Round ball gallery loads ...... anyone try them

[Mr Humble]

Remember reading in old Shooting & Fishing magazines that "back in the day", folks loaded round balls in cartridges for single shot rifles. Now that I have this 450 Nitro #2 and only access to an indoor 25 yard range (until June), I've been thinking of trying some. As I recall, in the 45-70 they used a .458 round ball with a light load of Unique, topped by cornmeal with a waxed fabric wad under the bullet and a light crimp to retain the ball.
Thinking that the 44/45 TC bore butter button patches under the ball would work well and substitute dacron for the cornmeal and trail boss for Unique. Thoughts ?

[btroj]

I have used .457 round ball and Unique for similar loads. I didn't use a grease, or other wad. Just Unique and a round ball. I have even used 2 balls in a single case. Not great accuracy but a fun trial.

[wch]

I have used a round ball in a 32-20 with 3 grs of Unique powder-made a quiet 15 yard load for pest elimination.

[45 2.1]

This works very well in the 4570 and is quite accurate to about 60 yards. It might help since its a short version of your cartridge.

4570 Round Ball/Collar Button Load

Size a 4570 case for about an inch of neck and prime with large rifle primer and expand the neck so that a .457” bullet will go into neck about the width of a normal wood pencil lead thickness. Put in 3.9 grains (Little Dandy rotor #5) of WW 231. Measure distance from case mouth to powder. Subtract from that distance 1/8”and the thickness of a foam 45 caliber wad cut from an egg carton. This gives you the distance from the case mouth to the top of the foam wad. Seat that foam wad over the powder to that distance. DO NOT PUT THE WAD ON THE POWDER FOR ANY REASON!!!!!!! The powder needs to make a slope between it and the wad and that distance is 1/8” minimum. VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!! This allows the powder to burn consistently and provide the accuracy wanted. The wad distance is from Charlie Dell’s book and it has worked fine for me for over 500 RB loads. Now that you have it charged, seat a .457” RB to a little over ½ depth and crimp. This arrangement shoots to my hunting sight zero to at least 50 yards and has killed many squirrels for me. I’m shooting it though a barrel of about 18 ½ to 20”.

[Larry Gibson]

May surprise 45 2.1 but I agree 100% with him. Especially the part about nor putting a wad on the powder in your 450 #2. Use a fast powder like the 231 suggested or Bullseye (what I use). Also lightly TL the RBs in LLA and let dry before loading, that's all the lube needed.

Larry Gibson

[nanuk]

a question for 45 2.1

so there is a space between powder and egg carton wad, AND a space between egg carton wad and round ball?

I assume the egg carton is so fragile as to fragment upon ignition.

Can you clarify?

[45 2.1]

a question for 45 2.1

so there is a space between powder and egg carton wad, AND a space between egg carton wad and round ball? Correct...this is all from Charlie Dell's book in the chapter about chamber ringing and ways to keep it from happening.

I assume the egg carton is so fragile as to fragment upon ignition. That is the assumption... hard to prove though.

Can you clarify? I use the same load in the 45 Colt.... it performs exactly the same. A larger case, like the OP, will probably do likewise...... As BABore put it after he tried it... it makes the load think its in a smaller case.

[longbow]

Yeah, the filler topic gets lots of opinions but with Unique or other fast shotgun/pistol powders you shouldn't need to worry about filler anyway.

Never done the round ball loads in .45-70 but I loaded some collar buttons years ago and they were quite accurate to 50 yards or so. I don't recall the powder or charge. There was just a group buy on a collar button mould and there may be leftovers

Not sure of the case volume of 450 Nitro #2 but you should be able to find a similar size cartridge in the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook to get an idea of light starting loads. With typical fastish powders like Unique or 700X, 5 to 10 grs. under a ball/collar button should do you. With Bullseye or other really fast powders best to check. I have never loaded with powders that fast.

I used to load 0.445" RB's sized to 0.434" in my .44 mag Marlin and that worked very well, also giving quite good accuracy to at least 50 yards. That load was 10 grs. of Win 452AA left over shotgun powder. I have since purchase a boolit mould for lightweight boolits from Accurate Molds #43-165B) which was scaled down from a .45 cal, design.

My suggestion, if you are planning to buy a mould for round ball anyway, is to look for a collar button mould or check out Accurate Molds. I find the lightweight boolits easier to lube and load than round balls is all. Nothing wrong with the round ball either.

Longbow

[Larry Gibson]

Again, use no filler or wad with such loads using a fast buring powder. Suggest 231 and Bullseye for such. I've sot lots of RBs out of 45-70s and my 375 H&H with 4 gr of Bullseye and no filler or wad. Great for plinking and small game to 75 yards or so.

Larry Gibson

[Mr Humble]

Thanks for ideas. Think I'll go with Trail Boss as it has no bad habits and high bulk for weight. Some dacron to hold it and a TC laminated butter bore wad under the Lee lube tumbled ball which I'll just press into the neck with my thumb at the range. Probably just use swaged MZ Hornady round balls as a box will last a long time.

[Shooter]

Thanks to the current buying panic, and rising prices, my RB gallery loads are cheaper than .22 LR.
This is dependant on a supply of pre-panic primers and Bullseye.

[Catshooter]

I just started testing a round ball in my 38-55 Winchester 94. Five grains of Red Dot is giving me just over 1100 feet (26" barrel). No leading surprised me.

I'll start testing for accuracy when it warms up a bit.


