R.E.A.L boolits: how will they ever seal?

[piwo]

OK... So I was looking again at a .54 R.E.A.L boolit mold I own and cast a few 'cause I was bored on Sunday. It was 6 degrees, wind howling and the early football game did nothing for me. Anyway, after measuring this smallish R.E.A.L. (.620 tall) I looked at my bore slug and compared it to the finished product. And after taking out my shiny pair of Jap calipers, the boolit has three bands: all at different dimensions. The bands range between .547 - .557 so there's no question it will "engrave at loading", but it won't fill the grooves. Groove diameter is between .572 - .577. Seems to me these will NEVER bump up enough to fill the grooves, so won't there be hot gasses blowing by, and doing all those nasty things that happen when gasses blow by the boolit?

Is it that some rifles don't have as deep grooves (as mine) and the bands cut to groove dimension, or close to it? I understand the base of the Minnie (actually the hollow base that we call Minnie)boolit will flare out and seal, but these solid bases ain't flarin nowhere. Maybe bump up a bit, but bump up to seal the grooves? What is a reasonable amount one can expect such a projectile to bump up, or does it even matter?

Just asking cause I don't know...........

[405]

Bump up or obturate to full groove diameter? Speaking only of blackpowder here. May depend on how soft the alloy is, the sectional density of the bullet, how much it has to bump up and the grade and amount of powder. It's the theory behind the original TC Maxiball design. What probably happens with many of these type conicals in muzzleloaders is that they do bump up enough to take the spin of the rifling. I did a lot experimenting with the conicals that were supposed to obturate upon firing. Success was not always 100%, so in my mind at least, the perfection of the theory has always been suspect. Severe leading was a possbility and accuracy was not a sure thing.

A couple of ways to overcome the shortcomings: 1) Use an alloy a little harder than recommended including some tin and antimony. These bullets will drop slightly larger in diameter and will be a little harder. If you think about it a jbullet is much harder, is usually sized smaller than groove diameter and rarely completely fills the grooves- yet takes full spin at accelerations and velocities far in excess of anything in the ML world. With the larger, harder conical you may have to use a serious starter and mallet instead of just thumb pressure to start into muzzle. 2) Use a wad between the powder and base of bullet- either hard card type or dense felt. I know this improves accuracy for me with conicals and helps control leading. And it may allow use of the softer alloys and minimize problems associated with the softness like leading, land stripping or inaccuracy.

[mooman76]

Are you sure your groove diameter is .572-.577. That seems a bit much to me.

[piwo]

A couple of ways to overcome the shortcomings: 1) Use an alloy a little harder than recommended including some tin and antimony. These bullets will drop slightly larger in diameter and will be a little harder. If you think about it a jbullet is much harder, is usually sized smaller than groove diameter and rarely completely fills the grooves- yet takes full spin at accelerations and velocities far in excess of anything in the ML world. With the larger, harder conical you may have to use a serious starter and mallet instead of just thumb pressure to start into muzzle. 2) Use a wad between the powder and base of bullet- either hard card type or dense felt. I know this improves accuracy for me with conicals and helps control leading. And it may allow use of the softer alloys and minimize problems associated with the softness like leading, land stripping or inaccuracy.

I have a few hundred pounds of dead soft plumbers lead and have only casted with it and some dental lead, but also have some un-smelted wheel weights. Is this the hardness you were referencing, or were you meaning soft lead with just some Tin added? I don't have any of that, but would get some to try. I have some soft felt wads and did try them 2 years ago when I got the mold, but not recently.


Are you sure your groove diameter is .572-.577. That seems a bit much to me.
I've slugged this Colerain barrel 5 times over the years (twice tonight) using different width "slugs". There is absolutely no question of the groove or bore diameter: within the first 1.5 inches of the barrel that is. After that, it opens up even more!.. Now that's probably the bore diameter that opens up, but it takes a judicious whack to start a conical in this barrel, a short starter with some elbow grease to move it the next inch, then it just sorta drops to the bottom. I have no doubt about my measurements.

[mooman76]

I don't really know for sure but try them and see. A couple things to think about is after you fire a couple you will get some fouling and they will seat a little tighter. If that doesn't help maybe the 4 band REAL which is a little heavier will bump up better since it the extra weight will build more pressure. I checked mine and the front band measures basically the same as yours.

[shotman]

I find the slug dont need a tight fit. But did find that the "bore buttons" do work better and make easier to get several shots without a swap job.Cast only a soft lead and if you want a tighter fit'remember you are going to have harder loading' hit the nose with a hammer will make a tight fit BUT will need to clean between loading

[405]

piwo,

I tried to at least suggest in my post that I have no absolute 100% answer to the question of whether or not the REAL or similar bullets like the Great Plains or TC Maxi really do seal completely from either bump-up or obturation.

