Pounding tight balls down?

[Oldbear63]

This should be a very well covered topic but it didn't easily come up on a search.

What is the experience (opinion or tested and supported with actual evidence) on patched balls that easily start and ram down vs those that need a hammer to start and must be shoved or pounded down with some force.

Personally, I prefer to start and ram loads down with moderate effort. How much difference in accuracy or performance is there with loose vs tight loads?

 

[Ironoxide]

In my experience if you have to ram the ball down the bore inch by inch with heavy blows either the bore needs cleaning, you have too tight patch ball combination or insufficient lubricant.

With regards to accuracy I have one rifle with original 45degree crown where starting a ball/patch requires using a short starter as a mallet repeatedly. Then once started I can use the original wooden ramrod to simply push it down the bore. (no doubt I should tweak that crown, but it is such a good shooter I'm afraid of ruining it). This rifle has pretty shallow rifling and slow twist.

Then I have another rifle with deep rifling and medium twist. To get good accuracy for that rifle I had to make a brass ramrod with which I ram the ball down. Bear in mind this "ramming" looks more like heavy pushing than hammering. I found that if I'm ramming the ball inch by inch it is too tight and it will shoot worse than loose ball.

 

[oldwood]

Stop the pounding and learn how to manage loading your rifle. Ball diameter?, patch thickness?, lube ? , bore cleanliness? , .54 cal. and below , FFFG , burns cleaner. Hammering on an already tight fitting lead ball deforms the ball in the bore , and potentially damages the patch before firing. Consistency in loading is key to accuracy. Use a short starter to get the ball partially down the bore . Shouldn't require more pressure than bumping the starter w/ palm of the hand. Last , make sure the muzzle crown is smooth. If it needs attention , get some 400 grit emory cloth and use your thumb in the bore , simply rotate the thumb w/ emory cloth in the bore 'till a better crown is evident. 0000 steel wool on a bronze brush should finish the newly crowned surface. This stuff ain't rocket science ,ya can do it..................oldwood

 

[jdw276]

Watched a guy in friendship doing that on the off hand line on friday before shoot this year. You could hear him 50 yds away pounding that ball down. Short starter pounded, ramrod, use the term pounding rod not ramrod as description. I mean pounding the ball down. Not once but everytime he was loading. Bet he got less than 2" of movement down with each hit. 20 shots or more during his session. I was like man that is way to much work if that is how to get winning offhand accuracy. During breaks never saw him clean his rifle to make it easier.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Ned Roberts in The Muzzle-Loading Cap Lock Rifle [1942] mentions the problem when one whangs the ramrod against the patched, round ball, when loading.

James Forsyth in The Sporting Rifle and It's Projectiles [1867] also mentions using a perfect sphere, how it is superior to muzzleloading conical [minnie] bullets, and provides quotes by other famous hunters of his era that concur.

The round ball does not "obturate" against the rifling as does the base of the conical bullet, or the forward ring on the Lee REAL bullet, nor should it be expected to do so, and manually trying to obturate the ball merely destroys accuracy, according to Ned Roberts.

Now is accuracy sufficiently harmed to matter to the hunter at 50 yards? Perhaps not, as Ned Roberts was concerned mostly with target shooting, and at distances of 220 yards, which necessitated a cloth or paper patched, conical bullet.

LD

 

[hanshi]

I always use tight loads which give plenty of patch compression in the grooves (.016" radius and .012" square cut barrels). All rifle crowns have been polished, ball .010" to .005" under bore size and thick (.024") patch material is used. A short starter is used and the wood, underbarrel rod is always used at the range and in the woods. I refused to use any load that can't be safely seated with the wood rod; that's what I rely in the woods and all other shooting. I seat the prb with short strokes of the rod of around 4" at a time; seating is normally very easy.

In general tighter loads are more accurate loads, but not loads that have to be hammered down with a metal rod. Calculate the amount of compression you are getting in the rifling grooves; and if it's comes out to zero a thicker patch, larger ball or both are needed. A 100% gas seal is impossible to attain but a tight prb can come very, very close with good patch compression in the grooves.

