A Weighed and Sorted Ball Experiment

Do "light" balls have air bubbles, impurities, or voids that affect balance and cause flyers?

Last Friday I conducted a shooting experiment that consited of shooting two 5-shot/50-yard groups with the balls weighing exactly the same and two 5-shot/50-yard groups with each ball weighing at least 1.5 grains different from all other balls. These balls were given to me and, as far as I know, were all cast from the same mold.

Here my report, with the targets.

The gun - .54 Great Plains flintlock with Lyman 57 peep sight, shot from a bench with a Caldwell shooting rest under the barrel and rabbit ear bag under the buttstock.

All shots were with weighed charges of 85 grains GOEX FFFg, using .016 thick patches lubed with olive oil. The patches were lubed Thursday night and placed in a stack. The stack was wrapped in a double layer of paper towels and placed under a weight to squeeze out excess oil overnight and assure all patches had an equal amount of lube.

I used a ball seating rod with a "stop collar" that I set upon loading the first ball. So all balls were seated in exactly the same place in the barrel with exactly the same seating pressure.

The first shot on the first target was from a clean oiled barrel that I swabbed with a dry patch before loading. After the first shot I swabbed the bore with both sides of one 91% alcohol patch, followed by one side of a clean dry patch. I followed that same swabbing procedure after each succeeding shot.

Target #87 - All balls weighed exactly 234.5 grains. Group size was 2 & 1/4".

Target #88 - One ball of each of the following weights - 228.5 grains / 230.0 grains / 231.5 grains / 233.5 grains / 235.0 grains. Group size was 2 & 1/8" (Four of those shots formed a 1 & 1/8" group. Was that one shot that expanded the group by an inch due to a "bad" ball or shooter error? I'd guess my old blurry eyes are to blame.}

Target #89 - All balls weighed exactly 234.5 grains. Group size was 1 & 3/4".

Target #90 - One ball of each of the following weights - 228.5 grains / 230.0 grains / 231.5 grains / 233.5 grains / 235.0 grains. Group size was 1 & 5/8" (with 4 of the shots into 1 & 1/8" - old eyes again?).

I do believe you can draw your own conclusions. As for me, I sure won't be wasting my time weighing balls.

SOME GENERAL COMMENTS: I was really concentrating on shooting technique, trigger pull and sight picture. At no time during this session did I feel I made a bad shot. I may even have been extra careful shooting the groups with the assorted weight balls. As for the first target with the largest overall group (by a small margin) - I'll say that it's not unusual for me that my first group in a shooting session is a little larger than following groups. I probably should have shot a "dummy" group first just to get my technique settled in. My eyesight makes iron sight shooting a bit challenging, even with the Lyman peep. I suspect a good iron sight shooter could really stack them in with this gun and load.

Here are the targets.














HEY! Did you notice something??? I shot the first two targets with round patches and the second two with square patches - all cut from the same patch material. Not a penny's worth of difference between the two.

Well, the gun was dirty, the weather was nice, and I had plenty of preloaded powder tubes. So just for the heck of it I shot another group with matched weight balls, but added a wonder wad under the ball. Got a good group, but not significantly different from the others. Here's the target.





Does anyone feel like weighing their balls, or cutting round patches?

Semisane said:

"...Does anyone feel like weighing their balls, or cutting round patches?..."

Click to expand...

Not me...just my opinion...but there are so many "loading variables" involved with a muzzleloader that a few grains difference in ball weight would not be discernable at the target.

Plus, one of the main benefits of rifling is that the rotation is supposed to minimize or cancel out slight imperfections in a projectile.

Besides: "Dan'l didn't weigh no stinking balls"
:grin:

Never weighed a ball and never intend to. If I was one of the serious paper punchers, then yes I would see that it matters but I'm not. My guns prove to be accurate enough for hunting with the next ball coming out of the ball bag...

I think bubbles in the lead have to produce weights that are more than 5% off the average weight for there to be a significant difference in POI at 50 yards( The percentage increases as the caliber, and weight of the ball increase). At 100 yards, I think lesser percentage of weight difference begin to show up in group sizes.

