Traditional Muzzleloading Association
Shooting Traditional Firearms and Weapons => General Interest => Topic started by: Nessmuk on June 27, 2020, 04:25:29 PM
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Quick questions for the experts.
Which is better to remove sprues?
!). A rotary tumbler
2.) A vibratory tumbler
3.) A method I've probably never heard of before ;D
Just finished casting 600 balls in 5 calibers and this inquiring mind needs to know.
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Quick questions for the experts.
Which is better to remove sprues?
!). A rotary tumbler
2.) A vibratory tumbler
3.) A method I've probably never heard of before ;D
Just finished casting 600 balls in 5 calibers and this inquiring mind needs to know.
4.) LEE moulds :) :bl th up
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I use a Lee mold with a sprue cutter. Whatever sprue is left I just send down range with the ball. :Doh!
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Nessmunk: I made a roller plate using two heavy glass plates. The bottom plate has a wood frame approximately 1" higher than the plate. I spread a couple dozen balls on the bottom plate, and use the top plate to roll the balls by working in a circular motion. A couple of minutes, and it is very difficult to find the former sprues.
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Funny you should mention this, I just pulled the last 180 .530 balls from my rock tumbler this morning, I have a Harbor Freight dual cylinder tumbler that I bought 10 years ago, each cylinder holds 3 lbs, I toss 90 530 in each and turn it on and walk away for 5 to 6 hours and done! you would be hard pressed to see any sprue marks and any seam lines are gone, they look like Speer store bought, tried the plate glass before this, worked OK , I'm just lazy and would rather be working on a rifle or a horn instead of rolling balls by hand. Now that's tumbling the balls with NO polishing medium in with them, just the balls rolling against each other!
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Thanks for information , Friends . Being a little lazy AND having a 25% off coupon for Harbor Freight sounds like a rotary tumbler will do me fine. :bl th up :bl th up :bl th up
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No need to buy a tumbler.
There are two much less coslty choices:
1) Load the ball with the sprue towards the muzzle & shoot as normal :Doh!
2) As above, place several balls onto a steel plate, cover the balls with a 2nd steel plate, then roll the balls all around via manipulating the upper plate until the sprues are ironed out.
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No need to buy a tumbler.
There are two much less coslty choices:
1) Load the ball with the sprue towards the muzzle & shoot as normal :Doh!
2) Place several balls onto a steel plate, cover the balls with a 2nd steel plate, then roll the balls all around via manipulating the upper plate until the sprues are ironed out.
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Yep, I always do choice number 1 if I have a sprue...
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+1 for loading the sprue to the front!
~Kees~
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Well fellas I've done some of my own testing from the bench on a gun vise with sprus, front, back and tumbled balls and the tumbled balls have always been a bit more consistent, sometimes shooting the same ragged hole, like everything else in this hobby, everyones got what works for them and good on ya!
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Thanks for the input, friends . I bought the rotary tumbler at Harbor Freight (I just couldn't let that 25% coupon go to waste). Tumbled every ball I cast and they look great. I'm going to try them out on Mike Fink tomorrow . :bigsmile:
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Load sprue towards target. Aim. Pull trigger. Sprue gone
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Thanks for the input, friends . I bought the rotary tumbler at Harbor Freight (I just couldn't let that 25% coupon go to waste). Tumbled every ball I cast and they look great. I'm going to try them out on Mike Fink tomorrow . :bigsmile:
Well Nessmuk they worked! You posted a 38 on ol' Mike Fink and a 38 score ain't shabby by any means!!! :hairy
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Jim, Have you measured your balls. Are your balls symmetrical after tumbling?
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Jim, Have you measured your balls. Are your balls symmetrical after tumbling?
Never measured, don't really care about that, just a trace of the sprue sometimes, have to look real close to see it, I can tell you that from the bench, on a good day) I can usually shoot groups that are touching or close to touching and sometimes hit the same hole (ON A GOOD DAY) Not bragging, just saying they usually hit what I'm aiming at, I've never been worried about ballistics and suck, even with modern ammo, if it fires, hits where I'm aiming at, good enough for me! :yessir:
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i would never tumble for sprue removal, i don't know how that would even work.
i find it very VERY hard to beat a lee ball mould, with its built-in tangential sprue cutter. and to boot, lee moulds are uber cheap and super lightweight.
that said, i've used tanner, lyman, and other ball moulds that drop with sprue attached and a pair of common electrical side cutter dykes or specialty fret end nippers (from guitar luthiery work) do the job just fine.
r.
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There's no doubt many folks have become spoiled with the Hornady balls and no sprue... And they are good balls IMHO...
I shoot what I call "Rondo Balls" mostly, and they have a slight sprue, but very slight... I figure when I short start that Rondo Ball with sprue up and drive it home onto the the powder charge - and give my ramrod a few bouncing tamps after the ball is seated - there probably ain't much sprue if any left on that ball...
