Flat spot on Round Ball

[rmartin77_99]

Being new to Black Powder I would like to have help on loading a Black Powder revolver with round balls having a small flat spot. I purchased .380 round balls for a Uberti 1851 Navy and they have a small flat spot on them. When loading the revolver where do I position the flat spot? I hope I have placed this question in the correct place.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Load them as you would a ball with a visible sprue showing- with the flat UP!

Or, if the flats bother you so much, put the balls in a tumbler or case vibrator, without any polishing medium, and let the balls bang against each other to remove the flats.

For matches, most pistol and revolver shooters weight the balls and sort them by weight. Some also will sort by diameter, but since you shave lead off on the mouth of the cylinder when loading, consistent weight is more important, along with a round ball.

 

[Bill Hall]

And when you position the flat spots forward, the loading lever smashes the front of the ball to match the contour of the plunger thingy. Bill

 

[Zonie]

While I see nothing wrong with throwing somewhat deformed balls into a tumbler, in my opinion, that applies only if the ball is going to be shot in a single shot pistol or rifle.

If there is a noticeable flat spot on the ball it may be due to someone cutting off too much of the casting gate and leaving an actual flat spot.

In a revolver, if that flat spot makes the ball smaller than the chamber it could possibly leave a open gap into the powder when it was loaded.

To avoid this possibility, loading the flat spot "up" so that it would show before ramming the ball in place would be my recommendation.

 

[rmartin77_99]

Thanks everyone for your help. I purchased these balls from Track of the Wolf and was actually surprised they had a flat spot on them. The spot is large enough to notice and to allow the balls to sit on a slanted surface without rolling. Will load them flat spot up.

 

[M. De Land]

That is why I always remove my loading ram on any of my revolvers and chuck them in my lathe and cut the face of the rammer to a hemisphere with a half inch ball end mill. MD