.715 round ball

[beemer]

I have been playing off and on for a good while with .690 round balls in a 12 ga. with no usable results. I was looking around a antique store and found a box of molds. There was an old Ideal that pours a .307 RB with good handles. Most were the old Dixie Gun Works scissor type with no sprue plate. One happened to be .715 so I bought it and the Ideal.
The mold is crude and fussy to pour but it worked and was .715.

I have a Rem 870 smooth bore slug barrel with IC choke. The ball went through the choke with pressure from the heal of my hand. I loaded three with a BP brush wad and 20 grains of unique. I trimmed the shell to give a proper roll crimp. I shot them this morning, my target was a little shy of 25 yds. The group was 1 1/4 center to center in a perfect triangle. I think it's worth trying again, I have never got anything close to this.

I don't hunt much anymore but my place has thick cover, minute of a dear at 45-50 yds would be great.

[longbow]

! bought several RB moulds from Track of the Wolf a few years ago ~ 0.662", 0.715" and 0,735". I already had a 0.690" RB mould but have never gotten good accuravy with it.

The 0.662" mould was bintended for use in typical trap wads but is undersize so I cloth patched them into hulls with wads seated. That worked very well and gave good accuracy of about 3" to 4" at 50 yards from cylinder bore gun.

The 0.715" mould was intended for my Browning BPS with buck & slug barrel with "I/C" choke which measures 0.710" so tight for an I/C choke. I decided I did not want a 0.715"
+ diameter RB slamming into an undersize choke so have not tried it.

The 0.735" RB is oversize but is easily swaged to bore diameter and over a hard card wad column gave me the same accuracy as the patched 0.662" RB's. Again in cylinder bore gun.

I have had no issues with the 0.735" RB's in cylinder bore so I guess logically the 0.715" ball should swage through my 0.710" ckoke okay. I should give that a go.

I like big 'ol rounfd balls! Easy to cast and easy to load. They generally give better accuracy, for me, than home loaded Foster slugs. I have had good success with Lee slugs as well... or at least better than most home loaded Foster styles I have tried with few exception. Factory Foster slugs have also ]shot very well for me but not the home cast and loaded Fosters, especially the Lyman Foster slug.

If you have a fixed choke on that barrel then yes, the slug can't be too large or you may split the choke. If you have screw in choke tubes you could try cloth patching the 0.715" RB's and use cylinder choke tube. I tried some old cotton shirt for patching and it is a perfect fit for my cylinder bore gun. I would have thought patches wouls trip off opening the crimp or making the jump through the forcing cone but I have read posts here by people doing just that with claimed good results. I will try it but currently have way too many slugs loaded and waiting to be tested as I am refining loads for a variety of slugs.

I will also try the 0.715" RB though my I/C choke. Now you have me interested again!

Longbow

[beemer]

The ball goes through the IC choke with a little hand pressure, just luck found it. I really hope it was not a fluke but I am going to load some more to find out. The old mold is a pain to pour and remove the sprue but I will not likely need many.

I have seen two shotguns shoot the old factory rifled slugs accurately. One was an old Mossberg bolt action, slugs would do palm sized groups at 50 yds and were true to the sights. The other is a Savage 30 with a slug barrel. It would do a ragged clover leaf at 50 and do it every time. Dad got the gun and had choke tubes installed. I have it now and it doesn't shoot slugs very well. If this works I will try whatever I have that I think might work.

[Jungle Dave]

That .715 sounds perfect for your IC choke. I just nabbed a brand new never used .740 Dixie Gun Works ball mold from fleabay and waiting for the weather to clear up to cast some for my cylinder bores. I agree, they are more of a mess to cast with, but I never need many anyway, and I got this one at a real good price. Always trying to find or wait for the bargains. Never know when they will show up. Not sure about going more than .740 or .741, so hope it casts there or a little under. As long as I can physically get it through the bore by hand or dowel without a hammer, it will be good.

[longbow]

My Lyman 0.735" ball mould casts at 0.738"+. Cast from ACWW it easily swage to the fat 0.733" bore of my single shot with cylinder bore.

The same loads have been shot through a Remington 870 with rifled barrel at 0.725" groove with no problems and very good accuracy.

That RB is tight in plastic hulls causing a bit of a bulge but they chamber fine. Depending on your hulls and chamber that 0.740" ball may be tight.

It isn't much bigger than the RB's I am casting but best to check how much force it takes to swage to your bore. If it takes much effort I'd be reluctant to shoot them. Having said that it took very little effort to push my 0.738" RB's through my bore. There is not a lot of meat at the equator of a ball.

Longbow

[Jungle Dave]

I agree. If I can't knock it through with the heel of my hand, I'll just use it for a Brown Bess, but I think it might go through there without much effort. I still have to cast them and measure, and maybe they will cool off out of the mold a little under .740, we'll see. I'm not going to use plastic hulls anyway, so no worry about hull thickness. Only holy black and 3" brass cases. The deal on the mold was too good to pass up, even without knowing for sure, especially when looking at the cost of the Lymans.