Obviously, then the weight and caliber of the ball is going to determine who wide a deviation in weight your gun will tolerate and still put balls in the same group. YOur variance was well under the 5% "rule" I have suggested. I think the smaller the caliber of round ball, the smaller the percentage of variance it will tolerate.

My .50 caliber seems to do okay if I am shooting plus or minus 2.5-3% of average weight. My brother's .40 caliber, however, shooting about a 90 grain ball, is held to plus or minus 1% of weight, for best accuracy.

Again, with both rifles, neither of us notice much of any expansion of groups out to 50 yards. Its when we bench the guns to shoot at longer ranges( 75 and 100 yards.) that we begin to see groups open with the lighter balls. If you shoot balls that are all the SAME weight, even if when they are lighter, they seem to shoot good groups, albeit to a different POI.

Tnaks for the information, and the targets. :hatsoff:

I conducted the test because I was reading the Dutch Schoultz stuff in which he poses that "if you really want accuracy" you should eliminate the ball weight variable by "tossing any balls that weight more than 1 grain less than the heaviest ball into the melting pot". He must be talking about a different kind or accuracy than what I'm seeking. :wink:

Just for the heck of it, I overlaid each of the targets on a clean target and marked the center of the bullet holes. Here's the composit with all twenty-five shots.

Now, if I could just do that at 100 yards. :wink:

Semisane said:

"..."tossing any balls that weight more than 1 grain less than the heaviest ball into the melting pot"..."

Click to expand...

I think a lot of that thinking is conceptual as opposed to proveable....like some competition shooters align the patch weave with the front sight the same way every time...but I've never seen a scientific test that showed doing that or not doing that made a discernable difference at a target.

Its like me using 4F...I know from science that 4F is faster than 3F is faster than 2F...so I use 4F.
Could MY shooting show a difference on a target due to 4F?...I doubt it but I'll keep using 4F 'because its faster"...and there's no weighing or sorting with a choice to use 4F...just buy a can of 4F.

So for those who like weighing / sorting / remelting their lead round balls, go for it.

Out at 100 yards, the ball is moving a lot slower- about 45% of the velocity is lost, and wind can move the ball more. The different weight begins to allow this to happen to more of a degree than it does at the shorter yardage.

Those target shooters, Like Dutch, take accuracy very seriously, and they generally are shooting out at 100 yds. Off a bench. LIke Roundball, my shooting of MLing rifles has been restricted to 50 yard and shorter targets, for the most part.

Our 100 yard range at the club required moving your bench to a different site in order to have a safe backstop. So, it didn't get used all that much. I used it in sighting in my deer rifle for hunting, but the location of the range did not allow it to be used while the other short range was being used by other members. I had to go to the club on non-shoot weekends to be able to use it for practice. However, other ranges have 100 yards and I have been able to shoot that rifle on those, some, both off-handed, and from a rest. All kinds of subtle changes in your loading technique you don't notice at short yardage begin to show up when you shoot the longer ranges.

I too would be happy if all my shots stayed inside as small a "pattern" at 100 yds,) as your collection shows there at 50 yards.

An excellent and practical report. My compliments to you.

Why thank you Mr. LeGrand. Mighty nice of you to say so.

those pics are worth a thousand words a piece. Good to see I am just starting casting so I will probably weigh the balls just to see how my casting technique is as opposed to caring one bit about 1 or 5 grains. I go out to 50 yards but my shots in the timber are less than that.

Paul, I checked your 45% out. Lyman's Black Powder Handbook and Loading Manual lists loads for a .54 caliber 32" barrel, .535 balls. By interpolation, 85 grains of Goex 2F gave 1461 fps muzzle velocity, which reduced to 972 fps at 100 yards. That is a 33.5 percent loss. 120 grains of Goex 2F, which I shoot as a hunting load in my Leman and Green River Hawken barrels and clocks at 1860 fps, gave Lyman 1803 fps, which lost 39.5 percent at 100 yards.

I would assume that the 1 5/8" group is what is referred to by a friend as a law of compensating errors target.
There is no reason for this group to be smaller than the others other than its being a happy fluke.

