Weighing balls

[Stormrider51]

I was out in the shop today weighing the lead balls I cast the other day for my new fusil.  It occured to me that those of you who like the technical, somebody on here called it "geeky" the other day, side of shooting might benefit from this.  The secret to accuracy in shooting is to do everything the same for each and every shot, right?  The more variables you can eliminate the greater the chance of successive balls hitting the same spot.  But is weighing the balls going overboard?  I don't think so.

I was casting balls in what is supposed to be a .600" Lee mould.  The actual size is .604".  The weight is supposed to be 325 grains according to what is written on the box.  The pure lead balls came in at 330 grains average.  So why bother to weigh them?  Because out of the approximately 100 balls I weighed, 6 of them showed substantially less weight.  The ones I culled varied between 327 and a low of 323 grains.  So again, what's the big deal?  Ask yourself where the missing weight went in a ball that outwardly looks like all the rest?  Those light balls have pockets of either air, impurities, or both in them.  You can bet that the pockets aren't located dead center of the ball where they would do the least damage.  The pockets are off-center and cause an unbalanced ball.  Just for grins, I placed a couple of the lightest ones sprue up on a smooth surface and gave them a spin with my thumb and index finger.  Both wobbled visibly.  How many times have you fired a shot that looked and felt good but was a "flyer" well outside the group?  The problem may well have not been you.

Let me stress that you don't need to go out and purchase a grain scale and weigh all your projectiles in order to enjoy shooting black powder firearms.  I'm an accuracy nut, or "geek" to use the modern parlance, and I like knowing that my gun is performing to its best ability.  Then if I draw bead on something and miss I don't have much excuse.  It was me!

Have fun,
John

[biliff]

Along the same lines, I weigh the balls for my .58 and cull out the light ones. Some are visibly defective and some look good. I usually just use the culls for offhand practice at 25 yds. Just for giggles I shot a 5 shot group at 50 yds from the bench to see how bad (or good) the culls were. Ended up with about 1/2" larger group than I get with my "good" balls. 2" vice 1 1/2". Not a real extensive test and probably not particularly valid as it was only one group and it wasn't a blind test, but.....

[Loyalist Dave]

If you ever threw or saw thrown one of those "gag" baseballs with the smaller ball inside a hollow cavity, you get some idea of a possible wobble you might get from a round ball with a good air pocket inside.  Not good for the hunter, or the target shooter.  Not geeky at all, especially for the guys and gals who hand cast.

LD

[Uncle Russ]

If you ever threw or saw thrown one of those "gag" baseballs with the smaller ball inside a hollow cavity, you get some idea of a possible wobble you might get from a round ball with a good air pocket inside.  Not good for the hunter, or the target shooter.  Not geeky at all, especially for the guys and gals who hand cast.

LD

Good question SR51!  

I would like to respond just a bit to this since I have well over fifty years experience casting bullets and playing around with muzzleloaders.

Dave nailed it...a void, or air space, in a round ball can only be detected by weighing it. And, if it is a large enough void you can see some really silly results down range...curve balls, knuckle balls, drop balls, ya just never know what to expect.
At the same time, I love it!
(It provides the greatest excuses you can imagine, when you do something really stupid.)

Have you ever weighed the round balls from the factory?
Pretty common to find a variance of 2 to 3%.

As far as what the mould says it will  throw, and what you actually get,  is based on many major manufacturers using the most common alloy from Lyman know as 20:1 (twenty parts pure lead to one part Tin.)
The problem with most folks is their not accepting the fact that plain old wheel weights are as close as you can get to 20:1 without actually mixing the alloy yourself. The BHN of 20:1 is roughly 9, while wheel weights can vary from 9 to 11.
Pure lead will have a BHN of about six nowadays. Many of us old timers can remember when that was 5.5 or maybe a little less!
Personally, I don't get too excited about the hardness...hard can be good in many instances, whereas soft and obturation can be good in other cases.