[longbow]

With BP I wouldn't be so hesitant as pressure is not likely to spike like with smokeless powder... that is as long as the ball doesn't have to be pounded through the bore.

Another option for centering a smaller ball is to use donut wads which will help keep the ball centered in both hull and bore. Not sure if 10 gauge donut wads are available but you could make donut wads to suit the brass hulls pretty easily.

Longbow

[Cap'n Morgan]

The ball goes through the IC choke with a little hand pressure, just luck found it. I really hope it was not a fluke but I am going to load some more to find out. The old mold is a pain to pour and remove the sprue but I will not likely need many.

Beemer, you stumbled over what I think is the secret to round ball precision: Fit the ball to the bore - or in your case, to the choke.

I have no experience with round balls in shotguns, but I've shot enough slugs to conclude that any windage between slug and bore will lead to wailing and gnashing of teeth.

You need not worry about pressure. Once the ball reaches the muzzle, the pressure inside the barrel is about 1/10 of the chamber pressure. As long as the fit between ball and choke is not too tight, you should be good to go. A difference about .008 would translate to an "equator belt" about .08 wide. As long as we're talking pure lead, it should not be a problem.

Even the short trip through the cylindrical part of the choke should be enough to stabilize the ball. It would be interesting to test a full choke with an appropriate size ball and see what happens. Perhaps rattling down a bore .04 larger than the ball will still produce a decent group with only the last inch being a tight fit? Somebody should test it (maybe with an extended choke - just to play it safe)

[longbow]

I agree with Cap'n Morgan! As long as the ball is centered and not rotating when it leaves the muzzle, it should fly well to at least 50 yards. RB's tend to start to veer off course out around 60 to 70 yards in my experience and I believe it is due to the "curve ball" effect that the ball has picked up a random spin from drag so starts to veer off course just like a curve ball. This has been referred to as a "trombone trajectory" by others. Out to 50 or 60 yards accuracy can be quite good but by about 70/75 yards groups are starting to open up quickly.

I may be overly conservative in having not wanting to try my 0.715" RB's through my 0.710" choke as they should swage easily but I don't want to risk splitting my Browning choke.

I don't know what the forces involved are and while Cap'n Morgan is right about muzzle pressure that ball slamming into the choke restriction at 1200 to maybe 1500 FPS has got to create some hoop stress in the choke area which is pretty thin. I do know a guy who accidentally shot a 0.735" RB through a full choke with no apparent damage to the gun but I believe it was soft lead too.

I could likely work out the hoop stress developed to swage the ball down from 0.715" to 0.710" but I believe the impact will also have an effect on stress in the choke as this all happens in miliseconds so inertia will play into it as the ball has to squeeze and flow in a very short time. Having said that 0.005" in my case is not a lot so should be okay.

The Paradox guns use bnullets of about 0.740" which are a slip fit to bore then they hit the rifled choke which I have read may be as tight as 0.690" on the lands so that bullet is squeezing down from 0.740" to 0.690" at the lands and about -.710" at the grooves depending on rifling depth. Those bullets are soft lead and have fairly narrow driving bands though. Still an significant squeeze down.

After all those words. a simple solution is the donut wad to center any choke diameter or smaller ball. I plan to try making a cup out of paper mache to hold 0.662" and 0.678" RB's then give that a go. If it works I will also make some for 0.690" RB's which I have never gotten to shoot well naked (no surprise there) or in any shotcups I have tried.

I like the 0.735" RB's but they are heavy (about 1 3/8 oz.) and not choke friendly should they ever wind up in a choked barrel. A safer route would be 0.690" or 0.715" RB's which are both good weights to use with 1 1/8 oz. shot load data or 1 1/8 oz. slug load data.

And again, yes to Cap'n Morgan's comment about slugs or balls with any significant windage not being accurate. It only takes a couple of thou of clearance to bore and ball/slug accuracy is very poor in my experience.

My thoughts anyway.

Longbow

[FrankJD]

How 'bout a .715 ball lube-patched to fit snug in a brass case (Magtech), LP primed, 80 grains of Swiss 3F, over powder nitro card (with some compression), 1/2" fiber cushion wad, the patched ball, over shot card glued in. Test with cylinder, IC, rifle chokes ... ?

[longbow]

Yes, I have read that cloth patched RB's work when shot from cartridges. I would have thought that the patch would strip off in the hull, especially a crimped plastic hull, or when traveling through the forcing cone, but people have posted that they have successfully shot cloth patched round balls out of plastic hulls and gotten good accuracy.

I tried patching a 0.715" RB with 0.011" cotton from an old shirt and it was a perfect snug fit in the bore of my gun. I have not tried shooting any yet. It is on my to do list. A 0.690" RB was a good fit with two layers of the same cotton and I suspect denim from jeans might work for 0.690" RB. Of course these would be for cylinder bore guns.

A heavy cloth patch soaked in BP lube should work in a brass hull.

I am still amazed that a patch stays on the ball but maybe there is enough gas leakage that holds it in place from hull to bore, then it is sealed pretty tightly as in a muzzleloader.

It is certainly work a try.

