Ball Roundness

[n.h.schmidt]

Hi Everybody
Like many of you I cast most of the balls I shoot. Most of the moulds I have cast somewhat out of round balls. Two to three thous on some of them .I have mostly Lee and Lyman moulds.The Lymans are the least out of round. How important is this? Short of swaged
its almost impossible to get really round balls. Can good accuracy still be had with the home castings?
Your imput will be of great interist to me. Thanks
n.h.schmidt

 

[trailblazer]

I always figured the round ball loses some of it's roundness being rammed down the barrel anyway?

 

[guncobbler]

Then it looses the rest of it's roundocity when we touch the gun off GC

 

[Many Klatch]

Accuracy really relies on the nut behind the butt plate :haha: . If you are shooting offhand, then even a slightly out of round ball will still be more than accurate enough.

Many Klatch

 

[jtmattison]

Accuracy really relies on the nut behind the butt plate :haha: . If you are shooting offhand, then even a slightly out of round ball will still be more than accurate enough.

Many Klatch

The nut behind the butt plate on my rifles gets loose from time to time. Messes accuracy up terrible. :haha:

HD

 

[tg]

I figure that when you roll them across the table top and they do not go flop, flop, flop they are good enough...my current standard of accuracy is 4-5 inches max spread at 50 yds offhand, with a smoothbore, I can get this with a .535 ball in a .58 bore so perfect balls are not needed...naugh, let's leave it at that.

 

[graybeard]

My flintlock and I are often referred to as "Ol' Lightnin Bolt"--we never strike in the same place twice. graybeard

 

[paulvallandigham]

YOu have not told us the dimensions of the round balls from the various molds you refer to. If a ball is within .003 " of a nominal, or average diameter, it should be okay, except in the very small calibers, such as the .32, or .36. The secret is that the balls are cast from pure lead. If you are using wheel weights, or some other alloy, your accuracy may suffer if you don't hold the tolerances closer than my suggestion.

If you have cast balls that seem to be out of round, try putting them into a case tumbler, without any cleaning grit-- just the lead balls-- so that the balls knock against themselves and the sides of the tumbler. See if that doesn't help get them to dimension, evenly. I know this kind of treatment removes casting sprues, and those stick out a lot more than the average out of dimension round ball will measure. I have heard of men putting their lead cast balls in a bowl or jar, and spinning that around to bang the balls together to round them. I don't think I have that kind of strength, but its the same idea as a case tumbler. I don't know if this would work in a case vibrator, which I have, but just have never used for this purpose. If someone has done this with a case vibrator, please let us know.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

In one word, "obturation." When you send it down the barrel, no matter how true to round the ball was, tis no longer.

 

[Headhunter]

I never checked mine on purpose. I don't want to wig out on something like an out of round ball when my rifles shoots as good as they do.

Don't worry about it unless you can SEE it is out of round. Then I would get a different mould.

Headhunter

 

[Old Salt]

The majority of balls I buy and shoot have a sprue so they are consistently out of round.

All of my shooting is offhand and when I'm shooting good :haha: I don't notice a problem with accuracy.

Old Salt

 

[Saint]

Sorry to pull up an old topic but I am gonna leave this here for anyone who searches the topic in the future. I hand cast my balls but I really dislike sprues. I take a small paint jar with a top than can be hammered on and fill it with just a enough roundballs to form a single line from end to end. I then mount the can in a regular woodworking lathe and let it run at low speed. after about an hour and a half the roundballs come out perfectly smooth and they do not have that ugly sprue anymore. When I originally started doing it this way, and I was an accuracy freak, i would use a CCI musket cap tin and do this one ball at a time. This creates some extremely smooth balls and they have no flat spots from bumping into other balls. If someone requests it I can post a before and after picture.

 

[roundball]

I worry that we sometimes over-engineer this fine old pastime of shooting muzzleloaders...can't add much to what's already been said other than this real life example.

I bought 5 boxes of Speer .530s off EBay one time...the seller just dropped those 5 heavy plastic boxes loose inside a cardboard shipping carton bigger than a shoebox.

The plastic boxes broke apart during shipping and handling and by the time they arrived, the balls all looked like miniature golf balls because of all the dents / flat spots they had in them from banging into each other so much during shipment.

Told the seller, he refunded my money and didn't want to also pay return shipping, so he told me to just keep them...turns out they were just as accurate as if they were brand new.

 

[skunkskinner]

Hello Saint,and welcome.

Pictures are always good to have.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

I have a Lee dual-cavity mould that throws a .50 REAL slug and a .490 RB, the .495 Hornady swaged RB's I have bought shoot tighter groups than the .490's but no matter the .490 is good enough for plinking and I use the REAL for hunting anyway.

 

[reddogge]

I worry that we sometimes over-engineer this fine old pastime of shooting muzzleloaders

Amen brother.

 

[Saint]

I don't think its over engineering as much as too much free time.

 

[Saint]

So here are the images. These two were cast from the same mold at the same time. The right one was placed in a CCI musket cap tin and suspended in a woodworking lathe where it tumbled for about 20 minutes. As you can see the sprue is nearly gone. If I would have left it there for a few more minutes it would have disappeared completely but i wanted to leave enough that the sprue are could be identified.

 

[NoJacketRequired]

OK, we've read opinions on this question. Now I'll add some empirical evidence.

A couple of years ago I was debating this same point, and had a small supply of Hornady .490 round balls that had been pulled from the barrel of my rifle for various reasons. These balls had a honkin' big screw hole in one side of them.

As a test, I fired three factory-new balls and three "screw balls" at a target 50 yards distant and compared group size. Keep in mind that all other variables were kept as constant as possible, that is to say, same powder charge, same patch, same #11Mag cap, etc.

The group size difference between the factory-new balls and the "screw balls" was less than the range of variability found in shooting similar 3-shot groups of factory new balls. In short, all groups were under 1.5".

My personal conclusion arising from this test is that a sprue or other deformity in a round ball doesn't make a whit's difference at 50 yards. Load the deformity so it points down the barrel instead of being up against the rifling and you're good to go! :thumbsup:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Nice information to know. However, some shooters demand, and need better accuracy than 1.5 " at 50 yards. You won't win any chunkgun matches with that kind of accuracy, for instance. And, long range shooters, -- RB matches are shot out to 200 yds-- need much better performance.

The third group of shooters that need better consistency are the exhibition shooters, who cut playing cards in two at anywhere from 20 feet, to 35 feet, or who split a ball on an axeblade and break two clay targets with the halves of the bullet. Or those who snuff out candle flames without hitting the wick, or the candle, firing a PRB.

Those bench rested numbers are great, but for exhibition shooting, which is done off-hand, those numbers need to be doubled, and that produces misses. Exhibition shooting is of necessity, short range shooting, so that the audience, situated behind the shooter at a safe distance, can still see the target you are shooting. One of the reasons that splitting playing cards in half is NOT a good crown pleasure, is the crown cannot see the card, if they are behind the shooter, and if they are sitting wide on either side of the shooter, they can appreciate the difficulty of the shot. LIghting kitchen matches held in a block of wood down range makes a much more interesting, and attention getting target. But all required a lot of accuracy in the ball and load combination.