By suggesting you try the harder alloy with tin/antimony, my thoughts are that both the potential land stripping will be minimized and the smaller amount of blow-by/erosion damage to the bullet won't be so detrimental to accuracy and may help with the leading potential. I know that most solid base conical shooters including the design innovators like Lee and TC have always recommended near pure lead (BHN 5-6) for these under-groove-size and near-bore-size bullets. However, after playing around with the various types since the late 60s I've come to the conclusion in my mind that the bump-up theory behind the designs was not a 100% deal. I'm sure that a fairly stiff load of blackpowder under a fairly soft conical will bump up or obturate the bullet some and provide some degree of accuracy- but to expect shot after shot accuracy with no leading and a complete bore seal is likely not in the cards. Therefore the possibility of using a slightly harder alloy and/or a base wad or at least some combination of the base wad with a softer alloy may work best. Also, a good lube can help but will not be a cure-all for other weaknesses in a load combination. Frequent cleaning and staying ahead of any lead build-up will help maintain accuracy when shooting blackpowder under conicals.

As to your lead sources? Likely the plumber's lead is fairly soft as is the x-ray shielding. The WW stuff can be anything?? but usually has a little tin and antimony in it. Without doing a BHN test no telling for sure about any lead other than a guess. If I were just doing some experimenting for a REAL conical over BP
I'd cast up a few of each extreme- namely the dental shielding (softer) and the wheel weight (harder) alloys. Keeping the powder charge the same I'd shoot some soft alloy with and without a base wad. Then shoot some harder WW alloy with and without the wad. That will give a fair test of 4 different combinations. You could double the combos to 8 if you tried two different charges- high and low (that means extreme ends of the suggested charge range- not a small change in charge by couple of grains). That type testing may give you the best bang for the buck for isolating a trend toward the goal of accuracy and minimal leading. Of course you'll need to completely clean all fouling and lead out of the bore between each test. 8 test combinations is not so expensive but it is very time consuming. It is the only way I know to make progress toward a good, repeatable load.

[fryboy]

the felt wad seems to help but even without i never had leading using soft lead with any decent BP lube , this is one of the few castings i pan lube and i found they also pan lube best if i crack the seal ( per normal ) and then push them out the front , when i tried the LLA i always used the felt wad but often with the lubed boolits i didnt , i cant say that after a few inches they drop down the bore but it does get easier , the softest lead does seem to expand when hitting the target but i cant say about the breech end of the bore , of course the bands are already engraved from the start , i do know that if i whack my ramrod when using a round ball to firmly make sure it seats that it upsets in the breech to some extent , i also feel that this can happen with the r.e.a.l.'s ( at least with soft lead ) i tried harder alloy a few times and starting them was a major pain , enough so that i didnt fully test but two of them ( not much of a test IMHO )

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Yes, that brand of .54 ML barrel has very deep round bottomed grooves. The short REAL will work fine if softer rather than harder.

Take your harbor fright red chinese hole punch set and with the very soft metal .50 caliber one, drive a tapered round something in, or with a stone grind to enlarge the cutting hole to a bit more than your groove measurements. Dress the edge sharp. Then you can punch out sealing wads of thin cardboard milk bone boxes for an over powder wad, and some medium hard durafelt wads to be wetted moderately with your favorite lube and seated under the REAL. This will seal and help lube the bore to stop a crud ring in the breech area from low humidity, cold weather and the REAL will carry enougn lube to last to the muzzle. Tip the card wad as you insert, then square it to the bore and seat, then the same with the felt wad. Powder first. If you don't yet have your felt, you could use blackboard sheathing sliced a bit thinner after punching. SPG or musket lube will work on the REAL.

Be aware of the increased pressures from the REAL vice the RB. Maybe change from 3 to 2FFg.

BTW, the soft lead minie slugs up in diameter from the bottom all the way to to start of the ogive even with a moderate charge, not just the hollow base area. Shoot some in your common dirt backstop at 100 Yards and dig them out till you find one that hit and turned a bit, preserving a side from the dirt. You will see grooves on the nose ogive that can only come when it is in the barrel showing that it "slugs up".

BvT

[Boz330]

I had a buddy that was headed to MT for an Elk hunt and he had the same problem with his Bill Large .54 barrel. He patched the base of the REAL, sort of like a cloth GC and it worked like a charm. One shot, one cow Elk. He was getting 1700+fps from a 300gr REAL.

Bob

[piwo]

Thanks everyone for your observations and suggestions. Like 405, I don't mind kicking the tires of conventional wisdom and will likely try some hardness tests as well as the other techniques referenced by others. I too had thought of the rear "patch", but hadn't tried that yet.

