Hornady ball weight test

[Canute Rex]

I have read a few comments by people about Hornady swaged balls being irregular in weight. I decided to weigh a few. I have some 0.495" balls for my Lancaster 50.

I set up and zeroed my manual Lyman Ohaus scale to 182 grains and set out three boxes: over weight, right on, and under weight. I decided that any ball half a grain or more over or under would get put to one side or the other.

I weighed 50 balls. None were more than a couple tenths of a grain under. Ten were half a grain or more over, but most just barely made it to half a grain over. There was one 8/10 of a grain over. 40 out of 50 were within a few tenths one way or another, most being pretty much spot on or 2-3 tenths over. I would have weighed more, but I wasn't getting any flyers.

I was taking the balls from two different partially used boxes and I did notice that most of the overweight balls came from one box.

Not bad, I'd say. I feel a lot more confident about using them.

[wmrike]

Wow!  That's pretty good.  I use cast bullets, mostly in 0.530 cal., and figure +/- 3 grs is okay.

[Dphariss]

But did you measure them for DIMENSIONAL consistency around the circumference? Most swaged balls have a "belt".

Dan

[Canute Rex]

Does that mean I could fire them in one of those British two-groove rifles? 

I did not mike them, but now I will.

[Candle Snuffer]

Hornady balls have pretty good consistency.  I've used them for years (lots of years) and have even checked their circumference at times over the years for cirumference consistency and have no complaints about them.  They're pretty darn good balls.  I like 'em, but I'm sure like most things, they have their critics as well.

[Dphariss]

I would have to go do some checking. Thinking about it a little more Speer are not as good as Hornady in this regard. And these may be better since i looked last.

Dan

[mbush50]

Has anyone ever checked Hornady ball for hardness? Seems like pure lead is a thing of the past, just wondering.
Thanks,
Michael

[d-a]

There softer than cast wheel weights.

Has anyone ever checked Hornady ball for hardness? Seems like pure lead is a thing of the past, just wondering.
Thanks,
Michael

There softer than cast wheel weights. I switched over to wheel weights to get full penetration on my 45 cal rifles. I wasn't getting pass thru's on wild boars with the pure lead. Now I'm getting pass thru's but not much expansion. Gonna try a 2/3 pure lead 1/3 wheel weight to see if I can get the desired results I need.

Here is two small boars I shot recently with a 45 flintlock. One that was facing me I recovered the WW ball.


Both balls were shot into hogs at less than 20 yards. The lead on the left is a hornady .445 ball, it was recovered from a 100lb boar hog it went in behind the shoulder and was found under the skin at the last rib. No major bone was encountered. The one on the right was shot into the boar hog on the left in the above picture. It was facing me and I found the ball under the skin at the last rib around 24-26 inches of penetration.



d-a

[Canute Rex]

So I whipped out the calipers and measured ten of them. The measurements, as I turned each ball over and around in my fingers, averaged and clustered around 0.495, but varied from 0.491" to 0.499". I saw that spread, or near to it, on every ball. Seemed as if it was more about dents than a belt. I couldn't find a consistently high ring around any of them.

Anybody measured cast balls of around that size? What kind of variation do you get?

[Candle Snuffer]

Years ago when I did my measurements it was with the .445's and they varied little so I saw no reason to take it any further.

[Dphariss]

Had to check so I just measured probably 10 .440 Hornadys from a box I have had for 10-15 years.
Smallest dimension was .437 largest .444.  ALL are oversized .002-.004" most places with the small areas  in the  .437-.439 range on many so they will load more like .445s than .440s. This with 8-10 checks per ball. None were round. I don't see how some could not cause accuracy problems. This with my Starrett mic with minimal pressure. If measured with a caliper they are only accurate  +- .001 or sometimes worse so these cannot be used when one wants to really know the diameter of something.
I have to stand by my statement about being out of round and often belted. I would have to dig some to see if I have some other sizes but most have been dumped in the lead pot after I got some .54 moulds. Might have a few .575s I used in testing a rifle and pistol 2-3 years ago. But really its not worth the effort based on previous experience. Did not bother weighing them either.

