Weighing round balls

[catman]

Now we are weighing our balls, have I got that right, we are weighing our balls!!!
They didn't in the days...

 

[George T.]

Well I have experienced fliers caused by voids. A friend sawed some in half and it was bad. I now shoot Hornady round balls. A while I read some posts on their weight difference so I weighed 100. 97 were within .5 grains and two were light and one a little heavy. I put the scale up as I don't shoot all that good any more! Geo. T.

 

[Rifleman1776]

I'm not good enough at 100yds to notice a ball's POI shift by being a few grains lighter but my hats off to all those who are.

I doubt anyone is.
But in my early years in this game I noticed the habits of the guys who won most of the matches. I tried to emulate what they did including weighing balls, changing nipples frequently and much more.
Did it help? Well, my scores improved but those same guys kept winning. :shocked2:

 

[Billnpatti]

Nope, you are dead right on that..........but they didn't drive pick up trucks to the rendezvous either. The times, they are a-changin'. If you are running ball over a campfire at a rendezvous, you won't weigh them but if you are casting at home with an electric furnace and planning on driving your car or pick-up to a match at Friendship.... and you want to stand a chance of winning.......you probably carefully weigh your balls. Is it absolutely necessary? Naw........not if you just want to make smoke and noise. But.......if you want to have a chance of winning.......better hang up your PC duds for a bit and get out those non-HC scales and get to weighing. Am I that anal? Nope, but I ain't that good of a shot either so I couldn't tell if a ball was within a grain of the previous or next one. But there are some out there who sure are just that good and can tell if a ball is within a fraction of a grain of the next or last one. And you can take that to the bank because I have personally known some who are just that good and have the medals and trophies to prove it. :thumbsup: Should you weigh them? Should you not weigh them? Is it HC? Is it PC? :hmm: :idunno: Hell, they're your balls, do whatever you want with them. :hatsoff: :haha:

 

[smo]

Reposting my inputs from another thread on pretty much the same topic.



05/18/13 03:26 PM - Post#1281655

Did a 50 yd. test with my .58 flintlock. 10 shots with selected ball that weighed 270 gr +/- 1 grain vs the rejects.

1 1/2" group with the good stuff. 2 1/2" group with the rejects.

Enough of a difference to use selected ball for stuff that counts. Rejects were good enough for practice vice remelting.

I agree with most on not being able to shoot good enough to tell the difference one balls weight or the others. However I do feel like if you are hunting" X's" instead of wild game and you want to be competitive you should use every trick in the book. Like Bill said a difference of 1" in a group will look real big on paper but not so much on a deer. :wink:

 

[Dr5x]

The main effect of shooting a light weight -off balance- ball is that it spins and in spinning the off balance ball will deviate from the intended path.
If you do not believe that this happens, I suggest that you remove a wheel weight or two from your vehicle tire,

Why are wheel weights attached to your tires?

Dutch

 

[FishDFly]

The main effect of shooting a light weight -off balance- ball is that it spins and in spinning the off balance ball will deviate from the intended path.
If you do not believe that this happens, I suggest that you remove a wheel weight or two from your vehicle tire,

Why are wheel weights attached to your tires?

Dutch

So folks who do not have the knowledge of others, can ask, "Can I use wheel weights to cast round balls", they have nothing to do with balancing your tires, they are for discussion here.

 

[necchi]

:shocked2:

 

[Rifleman1776]

Can I use wheel weights to cast round balls",

Yes. Can. But not reccomended. Soft lead squishes easier to take the rifling. Soft and hard lead cool to different sizes out of the mould.
And, stubborn old guys like me who lean more to the traditional will frown at you if you use hard lead.
However, with the price of lead so high and availability being difficult, use of hard lead for smooth bores is a bit more acceptable.

 

[M. De Land]

I'm not sure that's true Zonie about .250 being the limit to which void induced yaw can progress in a ball flight, particularly if the void is far off center which they usually are not but rather under the sprue or there abouts.
Course the balls are not really spheres any more while in flight as both loading and bump up have changed there shape do more of a cylinder with a hemisphere on each end. Mike D.

