weighing our balls

[Hungry Horse]

Nope, but a sugar pine will. And a redwood is a real ball buster.

                Hungry Horse

[yip]

  opppps guess I spelled sprue wrong

[SCLoyalist]

Since the sprue weighs something,  it has the same potential for affecting the ball's path as does an internal void.  The amount of effect depends on the mass of the sprue (or void) and how far off the bore axis it is.  That's why it's considered best to load the sprue oriented along the bore axis, either up or down.  The drawback to trying to load it down, is you can't see exactly where it is so it may be a little off axis.  

In a perfect world, the ball would be perfectly round, and the bore axis would pass through the center of mass of the ball.   In the real world, the ball will be slightly out of round and the center of mass will  be some (hopefully) slight distance from the bore axis.


In Fred S's Muzzleloader article, I believe he got interested in trimming and tumbling sprues because aging eyesight made it difficult to see the sprue, so he sought to eliminate its effects.

[Kermit]

To (pardon the pun) weigh in on the first subject, I use the following rule if I'm seated or lying down and resting the barrel on something I use balls that have been weighed patching that has been measured and Swiss powder. No matter what position I'm shooting from. If the barrel is not rested on something, and particularly in an offhand situation. I don't worry about weighing the ball. I use goex powder and whatever patching I have found that particular rifle likes.

As far as lead temperature without a thermometer. I have always use a rather rudimentary method. The ball comes out of the mold wrinkled your lead is too cold. The ball has a frosted look to it your lead is too hot. I know it sounds kind of crude, but it has always worked well for me.

Exactly my sentiments. When a match is won or lost by minuscule measurements, you get fussy. When you just need dinner plate sized groups to hit a gong or deer at, say, 40yds, weighing seems time better spent watching Looney Tunes.

[yip]

   what's the best way to rid the ball of that ugly ole SPRUE, tumbling, rubbing between two pieces of glass, what't the secret?

[SCLoyalist]

Fred S. described his 'tumbling' kit as two pieces of thick glass plates, one plate edged with tape to prevent cut fingers, one edged with  rubber tubing to keep the balls from rolling off.     Note that he doesn't claim that you're going to cut 4 inches off your group size, just that you needn't be as picky about sprue orientation when loading.   The results he measured with a .50 cal rifle were: balls with no sprue modification showed some lateral stringing in a .77" center to center group;    the group with balls that had been trimmed with a knife would have produced a 1" group except a flier opened things up to 2", and the tumbled ball group was a cloverleaf just under .7".

For hunting deer, you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.  For hunting squirrels or shooting the 25 yard six bull, you might.

It's maybe  worth reading the whole article and experimenting  to see what results you get with your rifle.

[Standing Bear]

   what's the best way to rid the ball of that ugly ole SPRUE, tumbling, rubbing between two pieces of glass, what't the secret?

Load sprue up with a tight patch combo, whack the starter and no sprue problem.
TC

[Daryl]

   what's the best way to rid the ball of that ugly ole SPRUE, tumbling, rubbing between two pieces of glass, what't the secret?

Load sprue up with a tight patch combo, whack the starter and no sprue problem.
TC

ditto, TC - except now I use a short stud in the starter's knob for the initial starting of the patched ball into the muzzle, hitting the starter's knob with the palm of my hand. The ball starts straight, every time. If merely whacking the ball into the muzzle with the starter's knob as we used to do it, with a pounding motion, the ball can actually start slightly crooked, off centre of mass with a ridge pushed up on one side, less pressure on the other.  A loss in accuracy will show on a target at at 50 yard ranges or further, depending on the amount of off-centre push.
The cupped end on the starter's stud, will crush the sprue down almost perfectly into the ball, thus no "ugly" sprue sticking up, just the rounded surface of the ball. Centre the sprue - straight up for best accuracy.

[Vomitus]

   thanks fellas; now I'm torn, but still need more input. most shooting for me is 25yd to 75yd. my shoot'n went down hill after a TOTAL HIP JOB, why in my younger years I used to have POWER, now old age is creeping up on me.

It's quite a recovery,isn't it! I've had both of mine replaced. My shooting has suffered also,but it's good to know we can rebound.
  I remelt the wrinkled ones and the balls that show an air hole in the sprue button.

[Daryl]

I remelt the wrinkled ones

Doesn't that hurt? At your age, I well expect they are wrinkled.

[dagner]

  A FILE

[WadePatton]

Heckfire yeah I weigh my balls!

I used to weigh multiple components, but now i just do the powder by volume and pre-sort my balls. 

Also note that any imbalance imparted by a sprue nub will be enhanced by its distance from the axis of rotation (centerline of bore).  So anywhere approximately up or down is hugely better than an "equatorial" orientation (which could also give blowby issues).