It is also possible that your load, which is too light for a 54 IMO may not shoot any better than 2"-2.5" at 50 yards no matter what unless you have proved otherwise.
If you worry about vision. Put a piece of duct tape with a hole in it over the portion of the glasses lens you look through when shooting. Once the proper hole size/position is arrived at you may find it helps a lot.

Weighing bullets simply removes one variable. I do not shoot unweighed bullets. But I can weigh them much faster than I can cast them. 8-10 a minute,
It will not have the effect in a slow twist barrel that it will in a faster twist but seeing how large a pocket a 2 gr variation can produce in a bullet will make most shooters weight bullets.

Dan

Larger diameter, heavier RBs will retain energy better out to 100 yards, than small diameter, ligher RBs. The 45% figure comes from data posted here by another member who was shooting a .50 caliber RB at 1900 fps, at the Muzzle! The faster a ball is pushed into air, the faster it slows, I am told.

Many years ago when I shot a lot of pistol indoors I actually saw some of my cast .38 wad cutters go through the target sideways. You could see the lube grooves in the paper. The cause was antimony in the lead. I probably didn't flux the lead often enough. Those shots were from 50ft.
That kind of thing probably would not happen with a round ball. A flier maybe.
Dusty :wink:

He was shooting a .54. But I see I made a mistake, too. He used 85 grains of Goex 3F, not 2F. But the Lyman book shows 1735 fps muzzle velocity with that, and 1066 fps at 100 yards, a 38.3 % loss. Yes, the Goex 2F, 120 grains, gave higher velocity, 1803 fps, 39.3 % loss. They show exactly the same pressure, 8,300 PSI.

So I checked out the .50 caliber loads. 40 gr. Goex 2F had a MV of 1306 and lost 30% at 100 yards, 80 gr. 1694/40%, 85 gr. 1731/40%, 110 gr 1916 fps/43%. So you were very close.

In .45 caliber, 40 gr Goex 3F went 1459/37%, 80 gr 1861/44% and 120 gr. 2124/46%. Pressure with 120 gr Goex 3F was 18,700 PSI, but 120 gr. of Goex 2F gave 2045 fps with 19,300 PSI.

If someone want more Power down range shooting a PRB, he needs to move up in caliber. The heavier the ball, the more energy it retains. But this does not extend the range of the ball- just the energy delivered within 100 yds or so. You still are shooting a short range projectile, in a gun with open sights, that are difficult to use for fine aiming at distant targets. The front sight covers up too much target as the range is extended- its just that simple, and that complicated.

YOU CAN do long range shooting with open sights, if you adopt the technique taught to pistol and revolver shooters when shooting at long range:
a. Use a 6 o'clock" HOLD on the target, so that very wide front sight( they seem much wider as the range extends) does NOT cover up Any of the target;
b. Imagine a fine line down the center of that front sight post and put the sight image on the center of your target( or hold off- for windage, etc.); and
c. Raise the front sight in the rear sight to give you the necessary elevation to deal with the trajectory of your ball. How much depends on the load you are shooting and the range you are shooting to hit something. Its takes practice, but you can get very good at this.

The 45% figure came from someone's load info on the .45 caliber rifle years ago, when I was shooting a .45 cal. rifle. It stands up when I checked the .50 cal. information I saved as being very close for that caliber, too. My .62 does better on retaining energy, but I have no interest in trying to stretch the range I shoot with it. Mine is a smoothbore, and a 50-60 yard shot is all the distance I would ever ask of the gun when hunting deer. Most of my deer have been killed at much shorter ranges.

Herb said:

Pressure with:
120 gr Goex 3F was 18,700 PSI
120 gr Goex 2F was 19,300 PSI.

Click to expand...

hmm: Herb, does that sound right to you?

No, but that is Lyman's numbers. Nor is 8300 psi for both 120 grains Goex 2F and 3F in .54 caliber what we expect, but those are their numbers. I have gotten many surprises in chronographing muzzleloading rifles, so to me it is "just one of those things."

On more than one occasion I've noticed strange numbers in the Lyman manual...could be some data entry errors that were not caught, etc...makes me a little reluctant to put too much faith in their tables