Most of the fellows I shoot with use WW's in the smoothbores. it's dirt cheap- usually free and makes pefect balls for the non-rifled type. In the .69 Rifle, with it's .012" deep rifling and 66" twist I was able to use WW balls with up to 96gr. of 2F or 82gr. of 3f. Above those loads, I had to use pure lead and heavier patches due to the higher pressure requiring a tighter fitting load than could be loaded with the hard balls. The only heavy loads that could be shot accurately with WW balls were with paper ctgs. In their case, the empty paper ctg. wadded up beneath the ball prevented gas blow-by. The double wrapp of paper fit tightly enough to take the rifling - tightly enough that a short starter was easier loading than without. If the starter wasn't used, the rod had to be choked up to about 2", just to get it started into the bore. Even with the stater, loading, capping and firing off that shot was an 8 second deal. Large bore rifles can shoot very accurately with WW balls and paper ctgs. The deeper the grooves, the fewer the # of shots that can be fired. A friend's .75, with .024" rifling can only fire 3 paper ctgs. then has to have a very tight, pure lead ball and sopping wet patch fired with a light 3 dram load to 'clean' the bore. Then, another 3 shtos can be fired with paper ctgs. and WW balls.