IMHO, the lowly wheel weight shoots just fine in all my muzzleloaders, albeit roughly .0015 or perhaps .0020 undersize from the same round ball cast with pure lead.
By the same token a pure lead round ball will weigh a wee bit more than the same ball cast from wheel weights.
Of course, the larger the round ball, the more pronounced the weight variance.

I used to fret and whine over every little variance in my muzzleloading, but at my age it just it ain't worth it...not until it reaches a point of greater than 5-6%.
There is, in my opinion, other things that I can put that effort toward that could possibly give me a little better score, assuming i do everything right.
Things such as same Patch thickness, same Patch material, same good Lube, and the same consistent, even, seating pressure without damaging the shape of the ball.

This is just my thoughts on the subject, and like all things in life, everyone's  mileage may vary just a wee bit.

Uncle Russ...

[greyhunter]

Along the same lines, I have heard some guys swage their bullets. I know it means they are compressing them, my question is how?  I know the old off hand shooters also used false muzzles and swaged bullets so they could achieve the perfect load. All they needed then was the perfect hold. Those old boys had necks like football players. They shot some remarkable targets at likewise distances. A few members roll their cast ball in a rock tumbler to eliminate the sprue. As you can see from my postal shoot targets, I am an admirer of all these things, but with my eyes and arithitis I'm happy just to be able to load and hit the paper. I get flyers too, but don't know if it's the wgt. of the ball or the phase of the moon. Good topic tho, enjoying it!

[pathfinder]

Exactly how much spin do you get from your smoothbore? If you get any I hope they dont look down your bore and find you have a "semi" smoothbore!
All this dicourse is great for disscusion,but in the field and on wood's walks and the fun kind of shootin' we do,2-5% difference in ball weight is more than compensated by the harrasment you get yer "freind's"! On the bench my Bess shoots 1" groups @25yds,off hand I'm lucky to hold 2" @ 25yds. I dont weigh them,but I do "roll" 'em.

I would suggest the book book bt Capt. Ned Roberts,"The muzzleloading Caplock Rifle" to REALLY get the low down about accurate shooting with our beloved muzzleloaders.

[Double Barrel]

Geeky is a good thing!

Good stuff!  And it makes a lot of sense.  Pretty much all of my shooting is off hand at a woodswalk so I never gave this much consideration.

[R.M.]

So this has got me thoroughly confused. I know, nothing new.
When asked about loading sprue up, we're told yes load up, so we can see the position, but not to worry about being dead center cause we can't be perfect every time, but get it close. It's said that the sprue, even slightly off-set will still stabilize itself.
Now if you think about it, we're talking the same thing. One has an excess of material, and the other has a deficiency of material.
Gotta go get another cuppa joe and ponder this some more.

[Stormrider51]

So this has got me thoroughly confused. I know, nothing new.
When asked about loading sprue up, we're told yes load up, so we can see the position, but not to worry about being dead center cause we can't be perfect every time, but get it close. It's said that the sprue, even slightly off-set will still stabilize itself.
Now if you think about it, we're talking the same thing. One has an excess of material, and the other has a deficiency of material.
Gotta go get another cuppa joe and ponder this some more.

R.M.,
Sorry if I'm being confusing.  Now you know why I don't write textbooks for a living.  The stuff I'm writing about comes from a lifetime of trying to make a rifle as accurate as possible.  As has been point out, it really doesn't make much difference when it comes to casual shooting.  Where the attention to detail does make a difference is when you are shooting from a bench for score or when you are hunting.  In competition, 1/2" can be the difference between winning and losing.  With a rabbit, 1/2" can be the difference between a clean kill and a wounded animal that escapes to die later.