 

[Zonie]

In flight, the ball fired from a rifle will spin about its center of gravity.

The center of gravity cannot be outside the physical limits of the ball. Even in a poorly cast ball with a large void in it the center of gravity will be fairly close to the center of the ball.

As the ball flies downrange, the center of gravity of the ball is what follows the curved trajectory towards the point the rifle was aimed at.

If the shot was a perfect one and the trajectory of the ball hits the X dead center, that is where the center of gravity of the ball will hit.

Because of the imbalance caused by the void while the center of gravity will hit the center of the X, the actual hole poked by the ball will be somewhat displaced making the shot look slightly "off".

Several years ago, the Bevel Brothers tested the effects of loading poorly cast (read out of balance) balls with the sprue loaded to the side. This in effect was placing the out of balance ball in a position that would create the largest error on the target.

They expected to see a noticeable decrease in accuracy as that is the commonly held notion about these things.

The results? No noticeable or measurable inaccuracy was found during their tests.

 

[necchi]

If the shot was a perfect one and the trajectory of the ball hits the X dead center, that is where the center of gravity of the ball will hit.

Because of the imbalance caused by the void while the center of gravity will hit the center of the X, the actual hole poked by the ball will be somewhat displaced making the shot look slightly "off".

:hmm:
:shocked2: Wow! :thumbsup:

And MD, I don't think a "ball" can yaw,, something has to have an elongated shape at least somewhat, to be turned in to a yaw position in flight, a sphere can't yaw.

 

[M. De Land]

It's not a sphere any more after it is loaded and shot. The sides where the patch imprints is made partially cylindrical from set back and loading pressure.
I suspect that voids in pure lead balls are at least partially compressed out from loading and inertial set back at firing which would minimize there centrifuge effect of imbalance.
Hammer swagging was considered critical in the muzzle loading target era for void compression and making the bullet perfectly round.
Far as I know any projectile has a yaw angle but the shorter it is the less it is effected by it. Mike D.

 

[M. De Land]

Spinning projectile that is! MD

 

[roundball]

Several years ago, the Bevel Brothers tested the effects of loading poorly cast (read out of balance) balls with the sprue loaded to the side. This in effect was placing the out of balance ball in a position that would create the largest error on the target.

They expected to see a noticeable decrease in accuracy as that is the commonly held notion about these things.

The results? No noticeable or measurable inaccuracy was found during their tests.

Exactly...and after reading that article years ago ran an entire range session myself paying no attention what-so-ever to spru location, noticed no difference in accuracy.
In addition, for years I've routinely 'pulled' my PRBs after every hunt to load fresh for the next hunt, and save the pulled balls for range use...25-35 balls...again, no noticeable difference in accuracy what-so-ever.
These .600"s came out of a smoothbore...no difference at least to the 50yds I re-used them.

 

[roundball]

( 25-35 balls per year )

 

[necchi]

Different people have different expectations and goals, even different definitions of "Accuracy",
We've been down that road already Bill, even what people will refer to as "One Hole Accuracy" can vary greatly.

Having other people actually witness a persons shooting and/or receiving accolade from peers in recognition of a shooting skill set, can be much different than any single individuals satisfaction with his own accuracy.

Everyone of the proponent's of weighing ball to eliminate a variable in this thread have stated it only matters where fractions of an inch in target shooting matters. If all a person want's to do is hit somewhere near the center of a paper plate that emulates hunting proficiency, weighing will matter little.

 

[Eljay]

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.

Yes, but most of us who weigh them don't go about that just right. If voids is what we are trying to avoid, then only the heaviest balls should be used. [...]

I can't speak for most people, but that's what I do. If needed I weigh a few to remind myself what they should weigh (!) and then start throwing everything that's below some threshold into the pot. I'm not super precise about the cutoff, if a one grain cutoff would indicate 220.2 or whatever I'll just make it 220 even. If it's not at least 220, into the pot it goes.

I don't throw out a ton of them, since keeping an eye on the casting process and looking at the outside catches most of them. But I do get the occasional light ball and I'd just as soon remelt it.