Bullet casting weights

[Dr5x]

SEPAFlint
I agree with you. If you are interested in just hitting the target with a 3 or 4 inch group then all my nit picking is rather silly.
My interest is in getting the rifle to be as accurate as possible while shooting bench rest so that when you are shooting off hand all the variation in the group size is easily attributable to the rifleman and not the rifle.
If your rifle is not doing its best bench rest it is going to a lot worse when you are shooting offhand ,partially when hunting.


Dutch

 

[Dr5x]

Sepa,
You are doing everything correctly (as far as I can see)
A good clue for judging the consistency of your self poured (or any lead balls is whether you are getting any fliers.

If four of your lead balls are going where you are aiming and the fifth ball decides to head for Wisconsin there must be a reason.

You know when you have twitched while shooting and causing an a variation from the group. But how do you explain a rock solid firing practice that results in a flier?

Dutch

 

[Dr5x]

SEPA.
Just for the hell of it try shimming your current ball patch combination by placing a thin sheet of paper between ball and patch that will slightly increase the patch effective patch thickness. Maybe try it again with two sheets.
I was surprised what a difference an additional thickness of only .005 can make on a group's tightness..


If you are using an aluminum ball mold it will expand rapidly as it heats and will also cool down just as rapidly.
The thing to remember is to cast rapidly so that the expansion and shrinkage is minimized thus giving more consistent weights..


Dutch

 

[Dr5x]

MD,
I agree that almost all voids will appear under the sprue of the cast ball. But I don't think you can depend on that.
I guess the operative word here would be "almost".

Swaged balls are very pretty but they range all over the place in weight as I found and as someone pointed out just yesterday. Lord only knows where where the void might be with them as they are in effect Squeezed into shape.

Some years ago when I was buying every thing connected with the sport there was a kit for your own "Swaged" balls. You would car a lead tube and cut off chunks and place them in a "mold" of sorts and hammer the heck out of them. This would result in a relatively spherical lead ball of widely varying weight and a feeling of an approaching hernia.

I am certain Speer and Hornady have better equipment but an up to 3 grain variation in weight from ball to ball must mean something.

One subscriber wrote me that he sells his light weight rejects to people who don't believe inveighing out balls and who he competes with.
Tsk!

Dutch. I do tend to run on

 

[Rifleman1776]

Just today I cast a run of .520 ball with some mystery lead/zinc I've got. The final score was:

Under 200 gr: 19
200-201 gr: 22
201-202 gr: 32
202-203 gr: 16
Over 203 gr: 3

Since I'm shooting a smoothbore and I'm the biggest variable there is, I'm melting the top and bottom categories and shooting the rest. That puts the weight spread at +/- 0.74%. I can live with that.

I believe that three grain variance, for a smoothbore, to be unimportant. You could probably use them all with equaly success.

 

[TNGhost]

I gotta say a true double blind test would give us the most accurate results. How ever in practical life and application I doubt very much that your knowledge of what ball was what changed your results.
A pharmacy or a company making ball or what have you might fudge results for sales. However people don't cheat them selfs for no real reason very often.

You're free to do whatever test you choose. I did mine and I'm acting according to what I found. I eagerly await the results of your exhaustive, blind testing.

If you go in to a test of whether "something is better than something else", with a predetermined notion that one is better, which could not be helped in this case, you're gonna skew the results. Its why science developed blind tests. Its human nature, and the word is "predjudice".

If its not a blind test, its not a test, the word is "opinion". :wink:

 

[Tom Compton]

Prejudiced tests do too often occur. So we ALWAYS have an opinion/prejudice that ALWAYS taints experiments? When we are working to determine an accurate load/ball/patch combo for a rifle we are kidding ourselves and should just go w what we THINK would work in the first place?

I don't even think science developed the double blind test except to quiet Folks who's prejudices were challenged and kept insisting the experiment was flawed. IMO more well intentioned tests are tainted accidently (or thru lack of control of all parameters) than with faulty set ups than prejudices.

 

[TNGhost]

Prejudiced tests do too often occur. So we ALWAYS have an opinion/prejudice that ALWAYS taints experiments? When we are working to determine an accurate load/ball/patch combo for a rifle we are kidding ourselves and should just go w what we THINK would work in the first place?

I don't even think science developed the double blind test except to quiet Folks who's prejudices were challenged and kept insisting the experiment was flawed. IMO more well intentioned tests are tainted accidently (or thru lack of control of all parameters) than with faulty set ups than prejudices.

You're right, we should just throw the scientific process out the window and go with our gut at all times. After all the further back in time you go the more Historiclly Correct we would be. :wink:

Ever heard the word "placebo"? :hmm:

 

[coloradoclyde]

A "placebo" or false information can be used to test a hypothesis, but prejudiced information or having foreknowledge of the outcome(such as in the "placebo affect") deviates from the standard scientific model and results in "junk science" and corrupt data.

 

[Billnpatti]

Damn, Clyde, I'm impressed with your answer. :thumbsup: You have obviously cracked a book or two in your life.

 

[coloradoclyde]

You have obviously cracked a book or two in your life.

Not nearly enough, and it never will be.....

"live, love, and learn" :grin:

 

[Dr5x]

MD
Micrometer checking the diameters of round balls would be of interest if you were shooting round balls.
When you short start the ball in your muzzle you extrude the lead into the rifling and th lands are forced into the lead as well. The front of the ball is flattened a bit from the whack of the short starter.
the back of the ball, the section opposite the muzzle, will be the only remaining round part of the ball.

In effect you will no longer be shooting a round ball.


Dutch