Without rotation, sprue is practically meaningless.  Smoothbores rejoice! 

[Hungry Horse]

 Hey guys, remember that the mold back in the day were what we call a bag mold today. If you have ever measured balls run from these old molds you will find they are rarely round enough to roll away on a slightly out of level surface. yet they fought wars with them, and made amazing shots with them. All, without weighing them, rolling them, kissing them, or blessing them. BUT,THEY SHOT NEARLY EVERY DAY! Hello, its all about the shootin' not the weighin'.

                             Hungry Horse

[Bob Roller]

 In the book called "The Muzzle Loading Rifle,then and now",Walter Cline mentions
tests using "perfectly round"lead balls and some that were out of round and the tests
favored the out of round balls.

Bob Roller

[Daryl]

Tests are interesting things, Bob. Sometimes it seems to depend on the lay of the land, weather or even the way you wear or hang your hat, but identical tests can give results that vary 180 degrees.  Thus, it takes more than one test to show conclusive results. Less than many tests will usually show only trends.

I did the same test in my .40 Goodoien match barrel.  I had balls that measured .400" X .400" and from another mould cavity, they ran .400" X .394".

The .400's that were perfectly round, shot 1/2", 5 shot groups reliably at 50 yards off bags, while the oblong balls shot into 2 1/2" for 5 shots.  In testing both balls offhand, I was able to shoot 1 1/2" 5 shot group with the round ones, but barely put 5 into 3 1/2" with the oblong balls.  On a 5" disk target, it would not have mattered, but on a squirrel's head, the oblong balls certainly would have resulted in missed squirrels- according to THIS test.

This is not to say that the results might have been polar opposite had I repeated the testing on another day, but I will note that the perfectly round balls should have the greater accuracy potential.

[EC121]

.006" is a good bit out of round.  That would put the CG of the ball a good bit off the centerline.  As a matter of curiosity, I weighed 120 .395 balls I cast yesterday.  The average weight was about 92.2gr. from my mold.  I didn't figure the variation, but it appeared to be about .3 to .5gr. with most hitting right on 92.2gr.   So a .5gr. plus or minus range would be OK for this weight. 

[Habu]

Hey guys, remember that the mold back in the day were what we call a bag mold today. If you have ever measured balls run from these old molds you will find they are rarely round enough to roll away on a slightly out of level surface.

Actually, I have measured balls cast in a number of original "bag" moulds, and have the diameter variances and weight ranges as close as my notebook.  This information comes from various casting runs of >100 balls, cast over a fire, using plumbers' lead melted and poured from an original "St. Louis Shot"-marked ladle.  The "44" mould is the one I used for some test with an original Dickert last fall, the first "32" is one a friend uses with his .53 caliber rifle. 

1        2        3           4 144      .005   0.3        2.0 142      .002   0.4        1.1 100      .003   0.3        1.1 74       .004   0.6        1.2 44       .003   0.4        1.9 40       .002   0.5        2.0 38       .003   0.9        1.6 34       .003   0.6        1.1 32       .001   0.5        0.7 32       .006   0.7        1.4 24       .002   0.5        1.8 16       .008   0.8        2.1 11       .005   1.0        1.5

Explanation of column numbers:
1.   number marked on mould (balls per pound)
2.   variance (out of round) in .001"
3.   weight range (trimmed with knife) in .1 grain
4.   weight range (trimmed with knife, then filed round) in .1 grain

Granted, these moulds were all selected for their condition--as close to new as possible--but folks in the past weren't typically using worn-out 150-year-old equipment either.  I've got far more data on diameters and weights of balls cast from various modern moulds, and these numbers would fall right in amongst them--not the best, but probably not a significant handicap for hunting or most local competition. 

(Note that I got far more-consistent results when trimming sprues with a knife and NOT filing the ball round.  Especially with those little ones, it is difficult to do consistently.)

The numbers do tend to open up more when weighing and measuring balls cast in various gang moulds of the period.  Balls out-of-round by .010" or more, and weight variances of 10 grains, are not uncommon. 

As is typical for me these days, I weighed about 10% of my last run of rifle balls (there were 1,027; I only weighed 100).  Weight range was from -.3 grains to +.2 grains, so not too bad.  These were from a modern mould, using an electric pot: think "production" rather than "research".

[smylee grouch]

Interesting test Daryl. I wonder if the out of round balls would have shot any better if they were indexed and loaded with the index the same every time or maybe you did it that way when you ran your test.

[Frizzen]

The Honorady "0" Buck I use in my 32's measure .320-.324.  But when I tap them
in the .320 bore with .010 patch they become perfect round.

[yip]

   sure good to hear replies, I don't weigh em, what ever ball comes out of my bag I shoot em. my shooting shows that though, I wish I had the answer. getting old ain't for good shooters!  THANKS ALL.