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casting yer own balls would be the bestest way to go. it's simple, easy, cheap. add to that the satisfaction of DIY, which was how it was done in the wild yesteryear.
you don't need a lotta stuff to case good balls, either. though i cast for more than pure lead balls (BPCR lead/tin alloy slicks) and have a full casting station.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e65KE3i4RnE
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Rob has been doing this for a long, long time and is very good at it... he keeps it simple, has a good cadence and knows what to look for...
When I started out trying to cast I bought some lead that was advertised as pure, but it never tarnished and try as I may, there was a lot of weight variance by a couple grains... I even took to cutting my balls in half and finding teeny, tiny "voids" inside, but since few do that it might have been more common then we'd know...
I then bought "nuggets" advertised as PURE lead but ended up with cottage cheese on top, even with a thermometer in the lead melt..That company also sold Range Lead in that configuration and I returned it for credit and got 5# ingots as when man gets involved, things can go awry... With the 5# ingots I got better balls and more consistency...And they tarnish...
OJoe, I started out decades ago shooting those Hornady swaged balls with precut round patches in a T/C Renegade and got excellent accuracy so yea, they do spoil a guy, but making my own balls is like tying my own flies... sure does add an element to the fun... As for accuracy, I had gooder eyes back then so it may have had to do with that!
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Yes, there's a satisfaction in casting your own balls... I'm set up for .440's and .390's, and my friend Rondo has a .445 mold so he's my go to man until I buy a .445 mold...
Where I worked for near on 30 years before retiring (small local Hardware and Lumber yard with a small sporting goods - which I ran), I had access to lot's of traditional muzzle loading related items (we never deviled into that modern "Inline trade crap" - we were 100% traditional muzzle loading & modern cartridge only),,, anyway I had access to Hornady balls at wholesale prices so even though I had/have, the melting pot and molds - it was easy for me to get hooked on the ease of purchasing Hornady balls at cost, rather then casting my own after tracking down lead...
I've still got scrap lead, I just have to get off my butt and get after it and start casting!!! :shake
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a lee ball mould, a cheap lee 4# pot, a ladle of sorts, and some pure lead will get you casting good balls just fine. after that, it's just the lead that's needed and can be scrounged up in more than a few ways.
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Rob got me back into casting...I had a 10# lee "Drip o matic" bottom pour that I HATED... I got a large headed screw and screwed it into orifice from inside the pot and that ended the drip or bottom pour feature...I bought a dipper and now have that for pure lead and a old RCBS with COWW for revolver ammo bullets...
I think Rob has various furnaces with his BPCR pouring in varied mixes... He can do it in his basement as he has a high CFM fan in the window above his pour bench and a box of dirt outside where the fan exhausts to keep the ground from getting lead vapor saturated...
That boy thinks of it all! :bl th up :toast
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I've been thinking of getting one of those electrified lead pots. I've been using a Lyman cast iron pot I bought in 1969, on my equally old kerosene camp stove, but it takes a long time to get the lead melted, and I have to be there to keep an eye on it the whole time. I figure one of the electrical pots could be plugged in and left for a while. But I'm not sure I want to part with that much cash money.... Decision, decisions, decisions! :pray:
'Course, the kerosene stove has to be faster than trying to melt the lead over an open fire, so I'll probably just keep plugging away with what I have. :laffing
~Kees~
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i have four pots, 1 lyman 8lb for pure lead and 3 lee 20lb for alloy (30:1, 20:1, 16:1). they're all ladle pots (i don't like bottom pour pots) and all good pots. i've had them all for over 15 years and they get used quite a bit. monday i cast 75 slicks at 529 grains of 16:1 each for the coming BPCR matches, and 50 .530" pure lead balls for flinter. if i could have only one pot, it'd be the lee 20lb, a real workhorse. if i was a casual caster for pure lead balls i'd get the cheap lee 4# pot and not look back - worlds' better than messing with anything that requires a flame. ymmv.
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I've been thinking of getting one of those electrified lead pots. I've been using a Lyman cast iron pot I bought in 1969, on my equally old kerosene camp stove, but it takes a long time to get the lead melted, and I have to be there to keep an eye on it the whole time. I figure one of the electrical pots could be plugged in and left for a while. But I'm not sure I want to part with that much cash money.... Decision, decisions, decisions! :pray:
'Course, the kerosene stove has to be faster than trying to melt the lead over an open fire, so I'll probably just keep plugging away with what I have. :laffing
~Kees~
Kees, I have been using an old school coleman gas stove with one of the propane converter sticks from 20 years ago and a 2 quart cast iron sauce pan for about the same 20 years, I won an electric lead pot at a raffle, have used it twice, it has sat on the shelf now for 12 years collecting dust, if it works don't fix it!