I was trying to understand better whether these things were supposed to seal or not. Mine from plumbering pipe lead cast to 300gr. I do have the taller verson as well, and have not had success with it at all. I suspect because it is much taller, it requires a LOT more velocity to stabalize. According to the online charts, this .620 out of a 1-66 should stabalize between 1320 - 1360fps, which is certainly do-able. If I'm shedding lead throughout the barrel because of gas blow by or too much velocity for the soft lead (405 's observation), then that's not desireable. These things DO work for folks, as your thoughtful posts suggest, so I'll give some things a try and experiment.

Thing is, this is the time of year that I would probably use such a projectile, but it's also the hardest time of year to practice. It's cold, it's windy (worse then the cold for testing) and time is usually at more of a premium. But not in January and early February, and like a fool I ususally have the STL benchrest to myself on some of those cold, snow covered days. Of course, then my achilies tendon really shows: lube. Lube on fridged cold days. If it's super cold, is plain old Crisco an option, or crisco with just a touch of wax? BVT uses BW and tallow, but I've not any tallow at this time (though I do have some expensive "leaf lard" in the freezer, will that work?).

[405]

NO fun- windy, cold for load testing!
Your 1:66 twist may very well be a culprit for stabilizaton of the heavier/longer conical. Usually, the shorter conicals can be made to do OK but like you mentioned sometimes that requires a heavier charge- higher vel. No sure things when working on the edge. The good side of the slower twist is that it is more forgiving than the faster twist, if full bullet engraving is on the margin, for getting the bullet to spin-up and not start stripping the lands. Also, usually they are a bit easier to clean and may not foul so quickly. After knowing your twist, I'd try one thing that sometimes works in both MLs, BP Cartridge and even some smokeless loads- go ahead and try the harder alloy, shorter conical and really give it a kick in the rear with some FFFg and use a hard base wad. I use punched-out wads of dense, heavy stock that are about .050-.060 thick- similar to the .060 hard veggy wads used for BPCR. As another poster mentioned, use a wad that is full groove diameter or a little more and seat it firmly and squarely on the powder first.

Use whatever lube seems to work for you- Crisco is not a bad choice. The better lubes may allow for more shots between wiping or cleaning but fouling is fouling and no matter the lube sooner or later that fouling will affect accuracy. And, even if things seem to be going OK for a few shots during your testing it's always a good idea to run a very tight patch with solvent (like moose milk) down the bore to "feel" for leading. You'll need to do it anyway between load types if testing more than one load combo- otherwise the test results won't mean anything.

If none of these possibilities work with the conicals then there is always the patched roundball :)

[curator]

piwo,

If you are concerned about gas blow-by with undersize REAL boolits, try putting about 50 grains (measure) of Cream of Wheat over the powder charge. COW compresses behind the boolit and seals the bore while centering the slug. It also wipes away and leading and decreases shot to shot velocity varience. I often shoot my Mortimer .54 with the Lee 320 grain REAL bool;it with 80 grains of FFg (Goex) and 50 grains of COW. I get excellent accuracy at 75 yards with no leading and minimal bore fouling. I lube the boolits with a 50/50 bee's wax/lard mix.

[piwo]

405, since I don't shoot at competitions, reenactments or skirmishes, running a damp patch between shots is part of my protocol irregardless of the season. It's pretty cold here, lows in the single digits, but I suspect the testing and hunting temps will probably be in the teens to low 30's. That's the usual and we keep peeking way above then way below normal. Perhaps things will mediate. I've some wheel weights and I can look up the ratio to harden the mix up a bit: actually like the idea and I know I can "punch things up" as much as I want.... Not many folks can turn every head on the 60 bench ranges, but I did one day....:oops:

Curator, is oatmeal an adequate substitute, or is there some consistency thing with COW? I mean, heck, it is a different grain...:smile: Actually there were / are benchrest shooters still doing the same thing when their load doesn't fill out the case. Interesting concept, heck I'll give'r a try as well... Is the lard you are using home rendered, or the stuff from the grocery store (partially hydrogenated)?

Have lead, will travel! Good stuff guys.........

[curator]

Regular, old fashioned Cream of Wheat is milled Farina wheat without the dust. It does have significant physical properties that render it useful as a ballistic filler. It has a consistant size and "hardness" that allows it to pack tight behind a bullet without getting burned along with the powder charge. COW packs into a "frangible" disk that seals the bore and prevents gas blow-by. It does increase pressures some so you should work up charges a little at a time. No black powder shooter should be unaware of the potential benefits of using COW as a filler behind under-bore-size bullets. It also works great as a compressable/frangible wad for black powder cap & ball revolver blanks.

The lard I prefer is the kind sold in the unrefrigerated baking section of you local grocery store. It has BHT (Butylated hydroxtoulene) added to prevent it from going rancid. This is a real plus when using it as a bullet lube since I don't use it up fast enough and my shooting box doesn't smell like something died in there.

