Weighing (lead) balls

I started shooting competition in the 70s and have won my fair share of matches over the years. I cast most all the balls that I have used and I have NEVER weighed a ball, My system for casting balls is simple. I have one single cavity mold for any size ball so there will be no variation between molds. If a ball comes out wrinkled and dull or has a hole in the sprue it goes back in the pot to be recast. If it is shiny and smooth I shoot it.

Walter Cline in his book, "The Muzzle Loading Rifle Then and Now" says to weigh and discard anything outside +/- .5 grains.

1BadDart said:

<93.1 - 12
93.1 - 18
93.2 - 61
93.3 - 79
93.4 - 53
>93.4 - 26

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Looks like your entire spread is only .3 grains. That is FANTASTIC. I would shoot them all as the same.

For my cast bullets, I often see deviations as much as 6 grains for round ball!

I have been weighing bullets for a long time as I shoot competitively in the N-SSA. The curve you see below is typical for all my cast bullets. There is a down-tick at the left of the graph and an up-tick at the right. My suspicion is that it has to do with the actual temperature of the lead. I make sure to pre-heat my molds so I get visually-good drops from the first drop. Very seldom do I get a bullet that "looks bad" (wrinkly).

My suspicion is also that the smaller the bullet, the more deviation will affect your group size. If your bullet only ways 180 grains then +/- .5 grain is going to be a bigger percentage change in weight than if you are shooting a 500 grain expanding ball. .6% vs. .2%

I recently cast up several 100 maxis for the 1st time. Weighed them all and separated into +-or - .5gr (1gr total variance.). My first trips to the range produced some of the best groups my rifles had shot. Some rifles though did not shoot significantly better.
i just try to put as many variables as I can in my favor.
If you're getting good groups and don't want to weigh them then don't. From what I've read here and have experienced it seems like some rifles will benefit from weighing while others don't. Just like everything else in muzzloading, you don't know what works best until you factor the variables into non-variables.

I have been casting Minie balls and handgun bullets for over 50 years using a Coleman stove, a lead pot, a bottom pour ladle and a bullet mould. Others recommend the electric pots and I had one once, but gave it away and went back to the Coleman stove.


"Obviously this ain't the efficient way to cast lots of balls. If I want to start casting my own, what all equipment should I look at buying? Everything, not looking to "cheap out." I'd probably only do a few hundred balls a year."

I’ll have a good chance to report here soon. I finally found a .715 mold.
Today I weighed some swaged and hand cast bullets I have purchased - since I couldn’t cast my own. They varied over 15 grains from lightest to heaviest.

I’ll cast some and sort them more closely then shoot for groups. We’ll see what happens. It may take a while to make this happen. I’ll be back.

For competition or tiny groups I suppose you can weigh away. For plinking and just having fun I don't lose any sleep or time.

The mold came today, unfortunately ups didn’t deliver the handles. This happens a lot, a package will show on the truck and out for delivery but they don’t bring it.

At this point it doesn’t matter, a storm came through today and blew a large tree down in my yard. It also blew down most of the sweet corn in my garden, and it blew all the patio furniture off the deck into the pool, the glass tabletop shattered in the pool. Now I have to figure out a way to get it out. I hate that pool!!

This AM we finished cleaning up the downed tree, then got the glass out of the pool, most of it anyway.

Several months ago, I bought 200# of lead, keel weight out of sail boats. After finishing the pool, I melted down and poured one ingot to try pouring balls with. The ingot was melted in my clean and empty furnace with the new Lee mold on top to warm it up. After about three pours to make sure it was hot enough, I stared setting the balls aside to inspect. I weighed 26 .395" balls, the range was 96.7-97.3 gr for the group.

1BadDart said:

Thanks guys.

For now, I'm wanting to control as many variables as possible, currently all of my shooting is from a bench. Later on, when I start shooting off hand I may find it doesn't make any difference.

A couple months ago I was gifted some muzzleloading items from a gentleman that has passed. In the box was a bag of .395" balls with a store brand label. So, yesterday I sat down and started weighing them, after about 10 balls I dumped them all back in the bag. They were all over the place, well over 2 grains difference.

I ordered a Lee 6 cavity mold and will start casting some balls when it gets here.

