AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Black Powder Shooting => Topic started by: Jakob on September 14, 2025, 05:45:32 AM
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Having tried out variety of sizes of balls for my new Jaeger rifle, it seemed that .610 was the best choice.
I had already been checking out ballmoulds.com before and liked the simplicity and material (brass) of their molds, so I decided to order one from there.
Measuring the barrel and taking shrinkage/patch thickness into account as listed on their site, it suggested a .609 which matched my experiences so far, so that's what I ordered,
Obviously a one person business, but order was processed, made and shipped quickly and only took a week to arrive from the UK.
Apart from applying a bit of soot on the interior, I did no other mold prep and already after 10 or so castings, they started to look ok and another 10 or so, they looked perfect.
After 40 or so, the mold would get a bit too hot, which I then used as opportunity to add more lead to the pot.
Occasionally, the mold-halves wouldn't line up properly, but it was really easy to just re-open/close again. There's no pins, just interior guides and in general it works quite well.
I had 120 after an hour so, which should be enough for a while. I had already re-melted the early wrinkled ones and while cutting the sprues off, I only found one ball that didn't look awesome (but still better than most bought ones).
(https://i.imgur.com/G32CjQD.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/3x9agoI.jpeg)
Pictures don't really do them justice, but I would recommend these molds to anyone looking for custom sized round ball molds.
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Ball Moulds are very well made, accurately sized, reasonably priced, and delivered quickly. What's not to like?
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I have 5 of those moulds, all made before Jeff Tanner, the father passed. I think his son has carried on the business.
My "Tanner" moulds range from .595" for my 20 bore, to .740"
for a 10 bore with patch.
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I got a 4 bore mold from them. Where else are you going to find that?
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I got a .70 for my fowler from them, I had been shooting a .690 ball out of a Lee mold which only shot OK. I decided to try a .70, none of the usual mold makers made that size.
The way my fowler grouped with .70 was daylight and dark over the .690.
(https://i.ibb.co/9HyD13Gq/fowler-small-size-ball-target.jpg) (https://ibb.co/N2WvJn7L)
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I have several, and all make good balls.
You need to run your lead hotter, lots of imperfections in those castings. Aside from the wrinkles, you shouldn't be having that parting seam line. Check to see there is no speck of lead or anything else in the mating surfaces.
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For me, those would have gone back into the pot. Wakeup is correct.
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As stated, the images do not do the quality of the casts justice and they're way better than any I've bought and easily comparable to the ones I got from Taylor a couple of years back.
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As stated, the images do not do the quality of the casts justice and they're way better than any I've bought and easily comparable to the ones I got from Taylor a couple of years back.
Well, if you can't see what we are seeing, more power to you. As Daryl said, they would have gone back in the pot here.
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And here as well. More heat!
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The photo showing the balls is significantly enlarged. (More than twice the size of the actual ball.) Is it possible that some of the texture issue you guys are noticing is because of the enlargement? If noticed many times that something that looks great at normal vision can look rough if enough magnification is applied. How do you guys who have a lot of experience with this evaluate texture? I don't do a lot of casting, but when I do, everything goes back in for a while, but when I start getting stuff that looks good under normal vision I keep going from there. Do I need to do more?
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When in doubt check weight average. The only thing I saw was maybe the lead needs a bit of fluxing. BJH
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The photo showing the balls is significantly enlarged. (More than twice the size of the actual ball.) Is it possible that some of the texture issue you guys are noticing is because of the enlargement? If noticed many times that something that looks great at normal vision can look rough if enough magnification is applied. How do you guys who have a lot of experience with this evaluate texture? I don't do a lot of casting, but when I do, everything goes back in for a while, but when I start getting stuff that looks good under normal vision I keep going from there. Do I need to do more?
The layers of under-heated lead is pretty obvious to an experienced caster. Also specks of some kind of contaminant is seen in several balls.
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I see the same. Specs of foreign material/dross and under heated wrinkles. Those surfaces should be smooth, without wrinkles or inclusions/dirt, some call it.
The "melt" or mould or both, isn't hot enough.