Non lead round ball question

[grndhntr]

Do any of you guys have experience with non-lead round balls, esp. hunting experience? How do they perform on game?

 

[mooman76]

Do a search here. Someone here was experimenting with brass RBs. I believe he was from CA. He had good results shooting and could reuse the recovered balls. I don't know if he ever hunted with them or not.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Roundball is his handle. I miss his tales.

B.

 

[Claude Mathis]

Doing an Advanced search for "brass balls", in the Shooting Accessories category will produce a lot of topics.

 

[Scota4570]

ITX is the only option. They shoot OK. They load hard and cut patches. You might select an oversized barrel and use thicker patches. They are light, go to the largest practical caliber.

Have not killed any game with them. I have killed deer with a pure lead 50 cal ball. It expanded out like a quarter. Dropped the deer in it's tracks. Hard non expanding balls wont't expand.

Performance will be worse in every catagory.

 

[gbeauvin]

Someone here was experimenting with brass RBs... I don't know if he ever hunted with them or not.

http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/274030/

Indeed he did hunt with a PBRB (patched brass round ball) in his .58, successfully too.

-GB

 

[grndhntr]

With the ITX balls and brass balls I don't really like the idea of a non expanding projectile. I have a .50 cal rifle and weights would be kinda low with these options too. Are there non lead conicals made now for .50?

 

[Many Klatch]

I used to shoot steel ball bearings out of a .60 smoothbore. I found I could hold dead on at 100 yards. Shot pretty accurately. Never used it in hunting though, ought to work though.

Just don't dryball.

 

[BrownBear]

I have a .50 cal rifle and weights would be kinda low with these options too. Are there non lead conicals made now for .50?

Yeah. That's why Roundball went with 58 caliber. That and the fact he couldn't get the right size balls in other calibers, as I recall.

 

[nkbj]

Could be interesting with a GM .62 drop-in smooth rifle.

 

[Grumpa]

Me too. Roundball has not posted in over a year.

?

Richard/Grumpa

 

[Stumpkiller]

Perhaps killed in a breech explosion when shooting a glass marble and brass ball duplex load?

I do miss his input. He had a different approach to m/l.

 

[GreyWhiskers]

A buddy and I did some limited testing with the ITX r/balls. We also cast our own using a bismuth/tin alloy from Roto-Metals.

Our findings were- use the smallest diameter ball available in your caliber along with a thick patch.

We never got the kind of accuracy we were used to at longer distances.

No expansion. Balls would pass completely thru ballistic gel.

Never shot game with them but they should perform well. A .50 or .54 cal hole all the way thru a game animal's vitals is always good.

GW

 

[BrownBear]

We also cast our own using a bismuth/tin alloy from Roto-Metals.

Been considering that, but never got around to trying it.

Can you provide details? I'm especially curious about casting temp, fill success (or failure) rate when casting, and as-cast diameter compared to lead. Also curious about weight comparison with lead balls from the same mold.

I could go on, but that would be a heck of a good start. Thanks for anything you can offer!

 

[Hermit]

During w.w.2 when there were no slugs we replaced the shot in shells with ball bearings to kill deer, it works but I would not do that now.
Hermit

 

[GreyWhiskers]

Can you provide details? I'm especially curious about casting temp, fill success (or failure) rate when casting, and as-cast diameter compared to lead. Also curious about weight comparison with lead balls from the same mold.

Bear,

Here's what I found in my notes-

The bismuth/tin alloy cast fairly good balls. It melted at about 500*. I found that if I opened the mold too quickly it would leave a dimple on the ball.

My mold normally casts a .492" r/ball weighing 177gr. The b/t alloy cast a .496" ball that weighed 155 gr.

I pushed these ball thru a barrel without the breechplug, using .010", .012", and .015" thick patches. I needed a rubber mallet to get the balls started with the thickest patch but then they pushed down the barrel fairly easy. All of the patches showed holes from the rifling.

I fired 3 shots with each patch thickness. Groups were about 1" at 30 yards. All of the recovered patches were shredded.

I recovered 2 of the balls from sandy soil. One had mushroomed and the other had broken in two.

From my memory, we couldn't get decent accuracy at longer distances. GW

 

[BrownBear]

Excellent info. Thanks!

I have a .562 mold for my 58 caliber, and with similar increase in size it might be getting close enough to .570 to work just fine. Another project, another day, but a good experiment I think.

 

[Larry Pletcher]

I did a test of the ITX balls. I was not thrilled with them , but felt they would provide hunting accuracy in normal, open-sight, muzzleloading ranges. Here is the link to the test:

BPM Link

Regards,
Pletch

 

[Flintfan69]

I recovered 2 of the balls from sandy soil. One had mushroomed and the other had broken in two.

Do you remember what your % of bismuth to tin was? It might be worth experimenting with a higher % of tin in the mix. That should make the resulting ball more malleable, and reduce the chance of fracturing.

Interesting experiment, thanks for posting your results.

 

[GreyWhiskers]

Do you remember what your % of bismuth to tin was? It might be worth experimenting with a higher % of tin in the mix. That should make the resulting ball more malleable, and reduce the chance of fracturing.

Interesting experiment, thanks for posting your results.

I just looked at Rotometals site and they show a 88/12% alloy. I don't think the alloy I used had that much tin in it. GW