I'm glad you brought up the question of sprues.  I use Lee moulds that don't leave a sprue of metal sticking up.  If anything, they create a slight flat spot where the metal is sheared off.  Back when I had moulds that did leave a protruding sprue I would roll the balls between two panes of glass until the sprues disappeared.  But even if the sprue is left unmolested, it will not have much effect on bullet flight provided it is not on the side of the ball.  Neither would air voids or pockets of impurities if we could be sure they were somewhere along the vertical axis of the spinning ball but we have no way of knowing where the flaw is.  Even then, I accept a ball that is no more than 3 grains underweight.  There's a limit for even a nut like me!  

Hope this thinned out the mud a little.
John

[Caddo]

Well I just pour em up and go shooting. No I don't win any shooting matches but sure do have a good time. I do enjoy reading all the tech stuff because I like to know what my rifle could do if I wasn't so lazy :rt th  Thanks for the post John, I always wondered about some of my flyers at the range. When the shot felt great and is off the mark an air pocket may have been the problem

[R.M.]

You know, this is just giving Al more fuel, so to speak.  

[Caddo]

Ya know, your right RM

[Uncle Russ]

Ya know, your right RM :lt th

Uncle Russ...

[Stormrider51]

Here's an example of what can happen with good load development coupled with a day when the air was very still.  This is a sight-in target of a .45 cal that had a vernier tang peep sight mounted.  The range was 100 yards and I was shooting from a sand bagged rest.  It was October of 1999 and I was getting ready to go deer hunting.  I fired a blank shot to foul the bore and then wiped with one pass of a saliva soaked patch.  The first shot went high/left.  I let the barrel cool and reloaded.  I couldn't see where the second shot went by looking through the spotting scope.  The Range Master called the range Cold so I walked down to see if I could determine where my shot went.  If I had missed the target entirely I was going to be back to tinkering with the load!  No, the second shot had enlarged the hole the first one made.  I really could't believe it.  I mean, I'm a decent shot but this was incredible.  I walked back to the bench, wiped the bore with another saliva patch, one pass in and out.  When the range went Hot I reloaded and decided to fire five shots without looking through the spotting  scope.  I've been known to blow a group by checking each shot and subconsciously "correcting" the sight picture based on where the previous shots went.  I clicked the rear sight over a sufficient number of clicks to correct for the left windage but left the elevation alone.  I'd had "one change at a time" drummed into my head by a man who knew more about shooting than I ever would.  Then I fired, wiped, loaded, and fired five times.  The result was the group you see high/right.  I had over-corrected for the windage but the group was impressive.  I later measured it at just under 1" center-to-center.  I gave the sight a correction left and down, wiped, and reloaded.  The final shot was so close to punching out the center of the target that I decided I was done.  I also remember thinking that Bambi was in deep ca-ca that year.  I had the Range Master sign the target to confirm distance and date.

If some of you are thinking that I cheated by using a vernier tang sight or shooting from a bench let me point out that if the load itself and every component in it hadn't been as consistent as I could make it there could have been one or more "flyers" that ruined the group.  That's my whole point in this.  I am definitely not criticizing anyone who wants to "just go shoot".  I'm offering this information for those who find it interesting and perhaps useful.

Take care,
John

[prairie dog]

I just finished weighing and sorting 600 Hornady .495 round balls.  I understand how air voids can form when casting balls and that would show up as a lighter than average ball.

I can also understand that swagged balls from a factory come out of a line of machines and all those may not be the exact same dimensions. Thus slightly larger balls weigh more than the smaller ones.

Of the 600 balls I weighed about 100 weighed exactly 183 grains, 60 or so weighed 183.5 grains, 150 weighed 184 grains.  A few were as heavy as 184.4 grains, 50 or so weighed 182.5 grains and one ball with no visible flaws weighed 181 grains.  

Which brings up the question; Why won't the factory box up the balls from one swagging machine on the line instead of mixing them up before packaging?  Seams to me that would lend to more consistency and uniformity of the balls, better accuracy, and save me a lot of time re-sorting them.

They could even package the balls form one die in a different package and sell those as a "premium" product.