What size ball to start?

[frogwalking]

I am assembling a Chamber's Early York rifle kit, with a B weight, 45 cal. Rice barrel.  I pushed a .454 ball through it, and it appears to be .450 land to land.  What size ball do you recommend to start loading?  (When the rifle is finished, of course.)

[Standing Bear]

I always start w a ball .005 undersize. Depth of rifling will dictate thickness of patch. TC

[Kermit]

I'd beg/borrow/buy some .440 and .445 balls (maybe a friend or an online purveyor) and start from there.

[Daryl]

I'm with TC on ball size  .005" under- all calibres, except a .320" seems to work well in my .320" bore'd .32 longrifle.  I've shot .400" in my .398" bore'd .40 and they gave the best accuracy.

Much depends on the rifling style, rounded or square and depth when looking at bore size. Every barrel I've used though, has responded favourably to a .005"/under ball. From there, actually benching rifles when testing, shows balls smaller than .005"/under have decreased accuracy in my guns- as a general rule.  My .69 has shown this is not a hard and fast rule for all guns.  Much depends on requirements.  All of my combinations require the use of a short starter.

[Standing Bear]

I've used .401 and .403 in a .40 cal and .451 in a .45 cal w/ good success, Daryl.  I Just start w .005 under. TC

[LH]

Don't "not try"  something because you think it might not work.  Try everything you can get your hands on. 

[Ron T.]

I'd start with a .440" ball and a 16/1000ths. to 17/1000ths. lubed cotton patch.  This patch thickness will "scrunch-down" to maybe 6/1000ths on either side of the ball when compressed between the ball and the barrel.  This will give you a solid-but-not-too-tight-fitting patch/ball combination when pushing & seating the patched ball down the barrel which will require reasonable effort to load and still put a good "spin" on the ball.

At the same time, your patch will be thick enough to withstand the blast of the powder and the "ride" up the barrel  without failing.  Make sure you "collect" some of your used patches from the area in front of the rifle for later inspection.

If any of your patches are "burnt-through", try using a thin vegetable-fiber wad between the powder and the patch when inserting your load in the rifle.  However, with sufficient patch thickness, you shouldn't have any trouble "burning through" your patches.

You may need to go to a slightly thicker patch, but you may also find the patch thickness I've recommended will serve your purposes quite well.  Buying & trying different thicknesses of patch-cloth is considerably less expensive than buying and switching rifle balls.

In fact, when you go to the store to get your patch-cloth, either a big box retailer or possibly a better choice would be a retail sewing center that sells cloth, I'd recommend you buy several different thicknesses of patch material within a short range of thicknesses (let's say from 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20/thousandths  of an inch)and try each one at the rifle range.

You don't need to buy a large amount of these initial different thicknesses of cloth purchases.  Buy enough to enable you to make at least 25-30 shots... or up to 50 shots, but no quantity greater than that.  Any cloth not used can be used for cleaning or wiping cloths, so there's no "waste".

I've found the above methods tend to cut down considerably on the time and effort in correctly getting and determining the single, best patch thickness we need for our special kind of shooting enjoyment.

I've found that cotton denim cloth is tough and works well, but 'most any COTTON cloth will get the job done just fine.     


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

[smylee grouch]

You will want to consider patch thickness of course but you might want to make sure the weave is tight as some material can have rather lose or open weave even though its thickness  might be ok.

[Pvt. Lon Grifle]

Virtually all home cast bullets vary in size from the nominal mould dimensions. The same is true of patch material depending on a a variety of factors, including current humidity or age, or bolt of purchase. The important thing is the decision you make as to how tight you want the ball/patch combination to be and whether you will use a range rod or the ramrod, or a short starter in loading. A fifty smooth is a different proposition to load than a 32 squirrel gun with a .30 diameter stick.

Take a large enough piece of patching to really overlap the ball and an appropriate ball and seat in the muzzle below flush and then pull it out with the excess cloth. If the fit is something you want to work with for your shooting, proceed on to trials with powder and target. Know what you want to do: I always use a bit  loser fit and a short starter and the gun's rod for hunting.    Lon

[Daryl]

If using a ball that is .005" to .010" smaller than the bore size - THAT's a .445" or .440" ball, find 10ounce denim and it will work perfectly, with either. I guarantee it will not scrunch down to .006"- which would make it useless, ihmo. If compressed as hard as possible by something the width of the land, it might scrunch down to .020".

[Ron T.]

