Fowler ball metal

[Hanshi]

:castmine: I'm getting a flint fowler, 20ga, in a few months and am wondering about alloys. I prefer to save my soft lead for my rifles and for hunting situations. This will be my first smoothbore and I would like some opinions on using wheel weights and/or reclaimed boolits for ball practice loads. I know the ball diameter will be somewhat greater and my mold is .600.

[Beerd]

Wheel weights will work wonderfully :)
Fowlers are not as finicky about ball hardness like rifle guns are.

My smoothie is a 24 bore. I load like a shotgun. Powder, 1/2 of one of those thick fiber wads, a bare .575 ww round ball and then the second half of the wad to hold everything in. It puts the ball where ever it's pointed when it goes off.
..

[Baron von Trollwhack]

My flint fowler works nicely with a .602 lead ball and a thick tick patch. I too have tried the thick wads or overshot cards, etc., But the patch works just fine. Good Shooting, BvT

[Hanshi]

My mold is .600. Approx how much larger would the ball diameter be from wheel weights?

[waksupi]

If anything, you may end up needing a smaller ball. I've ended up using .595 in my North Star, and Chambers barrels.
WW's work fine. I recovered a bunch from the snow piles around here, and re-shot them!

[northmn]

There is more than one smooth bore shooter that uses WW with good results. Some have found a little smaller ball to be more accurate and use 590's in a 20.

Northmn

[Hanshi]

Lee molds are very inexpensive so I may go ahead and invest in a smaller dia. one. I'll check their catalog & see what they have. Thanks.