 

[Sidney Smith]

I will sometimes use a tight load using a. 535 ball and. 018 patch for the first shot on a clean barrel when deer hunting. I know it's a more accurate load. If I need to make a follow up shot, I'll then load a .530 ball using the same patch from my loading block since the bore has now got some fouling.

 

[Larry (Omaha)]

This should be a very well covered topic but it didn't easily come up on a search.

What is the experience (opinion or tested and supported with actual evidence) on patched balls that easily start and ram down vs those that need a hammer to start and must be shoved or pounded down with some force.

Personally, I prefer to start and ram loads down with moderate effort. How much difference in accuracy or performance is there with loose vs tight loads?

All my rifles require a starter, and I never use a hammer. I have a friend that shoots a two piece stock CVA that loads loose and he beats my butt all the time. So, that tells me loose can work in some rifles. Overall, in my opinion, tight is better than loose, but never a hammer.
Larry

 

[Mulebrain]

Thread title cracks me up!

 

[Oldbear63]

Thread title cracks me up!

There are so many potential jokes and puns in this hobby that it looks like no one even bothers....

We all just enjoy playing with our balls, nipples, rods and guns.

 

[Loja man]

I have a TC New Englander. I use a ball starter and then the wooden ramrod. It definitely shoots better with a tighter ball and patch combo. It hurts my palm to start the tighter combo with the ball starter. It’s pretty hard to get it down for the first 8 inches. I really like the thinner patch because it’s so much easier to get down! Accuracy suffers thought.

 

[kje54]

Pounding tight balls down?



I must bite my tongue, I must bite my tongue, I must bite my tongue!

 

[Josephg]

Never had to hammer a ball all the way down a barrel.
I often use a rubber mallet to start bullets and even round balls when target shooting but have always been able to push down to
the breech. I can't tell any difference in accuracy between a very tight load and a moderate tight load. My most accurate rifle is loaded with a short starter and moderate pressure going down.

 

[oldwood]

Josephg...................Agreed , 100%..........oldwood

 

[TexiKan]

Tight loads were encouraged when I first started and they were often a pain, even with a steel range rod. Changed to the next smaller ball diameter and was able to use a thicker patch and the loading was better. No more major effort in loading. Now, after all these years, if after starting the ball in the muzzle and I can't ram it down in one full push, then something is wrong.

Meanwhile, some may remember the rationale of the Katie-Did or something like that ramrod. The theory was once you seated the ball, the Katie-did would have a weight that would perfectly seat the ball to the charge. Haven't seen one in use for years....

 

[Grenadier1758]

The KaDooty ramrod was far too expensive and did no better at improving on target accuracy than applying consistent pressure using a good ramrod.

 

[Art Caputo]

Very tight fitting loads rarely, if ever were keepers for me. My most accurate, un-swabbed loads have generally been “easy loaders”. Barrel condition/finish and well tested load parameters makes all the the difference!

 

[hanshi]

I would never shoot a load that couldn't be safely seated with the wood ramrod; too much chance of the rod breaking and causing an accident. I load fairly tight but not "super tight".

 

[Frontier's]

Never have I ever found an accurate load with a loose fitting patched ball. If i can smack it a couple times with my short starter and then push it down the bore half a dozen times on a fouled bore, its a great hunting combo. The most accurate ml'er shooters at the big shoots, you will often find with a mallet, to tap a super tight fitting patched ball or even a conical, down their bore.

 

[Grimord]

I am mostly a hunter, so I don't want a tight fitting ball & patch combo so tight that I can't easily start and ram a ball down for a second shot if necessary. I am not looking for one hole accuracy, just reasonable accuracy (3" @ 75 yards) for my deer hunting rifles. I do a lot more shooting in the field when squirrel hunting with small caliber rifles, so here too I prefer loads that go down easily, with only medium pressure on the ram rod tha will give me 1.5" or less groups at 35 yards. Tight fitting loads are OK for me when target shooting and I have a range rod, but in the field I want a load that I can get down the bore with the stock wooden ram rod and a smart smack of the short starter.