Enlarging a bore a hair??

[Scota4570]

I have a friend who hunts in California with a 54 cal yeager and ITX balls. Those balls are as hard as iron.   His bore measures 0.540".  The 54 cal ball measures 0.524".  Loading with even very thin patches requires a brass rod and a hammer.  This is not acceptable.  All of the ITX round balls are similarly of the wrong diameter. 

Does anyone have the ability to "fresh" it up about 0.020" on both the lands and grooves? From a machinist's standpoint  that seems to be a problem to me. 

The barrel is 1" AF.  Would it be a better bet to send it to Bobby Hoyt and have him rebore it to a 64 caliber?    With the .601 ITX ball that gives 0.039".  Divide by two and you get 0.020".  Add a little and that seems a reasonable patch size.  Check my math!

Thanks in advance
Scot

[DavidC]

You want someone to ream out .02" of a bore and then remachine that .020" from already cut rifling? That wallet is about to drop some pounds unless you can find some bubba who can destroy the rifles accuracy.

And a .524 ball should bottom out of a .54 bore with almost finger pressure. See what the depth of the rifling is and consider just having it reamed out a small amount. Sounds like the lands are too high.

[Daryl]

The .64 and .601" with 120 ounce denim sounds legitimate.
a wad of some sort between patched ball and powder might also be necessary.

Rich Pierce should be able to increase the bore size of the .54 some, with his methods.

[rich pierce]

0.020” would be 16 hours of work with traditional freshing. Bobby Hoyt may be able to follow the existing grooves. Normally he drills and reams existing rifling then cuts new grooves.

[heinz]

I think the best solution would be to leave California behind

[Scota4570]

I think the best solution would be to leave California behind

That will be decided November 8, 2022.  I do have very deep roots and no debt. I have friends, lots to do, and places to go here.  Starting over at 60 YO in a place where the old time locals would hate me is scary.    Real-estate in the areas that interest me is going nuts.  Moving my shop and toys is a logistical problem.  We will see how things play out in November. 

[smylee grouch]

Scota4570, are those ITX bullets harder than pure brass? I had some 562 brass round balls that I shot in my 58. I only shot at 25 yds. but they all ended up in what would have been the kill zone on a deer. Not very good though for any kind of soft game.

[Birddog6]

I think the best solution would be to leave California behind

Where he lives or hunts was not the question. Maybe he likes ITX balls & CA. 🤷🏻   
Everyone has their own druthers. I don’t care for snow & ice  butt deep to a tall
indian, but some choose to deal with it. 🤷🏻

[mikeyfirelock]

I think I’d be looking at a smaller diameter mold for that barrel.

[heinz]

on a serious note you could try swaging the balls down by drilling a 17/32 hole in a steel plate ant driving them thru that.  I did an experiment with a friend once on swaging oversize bullets down for a bench gun to get a marginally longer bearing surface.  You get a slightly oblong ball with a flat ring around the waist.  They seemed to align well when patched.

[Scota4570]

That is a really good idea!

I do not know if they will crumble.  IT is worth a try.  I could easily make a proper size die out of a grade 8 bolt. 

Thanks,

Scot

[DavidC]

The swaging of the ball is pretty much exactly what you are doing when you press in a ball on a percussion no-no gun. They can be pretty @!*% accurate!

[taco650]

Are bismuth balls allowed?  They're supposedly similar weight to lead and only slightly harder and more brittle that lead.  I read a hunt story a couple years back where a guy in CA went pig hunting with an Edward Marshall flintlock using bismuth balls because they met the lead-free restrictions you guys deal with.

[Daryl]

The ITX balls I saw already had a flat band on them. I was not impressed at all as they were also too large and hard to use a decent patch.
The longer that band, the smaller they have to be to use a patch that works.

[Hungry Horse]

 Melt the lead free balls down, and recast them in a smaller mold. But don’t  make the same dumb mistake the manufacturers of those balls made. Remember alloy balls molded in a mold come out larger than they would be if they were molded from lead in the same mold.
 And then once you have the mold you can easily mold lead free balls from lead free pewter obtained from your local second hand store. They usually have a bunch of mugs, and goblets, that are food grade.  Most are engraved as a trophy which reduces their price considerably.

Hungry Horse

[Dphariss]

.020 is HUGE. It would take a LOT of work with a freshing rod to do this.
I freshed a 54 last winter and cleaned up some pretty bad pits and it will still shoot really well with a heavy patch and a .535 ball. But it took a lot of trips back and forth.
Better to try them in a 58. Or get someone to cut a 56 caliber barrel or cut out the one being used.

[Dphariss]

Also barrels with wide lands load VERY hard with hard alloy balls. Narrow lands load much easier.