Roundness of round balls...

[geraldbergeron]

Hi from a new member,

I am new to round ball casting; I succeed to make a few hundreds of those balls with a Lee aluminium mould. I use them in an Old Army BP revolver.

The finish is quite acceptable; but I was wondering if there is a way to get a more perfect roundness...

Could I use a tumbler ? If so, with or without a media ?

Any other way ?

This is a great forum.

Thank you............................................... ..............Gerald.............................. ....../

[beagle]

I guess it depends on how much trouble you're willing to go to to get the roundness.

I made some buckshot once and got hung up on the sprues being out of round. We had some square phenolic (garolite) scrap at work. One peice had a round hole in it about 12" in diameter and the others scraps were the same size as the square but without a hole. The stuff was 5/16" thick.

I made a roller out of three pieces. One square and the peice with the hole were glued together. I'd pour in enough balls to fill the circle and still leave some rolling room. The other flat piece was placed on top and I'd sit and roll that assembly with my feet at night while watching TV.

The RBs acted as rollers or bearings and after an hour, the sprue cuts pretty well dissappeared.

Lot of work but this method worked for me./beagle

[KCSO]

It realy makes no difference. When you squeeze them into the cylinder they are as round as the chamber is cut. Then they squeeeze through the forcing cone and into the barrel and they come out as little rn wadcutters and they are as round as the barrel. The only thing a roller does is eliminate the sprue and give you a little quicker loading.