Dan

[Frizzen]

I use "Buckshot" and they are swagged like the Hornandy balls. They are out-of-round some like about
.003-.004 thousands but it don't matter. They are oversize when I load them so they don't come out of
the barrel round anyway. Matter of fact the 600 point pistol agg record at Friendship which was set in 2005
was set with Hornady "Buckshot". He only dropped 22 points out of 600. That record will stand for a good
many year. Weighing is a waste of time also.

[mbush50]

I am not sure what a "belt" is in Hornady balls, but every hand cast ball has a "belt or ring". As far as I remember from measuring balls, none were ever round. Frizzen, we agree when the ball and patch are somewhat over sized when loaded they are no longer round when they come out. We have used Hornady balls in my wifes pistols both Target guns and Traditional guns for years, but not in rifles until last year in Phoenix when .535's and .020 Teflon were not loading in my rifle. I borrowed some .530's Hornady's then shot some good scores. I am off to Sportsman's warehouse to buy some more .530 and .495 tomorrow for a round of testing.

Michael

[dlbarr]

I use "Buckshot" and they are swagged like the Hornandy balls. They are out-of-round some like about
.003-.004 thousands but it don't matter. They are oversize when I load them so they don't come out of the barrel round anyway. Matter of fact the 600 point pistol agg record at Friendship which was set in 2005was set with Hornady "Buckshot". He only dropped 22 points out of 600. That record will stand for a good
many year. Weighing is a waste of time also.

 Frizzen, my sentiments exactly. My lead supply comes out of the backstops at the gun range or anywhere else I can get it for free or even close. I mix it all up together and don't give it a worry for a minute. Now, I don't shoot any serious competition but I can easy hold a 3-4" group at 100yds (off a rest) and in my lifetime, I've never shot an animal at over 50 yds when hunting anyway. I'm not against the folks who want to be tack-driving accurate but I imagine the weight variation(s) between projectiles that I cast would be a hilarious laughing matter in such circles!  All this exactness takes the fun out of it for me, but no offense meant to anyone else. Just my 2 cents...

I will say this much: when I don't cast my own, if I can buy Hornady, I will.  Have found them to be extremely accurate regardless of caliber.

[Habu]

Just some numbers for comparison.  A while back I cast up 5 lots of 1,000 each in .440, .454, .457, .490, and .530 moulds.  The balls were weighed, and the weights plotted in .1 grain intervals.  No ball was more than .3 grains under weight, or more than .2 grains over weight.  Over 97% were within a .2 grain spread (i.e., plus-or-minus .1 grain). 

Those weren't specially selected in any way; that was "mill run" after the mould was up to temp.  From past experience I would say that is typical of balls cast in a good mould, ranging from .40 caliber to .54 caliber.  I don't have enough experience to know the ranges on smaller balls, and have never really tested in larger moulds other than a .735".  As I recall, the range from the .735 mould was slightly larger. 

Having done similar experiments in the past, I know that I can tighten up the overall range a bit with a couple of tricks.  I'm just not convinced it is worth the bother for rifles using iron sights. 

[Dphariss]

In bullets used for BPCR I found in limited checking by milling down though bullets .010 at a pass that so long as the bullets are not more than 1 gr under the norm for that casting session they have no abnormal flaws. If they are more than 1 gr under the sky is the limit and off center anomalies are the norm. Poison when shooting at long range. This process, mill a piece of wood flat then epoxy bullets too it then mill then way .010 at a time is very educational. Even the bullets right on the nominal weight are not completely "solid" or I guess homogenous is the best term.
I would also point out that the far slower twists used in RB rifles will also reduce the effects of flaws and the reduced range capability also makes "perfect" bullets less important. But since is not that tough to cast bullets with a low weight spread I sort RBs to no more then 1 gr "light".
In a 400 gr 40 cal slug 1 gr is only .25% of the bullet weight BTW, but I would not waste time shooting bullets that were out of "spec".
Dan

[snapper]

 A few years ago I found my self in Grand Island NE for work and we got done early one day in time to take a private tour of the Hornady plant.

They get really big ingots of lead in, melt them down to different lead rope dia. and extrude them to even smaller dia. depending on what they plan on using them for. 

They had plastic cement mixers running with round balls in them, with a towel or two.  They tumbled them for a random amount of time until the operator removes them.  They package them based on weight.

I have used their round balls for years with good luck.

Fleener