[docone31]

Yeah, that smell.
My lube definately has that.
I use Beeswax, 50% and Olive oil, 50%. To that I add Marvel Mystery oil, then either thicken, or thin as the temps call for it.
It does have that smell though.

[XWrench3]

i was never real impressed with the R.E.A.L. bullet mold. one of the reasons i have not bought it. if i am shooting straight lead projectiles, i want a hollow base for a muzzle loader. that way i KNOW it will seal.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Fact is those REAL bullets were for the shallow grooved
Hawken" rifles that took the country by storm, some time ago before inlines. Many commercial makers rated the rifles at 100 or more grains of FFFg powder, and that is quite a boot in the base when the red light hits the Black Powder under the base of the conicals. How about 45-70 p+ energy in some models?

With shallow rifling and pure lead they slugged up to seal and short or long, often shot very, very well because of the shorter Hawken twist with shallow rifling.Even if they did not seal, they just leaded and fouled.

Shooting a REAL in a FLINTLOCK patch gun is a whole other story because the REAL are so "chunky" but perhaps could be long too, and unlike a maxiball (with giant grease grooves toward the base, thus nose heavy), or a hollow based minie' and thus nose heavy, twist less than pressure in the flintlock comes into play because by caliber, REALS outweigh RB significantly and stout loads greatly increase pressures.

The minie's shoot well in a slow twist minie' rifle because they are a heavy pointy nosed RB with a hollow tail in generally a RB twist, except for some quick twist rifles like the very few PH Sargent's carbines. Minies seal nicely too. I've never fooled much with long maxiballs or heavy REALS, bucause it was soon apparent to me that the greatly increased pressure of more powerful game loads was a true concern in the flintlock by nature of its breeching and flash hole construction as compared to a modern Hawken or even an original musket.

Now the patch question in this flintlock is one of sealing in a deep groved large bore flintlock. As a RB patch rifle gun, it is either a tight ball & patch combo or NOT SEALING, i.e. , burnt patch, or patch cut by gas escaping.

So with a REAL, since you really could not patch and seat very well, you must use a wad, as in a shotgun, which is used to help seal the shotcharge from disruption by blowby i. e. , not sealing. The typical way to do that is a slightly oversized overpowder thin card, hoping to get it forced into the deep grooves(or tight in a the bore in the shotgun), and an oversized, that is, groove sized, well lubricated wad over the card wad with the shot, or in this case, the lubed REAL, sitting snugly on top. The card wad to keep the lube off the powder, and help seal. The greased or wetted wad of greater thickness to seal. Hopefully the soft REAL will slug up a bit too.

You don't want to dance with the devil by using a much heavier than RB, REAL bullet either. You want the shortest as it will be lightest. I know this will work in the .50 flintlock of mid-weight construction. You gain power by giving up a little of the RB velocity without challenging pressure and gun construction. If you use a heavier REAL you might possibly greatly increase pressures over the RB as in striving for a high velocity elk/buffalo load. 1800fps with a RB in a .54 is likely OK, but not with the very much heavier .54 REAL for me. I've seen many pass through reports on elk with RB, So why the HV?

This is my opinion and reasoning based on my shooting. I think it is workable here. BvT

[piwo]

BvT.. Eloquently stated... The 300gr REAL that I have I believe is the smallest for that caliber, so maybe we'll get some success.

I enjoy these challenges and just wish my oft surgically repaired left shoulder allowed for longer stints on the range. The weather could be better right now (ice storm made a mess of things the past 24 hours), I have saturday morning yet "unscheduled" by the activities chair person, maybe I'll be able to slip out if things ease up.....

[Good Cheer]

Fellas, the REAL's work by being form fit to the rifling (engraved) and by being spread out by pressure from behind. The graduated ring diameters will interact differently with each combination of bore and groove diameters.

[mooman76]

BvT.. Eloquently stated... The 300gr REAL that I have I believe is the smallest for that caliber, so maybe we'll get some success.

I enjoy these challenges and just wish my oft surgically repaired left shoulder allowed for longer stints on the range. The weather could be better right now (ice storm made a mess of things the past 24 hours), I have saturday morning yet "unscheduled" by the activities chair person, maybe I'll be able to slip out if things ease up.....

The small REALs have 3 bands while the next size up has 4.

[piwo]

Worked loads up to 95gr FFFg with 60gr of Cream of Wheat on top of powder load, thin cardwad on top of COW, then the 300gr. REAL boollit lubed with 75% Lard, 25% BW. Shooting temp was @ 31, sunny but breezy. I tried a few out to 100yds but didn't have much success. Going hunting with this load on Monday. Was using the 6 O'clock hold (pumpkin on the post) so at 50, it's pretty much hitting POA. No leading observed in the barrel after cleaning. OK so far!