15yr old .490 RBs... can I slug 45 70 with this ?

[kennisondan]

was thinking I would go on and slug the barrel. I can get some fishing weights, I have .490 round balls; I also wonder why I cannot use play doh or some other clay/putty item to slug it.. If I did nto need to slug it by buying 459 or 460 diam. bullets that would be cool with me too.. but I kind of feel like I am taking too important a short cut if I do not slug the barrel , though I am new to this and may not measre the darned thing right anyway.. I could send it along to the person/firm selling bullets and tell them to size them based on that info once they caliper it..
thanks.. I may be stuck at home tomorow and will need to pass the time so I will size my casings since they are new, prime them, try to see if I can come up with an overall length that is touching rifling or nearly so, in other words, get all ready to load up a bunch of them for a good amount of shooting firtst time out.. with notebook in hand as well.
thanks.
dk

[405]

Don't know what 15 yr. old RBs has to do with it but.... yes you can use RBs. The downside to using a RB is that it is sometimes tricky to get full fillout of spherical slug in bore for best reading.... but they will work. The best way to slug a 45-70 lever gun is different from the best way to slug a 45-70 single shot. PlayDoh! nope, not a chance that will work. Fishing sinkers? yep, the tapered "egg" sinkers work very well. Tapered soft lead bullets oversized by at least .005-.010" will also work very well. Plenty in the archives about all manner of techniques for slugging a bore, throat and even the end of a chamber.

Bottom line- it's soooo easy and fast to slug a bore, no reason not to do it with any recently acquired gun. Yields lots of useful info.... sometimes critical info for successful cast bullet shooting.

[missionary5155]

Greetings
And while you are at it do a slug of the throat area.. that is the zone you must fill with lead.... Throats generally are fatter than the bore and lead easily smushes down as it moves along.

[Hickory]

I've never worried about the age of lead.
Lead's been around a long time, and it dosen't spoil like milk.
:groner:

[montana_charlie]

I assume you are talking about slugging the barrel on your Uberti Sharps.
Pedersoli cuts a tapering groove when they rifle those barrels, so the groove diameter at the muzzle is smaller than the measurement at the chamber end.
It's not a choked bore. It's a long taper in the grooves.

If you start a slug at the chamber and drive it all the way through, it will retain the muzzle dimension...which is not the one you need to choose a size for bullets.

To get the groove diameter in the throat area, start a slug from the chanber, but only drive it an inch, or so. Then use a rod from the muzzle to drive it back out for measuring.

After all of your manipulations, you will almost certainly find that a .460" bullet will be a proper choice for bullet diameter.

CM

[kennisondan]

Charlie : I thought that would be the choiced regardless of the size I found it to be. : 460... I had read a lot of things on slugging but did not narrow or search well and it was slow slow going.. so I asked. I will definitely slug each end then slug just the chamber area short of the rifled bore.. is this what is called the leade ? the area tapering the smoothe to the lands and grooves starting ?

you other guys, thanks each and every one.. I know lead does not spoil but wondered which way aged lead changed hardness, got softer or harder, I have seen it oxidized to a degree and someplace read that the lead can reach a different hardness within a few days, but cannot recall if it would change with lots of years.. I will try to get out and buy some of the egg shaped soft sinkers larger than the 460 or so and a good deal larger too for the throat area.. I do want to do it right as if I get good results right out of the box, though not perfect I will seek that perfection from then on.. but if it is absolutely dismal as it could be with undersized lead I could turn off pretty quckly to the whole idea.. which is unlikely I know but I feel I already am getting a large investment and want to maximize it.
I am going to drill a hole in the rear of the round ball and use it to take a measure of the throat area so I will have that measurement.. then I will use the soft egg sinkers to repeat the process. I had kind of thought I would be suggested to pound the rounds into oblongs that were still tight for the bore.. but the sinkers are a better Idea..
ALAS : I though play doy was a great ingenious idea.. lol.. why ? ugh I have a lot of reasons but the biggest one is they could be pushed through with a plug on the rear and you could come out with a continuous line of play doh that would rotate out the other end and it could actually show something that other slugging might not,, but I would have to check it out better .. if it shrinks when it dries then if I just filled it up tight end to end I could find imperfections and rough spots dents etc. that I may not see without or even with a good bore scope ?? it is just a crazy thought..
lol
you think there is any merit in the idea of taking a cast of play doh of the interior of the barrel letting it harden and shrink then pushing it carefully out ?
lol.
dk

[405]

kennisondan,

The Q about the leade? Yes you've got it.

If you can find a soft lead, tapered bullet or egg sinker that is little under the diameter of the rear part of the chamber (so you can start it) you can get a pretty good slug impression of the entire neck, throat, leade, first section of bore . This can take the place of a cerrosafe chamber casting.

Lube/oil the slug and the section to slug well. Drive the slug into the chamber until it reaches the rifling. Just measure the distance it has gone into the chamber-throat area as you pound it in. Doesn't have to be exact. Drive the slug out by inserting your rod into the muzzle and reversing the process. By using a fairly long tapered slug it should give a decent and accurate reverse impression of the area of the chamber you want to measure. A roundball slug can tend to fold back on itself during the process and for sure isn't long enough for the longer neck, throat, leade type impression. The lubrication is also important by minimizing the friction thus minimizing slug lateral deformation during the process. You want the slug to expand smoothly outward for the impression- not distort laterally because of excess friction.