Cat

[saintdel]

My definition of a gallery load is one of low enough power and noise that it can be shot more or less safely indoors or in a back yard into some suitable target medium. Stuff you can plink with out to 50 or 75 yards is way too powerful, but if that's your definition of a gallery load, ok. Actually, even a 30 cal RB weighs around 43g and just getting the thing going fast enough to just exit the barrel you're still dealing with a very dangerous projectile to be flying through your basement or yard. That said, years ago I worked these up in a 308 Remington 600 with an 18 or 20 inch barrel. I think it took about 1.5g of bullseye to get consistent barrel exit. [But see below] Less than this and the ball would often stick in the barrel. This is from memory, I'll have to dig up my notes. I also had to segregate the brass I used for this purpose and enlarge the primer holes to reduce primer set back with such low charges. The goofy stuff I used to experiment with when I had all the time in the world, or thought I did... Anyway, in the end, I decided this type of load wasn't practical nor safe enough for my envisioned use.

[saintdel]

Ok, in case anyone may be interested, I'll continue. I found my old note book from the early 70's in which I recorded my experiments using a 20" barrel and found the following data for round ball basement loads in 308. Shooting into phone books,

1g of BE penetrated 500 pages and was very quiet
1.5g BE penetrated 900 pages and was still quiet

I then held the rifle up to position the powder against the primer and

1.5g BE penetrated 3/4" plywood plus 970 pages of phone book.
2.0g BE penetrated 3/4" plywood plus 1000 pages of phone book, the ball being deformed.

At the range, 25 yards,

1g BE not accurate
1.4g BE went into 1.5"
1.7g BE went into 1.5"
2.0g BE went into 1.375"

I then later chronographed not the above loads, but rather

1.5g 700X which clocked 675fps.

None of this is to be taken as gospel as the total shots fired were few, but it is an indication of what can be expected. A
longer barrel would call for slightly higher charges I guess.

In any case, a 30 cal 43g rb at 675fps whizzng across your basement is not to be sneezed at. Do not underestimate the potential for damage or injury here. In fact, I strongly recommend you not try any of this. Get a pellet rifle instead.

Having said that, I also worked up (down) basement loads in my .222 using pulled .22 long rifle bullets, and then later wad cutters from a home made mold. .3g of PB (yes, 0.3) was the ticket there. Later I tried 22cal pellets with some success. But again, none of this is really practical. Lots of fun maybe, but not practical. Like Christmas trees, all of these guns and calibers are a lot bigger indoors than they seem outdoors.

[1Shirt]

Have done 1,2 and 3 round ball loads in 45-70 and 444. Fun but not overly practical. Single ball loads are pretty accurate to 25 over lite loads of Unique. The 3 ball load would make a close range yote pretty sick.
1Shirt!

[Mr Humble]

A followup on shooting "the monster". (Ruger No. 1 African converted from 458 Winmag to 450 Nitro #2 3.5")
As all I have here is a 25 yard indoor range, I thought full house loads with 600 gr Barnes Originals might cause some distress. Digging back into history when people did odd and interesting things, I came up with a "gallery load", using a LP primer, 10 gr of TrailBoss, a lot of Ballistics products buffering/filler, a TC butter bore laminated wad and a Hornady .457 round ball lubed with Lee Alox.

Put up a politically incorrect target at 25 yards and sent 20 downrange off hand. (That Ruger "hangs" nice !) Oddly the scope I pulled from my Unertl collection was almost dead on, so no adjusting was done. The load was VERY quiet and if the POI matches up with a big game load, would be great for Blue Grouse when hiking the high country.

The round lead ingot (a SCUBA weight for my custom pack) was used as a seating tool. Start em' with you thumb, and a gentle tap pushed em' in as shown in the loaded round.

[Mr Humble]

More results from the same load. 5 shot groups. Shot off hand @ 25 yards. The center square is about 2". Now if it just had a hook buttplate, a set trigger and a palm rest......

Would be interesting to see velocity, have to wait until I get back to WY where the Chronograph is. Gotta believe it's about like a 1860 Colt 44 caliber Army model.

Pushed dry patches through and all I got was a trace of Lee Alox, no lead at all.

Best part is that I don't have to reset the powder measure (a Lee the best choice where the salt air will rust steel in a day, it's also very accurate) as I use the same powder load with 225 plain base bullets in my 44 Magnum M329 and 200 plain bases in my 45 Colt New Service Match Target and even my new S&W Performance Center 460 Magnum Model 460XVR.

[Mr Humble]

An update. Switched from the 450-400 to the 458 Winchester as the straight case is easier. Now using very coarse Cuban corn meal as a filler. Powder is Unique or Trail Boss, topped by corn meal, cork wad and the round ball. The round balls, rolled in Lee lube and dried are sticky enough to seat w/o crimping (in a single shot). Lots of fun and about 22 rimfire prices. Key West loading bench on upstairs front porch. Shot 20 last weekend, couple of pull throughs with a boresnake and the bore is spotless.





10 and 10 with an elbow rest at 25 yards.

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

440 round balls for the 45 muzzle loader fit good in a 44

I was using 44 mag case flared with tite wad and a alox-ed round ball set in the case then run up the seating die to get it just a bit past the equator , this squeezes it down just a bit but it holds it in the case nicely

in the 30 cals it is really hard not to like that little 90gr swc the 314-90swc , I only wish they made it in a 6 cavity

[Eddie2002]

I've been playing around with galley or plinker loads for a 7.7 Arisaka. I'm not using a RB, just a 100 grain .312 caliber cast bullet. The lowest loads I've used so far have been 1.5 grains of Bullseye or Greendot held in place in the bottom of the case with just a pinch of cotton. The Bullseye load just goes through a pine 1x6 at 15 yds while the greendot doesn't. The report is still loud enough so I'm wearing hearing protection. One round had loose neck tension and keyholed 6 inches lower than the other shots, beside that it is a pretty accurate load, just hits about 6 inches lower than a full charge. Still looking for a RB that will fit the rifle for real plinking.