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A single cavity is better for consistency /temp control/compression casting , be it ball or conical ./Ed

1BadDart said:

The mold came today, unfortunately ups didn’t deliver the handles. This happens a lot, a package will show on the truck and out for delivery but they don’t bring it.

At this point it doesn’t matter, a storm came through today and blew a large tree down in my yard. It also blew down most of the sweet corn in my garden, and it blew all the patio furniture off the deck into the pool, the glass tabletop shattered in the pool. Now I have to figure out a way to get it out. I hate that pool!!

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If it helps I hate pools too!!!!

Ok, this is a rather contentious topic. Here's what I do. .490" through .710" I discard anything outside of nominal weight of pure lead +/- 1.5grs. That means a total spread of 3 grains from heaviest to lightest from nominal. For .440" it is +/- 1gr for a total of 2gr spread. For under .440" it is .5grs +/- from nominal weight of pure lead for a total of 1gr spread. I have seen a difference at distances of 50 and 100 yards with round balls that are outside of the aforementioned tolerance. Sometimes the point of impact difference has been surprisingly large. I don't know if it's a weight or diameter difference that creates the fliers. I have miked the light and heavy balls and they are smaller and larger respectively. For point of reference, these are my cast balls using Lyman, T/C (Lyman made), Pedersoli, or Lee molds, not swaged or store bought cast balls.

1BadDart said:

Thanks guys.

For now, I'm wanting to control as many variables as possible, currently all of my shooting is from a bench. Later on, when I start shooting off hand I may find it doesn't make any difference.

A couple months ago I was gifted some muzzleloading items from a gentleman that has passed. In the box was a bag of .395" balls with a store brand label. So, yesterday I sat down and started weighing them, after about 10 balls I dumped them all back in the bag. They were all over the place, well over 2 grains difference.

I ordered a Lee 6 cavity mold and will start casting some balls when it gets here.

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If you are trying to control variables you should use a single cavity mold. Everything made today is made to a tolerance of plus or minus a certain size. If you have a tolerance of plus or minus .010 for the size of the cavity then different cavities can vary .020 and anything in between. you have created more variables with a 6 cavity mold.

I sometimes weigh my cast balls. After years of casting I've refined my technique to where I have a high degree of confidence and weighing has confirmed that.

But nothing is infallible. I had a great target going once at 25 and the last shot went way high right. I can call my shots pretty well be they bad or good and that one was a shocker. I figured an air cavity that slipped by me.

When I do weigh its sure as heck not with a balance beam.

gunpa said:

For competition or tiny groups I suppose you can weigh away. For plinking and just having fun I don't lose any sleep or time.

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I agree. I might only do it during load development just so’s I have as few variables in the equation as possible.

Rudall said:

Why not weigh them? It only takes a second or two.

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Sure, per ball. Now multiply that by 50 or 200. That's time wasted.

Last time I looked, 50x2=100.
Is your life really so full of vital activity that every minute has to be accounted for?

Sidney Smith said:

Sure, per ball. Now multiply that by 50 or 200. That's time wasted.

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I'm retired, so time does not mean that much to me. Weighing my cast balls is just another step in producing projectiles for my muzzle loaders. If time was that important to me, I would get rid of the muzzle loaders and just shoot factory ammo out of unmentionable guns.

When I weigh I use a digital scale. Never timed the process bu I'm pretty sure I could wegh and sort 100 balls in 15 minutes or less.

After reading Dutch Schoultz book Black Powder Rifle Accuracy I have always weighed all my cast lead balls, revolver, percussion pistol rifle and miniature cannon(.69) and shooting a lot of competitions I find it has improved my score's. Rifle at 100mtrs, pistol & revolver at 25 & 50mtrs and cannon at 25mtrs. Best score with the cannon, which I roll the cast balls as per Vortex Ball roller, is 95/100 which was until last weekend a MLAGB club record!

Here’s the results of some shots at 50 yards with my English Sporting rifle using .715 RB.
Everything about the load was constant except for the round balls.

This first target was 5 shots using randomly selected balls that were bought as swaged bullets.


This next target was from the same batch of purchased swaged bullets, but they were weighed within +- .5 grains.



This last target was using hand cast bullets weighed within +- .5 grain. The difference is these were actually round.


It seems clear to me that carefully cast and weighed bullets are more accurate. If you’re plinking - maybe it doesn’t matter. If I’m hunting I’ll use carefully weighed bullets.