the 'minute of deer' zone and cause a long track or wounded deer.
When I was a serious 'X' hunter I allowed no more than .1 (one tenth) of a grain variance.
Today I don't weigh but do see the unexplained flyer more often when at my club shoots. I may go back to weighing with a 1.0 (one) grain allowance.
 
Rifleman1776 said:
Have to disagree. Ten grains is a huge variance. It could put a well aimed shot outside the 'minute of deer' zone and cause a long track or wounded deer.
Don't think so. Calculating the trajectory of a .535 ball at 1758 fps, sighted for 50 yards, using the actual weight of 229.9, then recalculating with everything the same except weight of 219.9, there's very little change. POI up to 50 yards doesn't change, it's only 0.1" lower at 75 yards and 0.2" lower at 100 yards.

Many of our theoretical problems have little practical effect.

Spence
 
Well, I haven't been weighing them and have been doing ok. It gives me something to toy with...and who knows. Regardless, I was very surprised at the variances.
 
Yeah dledinger, this is the same arguments that come up every time this topic comes up and it does plenty.
Most folks never think of it until they get Dutches papers.
People have different expectations as well as different levels of skill. If your a so-so shooter then they'll not se any change, a shooter that has a natural knack for accuracy or one that's practiced and proficient,, narrowing down the minor variables to the rifle and it's loading properties allows a person to focus solely on the human factor of the shot.
Try as you might some guy's will never get it.
If they can hit a pop can at 50yrds over and over it doesn't matter if they hit the top of the can or the bottom, to them it's hit.
Others like to put a hole in "o" of the word Coke on the can every time.
In other words for those that "plink" it's no big deal. For those that are serious about accuracy a huge part of the game is in the shooters head, the psychological/physical game if you will.
Stress, physical condition, diet, heart rate, breathing, muscle awareness,,,,
That's where the detail to the rifle and it's load pays off, all that is just the tool, it's the shooter and the shot that's the challenge.
 
You forgot to mention eyesight...for us older folks. :grin:
My shooting improved a lot when I got new glasses.

As far as weighing round balls I just cast up 70 .440s because the blackpowder fairies had borrowed my other batch. I decided to weigh them and they were all 126.6gr + -.4gr on my digital scale and that was with all the wrong equipment...Lee mold & bottom pour pot.

BTW the fairies brought back my other batch as soon as they found out I had made more.
 
I just cast my first batch of forty .530 round balls from a Lee 2 cavity mold and only weighed a variation of + or - half a grain and out of round only a 1000th of an inch (measured with a micrometre) and am pretty happy with that! :grin:
 
Rifleman1776 said:
Tell that to my targets. :haha:
I hear you. We need to figure how to factor the shooter into the equations. Shooter squared, at least, for the large contribution he makes, for good or for evil. I think that is the most common problem with our targets, but it's far down on the list of reasons given. :grin:

Spence
 
George said:
I think that is the most common problem with our targets, but it's far down on the list of reasons given.

Amen to that.

Did a little speriment a few years back. A bud's rifle simply "wouldn't shoot." He couldn't begin to get it sighted in, as the groups were all over the paper and ranged from bad to worse at 50 yards.

We were giving him the raspberry, so he got kinda cranked up and challenged the three of us spectators to do better. We each sat down and cranked off three shots at the same target he'd been using.

His "group" had been about 6" high and 6" right, best we could guess because two shots were about 6" apart and the third was nowhere to be seen.

The nine shots from the three of us spectators grouped into a little under 3" and were 2" low and 3" left.

Ummmmm. :redface:
 
The concern isn't that the ballistics will change from the weight. The concern is that there can be voids in the lead, off center, which will make the balls do odd things. Weighing them and tossing the light ones is an easy way to detect this.

Personally when I cast I weigh the balls. It just takes a second or two each and there is the occasional stinker ball that looks fine but is a bit lighter. I'd just as soon throw those back into the pot. Hopefully as my casting ability increases those will get rarer and rarer but, again, weighing them takes very little time.
 
Eljay said:
Personally when I cast I weigh the balls. It just takes a second or two each and there is the occasional stinker ball that looks fine but is a bit lighter. I'd just as soon throw those back into the pot. Hopefully as my casting ability increases those will get rarer and rarer but, again, weighing them takes very little time.

I used to weigh everything I cast, dating back into the 1960's and a whole range of bullets for CF shooting.

But thousands (millions?) of bullets and balls cast in over 50 years taught me something, and I quit weighing altogether with no change in results from weighed production.

Watch the dimple that forms in the puddle as the bullet/ball sets. Nice shallow dimple and you've got a good fill. Dimple looks a little deep? Dump the ball or bullet back in the pot. Faster than weighing, and you get to do it while the pot is still hot, rather than saving all those malformed creations for the next time you heat up the pot.

Nothing is 100% in life but death and politics, yet I'm close enough with my dimple peeping to satisfy myself that I don't need the scales for confirmation.
 
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