smoothie round ball with straight grooves...wondering

[sonny]

I have heard that dimpled round ball used in smoothbore guns is more accurate with stability in flight then a smooth round ball......the knuckleball effect!. Has anybody tried a round ball with straight grooves running front to back?  I would think that straight grooves would allow the air to jet down the ball sides an stabilize its flight better then spiral grooving like a rifle barrel. If the ball was slightly off with spiral grooves, it would have a curveball effect. Straight grooves would act like a jet with stabilizing streams of air around diameter.....Geez, I would think a hole in the center would do it also................thought I would throw that out there into the world to make a better mouse trap!...............sonny

[Daryl]

I don't think so, sonny.  Grooves don't work with Foster Shotgun Slugs so I doubt they would work with a round ball either.

Straight grooves and spirals were tried on custom made slugs for 12 bore loads (aluminum and steel were used to prevent mashing flat as happens with lead) and ALL Keyholed intesting, accuracy was worse than any other slug, although they looked fantastic.  A lot of different designs were tried and all failed. Grooves merely cut in projectiles lack the steering properties of feathers as on an arrow shaft, or flip-out vanes on rockers.  Much more surface area than a cut groove would be needed at super or trans-sonic speeds. Folding wings that flipped out once past the muzzle did and do work. The military uses a number of these 'projectiles'. Seems to me that new 30mm uses folded/unfolding wings. Not in Ml's however.