Beg to differ, Daryl... but I "scrunched" .016 cotton denim down to exactly .006" using one-inch micrometers and turning down the micrometer's knob pretty hard... and I'm reasonably sure the cloth wedged between the barrel and the ball will scrunch down that much as well because I did it with relative ease.

Remember that the cloth will be .006"  on both sides of the ball equaling a total of .012" of cloth between the .440" ball plus the .012" cloth equaling a total size of .440+.012 = .452"... more than enough to put a good spin on the ball, yet close enough to the total bore size (.450") to make for fairly reasonable loading  pressure on the ram-rod.    


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

[moleeyes36]

I think you have to take into consideration how you're going to use the rifle.  For range work I like a bore size, or close to it, ball and a pretty thick patch.  I generally get the best accuracy that way.  However for hunting you may find that combination a bad choice.  A very tight fitting ball/patch combination can be hard to reload in the field for a follow-up shot when you can't take time to run a cleaning patch down the bore.  In my hunting rifles I prefer to use a looser fitting ball/patch combination that will still give me acceptable accuracy but be easier to reload in a barrel after a shot has been fired. 

[Daryl]

 Ron T.- that has not been my experience - I do not shoot loads that do not go to the bottom of the grooves- ie: engrave the ball all the way around- from the lands and grooves as I've found them to not be accurate enough for me.  I guess it's just because I will only use a load that seals. That is why I don't use just any old cotton - because for me, it just will not do the job I demand of the patch. 

 

[Dphariss]

I am assembling a Chamber's Early York rifle kit, with a B weight, 45 cal. Rice barrel.  I pushed a .454 ball through it, and it appears to be .450 land to land.  What size ball do you recommend to start loading?  (When the rifle is finished, of course.)

Ball should be bore -.005. Patching should be at least .015 cotton or linen. Try some 9-10 ounce denim. I used to recommend heavy blue stripe ticking but its coming from Communist China and all I have found recently is totally useless.

Dan

[Dphariss]

Here is another thing to consider about "sealing". Based on looking at a lot of recovered bullets from BSGs (brass suppository gun).
Yes,  the rb/patch fit has to be tight and provide some sealing in the grooves. I shoot fits just a little looser than Daryl does.
However, at the point where the ball starts to move the powder at the base of the ball forms a WAD unless the load is too light to do so. The powder does not all ignite at once even when used in a BSG with a very hot modern primer and only 60-70 gr on powder.  The pressure rise is fast and will pack the unburned powder hard against the base of the projectile. This prevents blowby until more of the charge is ignited.
I am pretty sure from the rifling forms found on many rifles that this was all that prevented a lot of gas loss at initial acceleration or even blown patches back in the day.
Since acceleration is rapid, about like that found in a modern pistol powder the ball will break 1000 fps within 8" +-  of the breech. Once the ball is moving the pressure is falling or at least not increasing even though more gas is generated as the rest of the powder is burnt. This also likely occurs within 8" of the breech perhaps a little more with large powder charges.
This rapid acceleration and "powder wad" is what allows people to shoot conical/cylindrical bullets from both ML and BSG that are bore size or less without gas cutting. All that is required is that the bullet be fairly soft. 1:20 at the most.
So while its POSSIBLE to shoot looser fits. There is always a greater risk of blowing the patch and even setting fire to it.
So its best to use a fairly tight fits. Ball within .005 of the bore and patch greater in thickness than the groove depth.
This is why I do not care for grooves much over .010" Its unnecessary and may well reduce barrel life.
Now is this all proven scientific fact? No. But its based on a lot of shooting by myself and some others and the experiments of Mann as detailed in "The Bullets Flight". All BSG stuff BUT he did refer to lead bullets as "putty plugs" when used at the pressures generated by the early grey powders.
I do KNOW that in BSGs the bullet will expand to what ever dimension the chamber/bore will allow BEFORE the bullet moves. I assume this is true of Maxi-balls and such as well since they would not work otherwise.
NOW do PRBs expand on acceleration? Very little. If they did "bump up" to fill the bore sealing would not be an issue.
Personally I think they lack the mass for diameter to cause the back of the bullet to move before the front. It is also possible the patch supports the ball to some extent.
I suppose this could be tested in a wadded SB barrel with a ball .005-.010 under bore size fired into oiled sawdust as Mann did to prevent bullet damage. But I lack the energy for such things.

Dan

[Daryl]

All good logical material, Dan. It needs no 'proof' of testing as it has been working thus, for over a century now.