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50 cal ball, the nice thing about standards, there's so many to choose from

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In my Dickert long rifle I had been shooting a .490 ball and using a Lyman mold to cast them. Then I came across a late 1500's, early 1600's 50 cal gang mold with six chambers. Once in my hand I learned it produces .495 balls. Took a while to locate patch material that was thin enough to use in both my long gun and my rifled pistol. However this mold doesn't have a spur cutter so they have to be cut by hand with a knife. A bit more work but heh I'm using a mold from the late 1500's, early 1600's and that's just cool.

But then I came across another 50 cal gang mold with six chambers from the late 1700's/early 1800's and this one has a spur cutter. Super cool. Has to kick out either .490 or .495 balls yes? Nope, .480.

Haven't tried them in any gun yet, but hopefully I can upsize the patches to make it work. But, then there are the two smooth bore Frenchies I just got whose bore is a shade bigger than 50. Has anyone tried double patching a round ball? I'm guessing to use the .480 that would probably be needed in the Frenchies. Hate to not be able to use the gang mold with the spur cutter.
 
FYI: It is a sprue cutter.
I always shoot .480s in my .50cal. rifles. They work fine with thick awning canvas patch. They are just as accurate and are easier to load. I also found a box of .486s that work well. The smaller balls work well in the .016" deep grooves of Rice barrels. The heavy patch fills the grooves. This 5 shot group was shot benched at 50yds. using .562 balls in a .58cal. The rifle is a right out of the box Kibler Colonial. .58 with an estimated load. The high shot is the first one out of a clean barrel.

Brooks rifle target.jpg
 
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i just tried some .480 balls in my 50 caliber Early Virginia. 70 Grains 3F with the same .015 patch that I shoot in my .50 with .490 balls went into the same group at 50 yards. Since my .490 with .015 patches are hard to load, I am using the .480 patched balls in my bullet block for follow up shots. have never needed a follow up shot, so this is theoretical at best. But it will load into a dirty barrel.

ADK Bigfoot
 
Double patching will work. I once was on a trail shoot and a member of our group had lost the plug to his ball bag and his balls had fallen out. He had a fifty caliber and the rest of our group had 45 or 40 calibers. So he finished shooting .445 balls in his fifty caliber with triple patches and actually shot better than he had with his .490 balls and single patches.
 
Thanks ohio ramrod. I actually ran some balls with the (new to me) late 1700's/early 1800's gang mold that I had calipered at .480 (as best as I could measure), but the balls actually caliper .485.

I shot both my 50 pistol and rifle with the .485's, up'd the patch from .010 to .015 and they were plenty tight. At 25 yards the rifles accuracy was the same as with the .495's, all cutting the same hole, but the point of impact moved a touch down and to the right. I can live with that since I'm not trying to cut playing cards.

Shipped the Frenchies off to a gunsmith today for some adjustments so didn't get a chance to see how they will do but based on the others I think I will be okay (no previous experience with smooth bores though).

I did find this interesting, although the 1700's/early 1800's gang mold is in superb condition I can see daylight in some places between the two mold halves as I would expect from the time period it was built. So some of the balls have a little "flashing" which will probably ultimately end up flat against the balls from carrying them around together. But I decided to load them as is and see if the accuracy was affected. It wasn't, meaning probably that my skill level can't out-shoot the rifle or the balls. Just found it interesting.
 
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