Sorting round balls

When sorting round balls by weight how much difference in weight do you use

I stay with in 1 grain, but then I am picky, picky, picky. :idunno: :idunno:

Sorry, can't help myself 0.5 is picky, picky....
Michael

My acceptance criteria depends upon the size.
40 cal RB's: +/- 0.1 grain
50 cal RB's: +/- 0.5 grain
500 grain BPCR bullets: +/- 1.0 grain

Sorting round balls for competition/match shooting can make a difference if you follow Dutch's advice. Swaged, store-bought balls, I would sort into 0.1 grain groups and only use the top one-half for score. The others I would use for "barel-warmers" or very close-up shooting.

Sorting home-cast round balls assumes you have good casting technique, consistent melt temperature, and a quality mould. Smaller balls like .32. .36, & .40 are more sensitive to differences in weight, and larger; ,45, .50, & .54 less so. As with store bought, I sort them into groups of 0.1 grain. I usually end up with a few very light ones which I re-melt, a few very heavy ones (re-melt) and a bunch in the middle. For competitive shooting I would use the groups that weighed no less or more then 0.2 grain on either side of the center, average. When shooting for score, centering the sprue when loading home-cast balls helps to reduce the effect of minor differences in weight as any void that exists will usually be right under the cut-off mark.

Curator,
Forgive me but I have much difficulty reading your post so I will review the the whole process.
By suggesting that we weigh out the balls we are really searching for there HEAVIEST balls which are, being lead, the most solid balls.
Self cast balls are the very best because they all come from the same mold and should be more likely to be be the same size. Cast balls from other sources are probably the next best.

I'm not clear by what you mean when you say you sort into.01 grain groups but with cast balls determine by weighing out about 30 and writing dan the weights to see what is the heaviest, most solid end keep all balls thare within one grin of the heaviest and remelt all others
If you are dating smaller caliber balls you might eliminate all those a half grian lighter than the heaviest.

Swaged balls which are squeezed into shap are a bit difficult because if you weigh out a hundred you'll probably find the weights are all over the place/ They, in my experience and the experience of quite few othe subscribers, ranging as much as 2 and a half grains for a given caliber.
Hornady's will have few extra heavy weights, probably meaning a slightly larger ball.. Your problem there is figuring out which are the extra heavy balls and which are the more appropriate weights for that caliber.
On average when weighing swaged balls you will end up pithing about 25 out of a hundred.

That's 25 % of a package of expensive of shiny expensive swaged balls.
With self cast balls you migh pitch 5 out of a hundred balls.
If you do much shooting it seems obvious to have a try at cast your own balls Cheaper in th long run and much lee flyers,
++n reason I have never been able to explain as clearly as I would like because many good people read my instruction and then proceed to weigh out the balls and then select all those that weigh within one grain of each other which might well give a collection of light weight balls. .


To sum it up we are looking for the most solid balls containing no light weight inclusions, or the more likely air bubbles,

Being a nit pickity person I would cast 30 or so balls as rapidly as possible before I cast any I intended to keep.
Rapidly because I want to keep the mold evenly hot as changing temperature of the mold chages the size of the mold. Not a lot but just enough to give you varing weights on equally solid balls. This is more important if you are using an aluminum mold as aluminum heats and cools more rapidly
For some D

After casting my own lead balls and using my own Dry patching strips I had NO flyers the remaining years I was able to shoot.

There, Curater, a long boring repines to you question.

Dutch

I must apologize (again
last Friday I thought I might be getting my free banjo fro Saint Peter and dumped my concern on you good people.

I think it means I need somebody more local to talk to.



Dutch

Back in the days when I was an OCD competitive shooter I allowed no more than 0.1 gr. variance from my cast balls. Others were used for practice or hunting.

I'm curious, can any of you ball sorters definitively proof that sorting them by weight has any accuracy advantage at all or does it just make you feel better,which might transfer into accuracy enhancing confidence?
I sort 500 grain home cast match bullets to within +/- .75 grains ( 1.5 total) and the culls weighing several grains out side that parameter shoot right along with the sorted, as far as I can tell, out to 600 yards.

M.D. I didn't keep group records from the non-weighing days, but what I can tell you for sure and for certain is that since using Dutch's system and weighing protocol, I no longer have unexplained fliers, not one, not ever.

Using Dutch's entire system I am on the verge of shooting groups of under 1 MOA at 100 yards with my TVM flintlock.

To me, it's worth the effort whether on the range shooting for extreme accuracy or in the field fulfilling my moral obligation of one well placed shot resulting in a quick clean kill. Your mileage may vary.

I've heard this before but have never run a good exhaustive test personally so am curious about it's accuracy.
I only compete in off hand matches with my .45 and .54 muzzle loaders out to 100 yards an so have never taken the time to see if sorting mattered as I do not think I could hold for any accuracy difference particularly with a round ball.
If it really helps I sure will try it!
Shooting for many years competitively with bullets and balls has taught me to call my shot. That is seeing and remembering where the sights were at the trigger break and mostly I have found any fliers were not the rifle or loads fault.
Very rarely have I witnessed a shot that impacted other than where the sights were aligned at the break.

I have kept tract. The round ones shoot very well and the not round ones, not so much. :rotf:

Actually someone brought this up on another forum and I was thinking myself, people have strong opinions about it but I have never actually heard of anyone confirming an actual test. I think I will add that to my project list for the future.

Yes, I shoot NMLRA territorial light bench, about 4 years ago I changed to weighing balls and powder. My scores went up by 3 to 6 points higher. With my gun and my abilities I have placed in the top 10 year end scores a couple of times. The scores went up to very low 180's for a 4 target Agg, shooting both open and peep, 50 and 100 yards. BTW, low 180's is 9th or 10th. A really good score 187 to 191.
I just ordered a new barrel and action, I finally think my rifle is holding me back.
Michael

I'll have to give it a try. Thanks

One of he things about this game is: CONFIDENCE if you think it helps, it will help! :idunno:

Practice, practice, and more practice leads to confidence.

Michael

I have been sorting my cast round balls for years. 45 caliber and above to plus or minus .1 grain, 40 caliber and under, plus or minus .5 grains. I have found with my 50 caliber balls, that the light balls tend to group 3" high and 3" to the right. The heavier balls tend to just shoot lower. After this testing I now throw the light and heavy balls back into the pot for re-casting. My off hand shooting is not the best, but I don't need any help with my misses.

Let us remember that NONE of us shoot perfectly round balls.
As soon as you whack your
r short starter the face of the ball gets a bit flattened and the sides of the ball gets straightened with grooves of the rifling etched into them
.
It.s nice to start with a nice round ball so that even as it is extruded in to the barrel it remains nicely balanced.

Dutch Schoultz

M.D. said:

I'm curious, can any of you ball sorters definitively proof that sorting them by weight has any accuracy advantage at all or does it just make you feel better,which might transfer into accuracy enhancing confidence?
I sort 500 grain home cast match bullets to within +/- .75 grains ( 1.5 total) and the culls weighing several grains out side that parameter shoot right along with the sorted, as far as I can tell, out to 600 yards.

Click to expand...

That practice actually was much influenced by my years as a professional photographer. I had to, not only shoot the pics, but had to process the film, make and develop my prints. One little step that was not quite right didn't notably affect the final product. But a couple misteaks could. So all steps properly handled were important. For top ml accuracy, methinks the same discipline is important.

Very nicely said.

Michael