Longbow

[FrankJD]

In essence, a cartridge or shell is just a "chamber insert" and is loaded the same as one would load up a muzzleloader, The prime difference (pun not intended, but applicable) is the ignition source, where it's fixed with a muzzleloader (external cap or flint) and is internally captured with a cartridge/shell.

In the case of a shot shell, it becomes a bbl chamber insert that leads to a slightly constricted bbl bore. The cartridge/shell mouth will be larger than the bore, whereas it'll be the same in a traditional muzzleloader, cap or flint. In all cases, a patched ball or conical or slug will have some gas blow by, it is what it is particularly since shotguns are smoothbores with no grooves for the patching to bunch up and better seal.

Theoretically, once blown out of the cartridge/shell, the patched projectile would would be no more than imitating a muzzleloader. The only possible shotgun constriction might be at the muzzle, if there is a choke, and there's no smooth transition from bbl to choke, or the choke itself was too severe. This is also where a rifle choke might add to accuracy. I have a Carlson rifle choke for the Henry, where the choke is a cylinder bore that leads to rifling that starts past the muzzle with 1:35 twist and very shallow lands.

Currently I only have Lee molds for a .690 ball and a .685 drive-key slug. A patched .715 ball might just be the ticket. I'll get a Jeff Tanner brass ball mold for that.

In all cases (pun not intended, but applicable) I'll be loading black powder as the propellant, ignited by a LPP, into a brass Magtech case - no plastic hulls.

Lots to test out, for sure.

[FrankJD]

Hmm, one other possible issue/problem with the Henry s/s is that it's chambered for up to 3.5" shells so there'll be a 1" patched ball jump from a 2.5" Magtech shell to the bbl bore.

[longbow]

Yeah, the "sticky" points in my mind that differ from a patched ball in a muzzleloader is that the ball won't be patched as tightly into the hull as it would be into the bore of a muzzleloader, in the case of plastic hulls (but maybe not brass hulls) the plastic is rough so the cloth would tend to drag and there is no enlargment from hull to chamber or gap through the forcing cone in a muzzleloader, the patched ball is firmly patched and snug to bore so even if the bore is fouled it would be difficult for the patch to peel off backwards... not so when leaving a cartridge and jumping through the forcing cone. Once in the bore with patch intact, yes it would be just like a smoothbore musket with patched ball.

But having said that, others have reported that it works. I just haven't tried it yet. I would not want to shoot a patched ball through a choke! I/C may be okay but cylinder bore would be better.

So far in my experience an undersize naked ball results in very poor accuracy, a ball in a shotcup that is snug in the bore can give very good accuracy and a full bore naked ball can give very good accuracy. I think as long as the ball is centered in the bore and leaves the bore with no spin it will be accurate to 50 yards or better. If a patched ball stays patched it should be accurate.

You will likely get the patched ball tested before I get to it so please post results. I will be watching.

Longbow

[Cap'n Morgan]

Longbow, any friction between hull and patch must compete with a pressure of 6000 psi behind ball and patch. Unless the wad forms a perfect seal, some of the pressure will flow past the wad and keep the patch clinging to the ball (or so I think...)

I found this small video which shows various bullets leaving the muzzle. Notice that the 12 gauge slug load shows hardly any leaking, while some of the pistol loads are leaking badly, so to speak.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBk7...sticHigh-Speed

[longbow]

That is an interesting video! Yes, I agree there will be leakage especially when the wad leaves the hull b ut my thought was that the ball and patch are stationary in the hull and at ignition the wad is going to push forward moving the ball so if there is friction between the patch and hull (think rouch plastic) there wouldn't be much gas leakage during initial movement. The patched bal in hull won't be as snug as a patched ball in a muzzleloader... and then there is the jump from hull through chamber and forcing cone.

Maybe I am wrong and there is a rush of gas blowing by the wad before any significant movement happens and if so then I agree that the gas leakage would likely hold the patch tight to the ball and as long as there is blow by as the patched ball hits the bore the patch should be retained and of course once the ball and patch are in the bore the patch cannot come off, same as in a muzzleloader.

Since people have reported success doing this I have to think it works but the proof is in the pudding as they say... I will have to try it and compare accuracy to full bore naked RB's and undersize RB's in shotcups. If accuracy is good then who cares how it happens as long as it is repeatable and consistent. I would also be searching for recovered patches to see what they look like.

Frank will likely beat me to it as I have a lot going on right now. If he has success then I will definitely try it but if it is a failure then I may just pass.

My next project in this direction was to make paper mache ball carriers for undersize balls that will pass though chokes. Same idea a donut wads to center the ball but longer and with a formed cup that takes almost 1/2 the ball diameter.. I have 0.662", 0.678", 0.690" and 0.715" ball moulds. This might even be better for brass hulls as the ball carrier could be made to suit the brass hull I.D. then it will squish down as it goes through the forcing cone and with a ball up to about 0.690" that would be safe in any choke up to full.

To note, I have two cylinder bore slug guns and one with I/C choke but I worry about a 0.735" RB one day accidentally winding up in a full choked gun. I know a guy who did exactly that though no damage to the gun amazingly enough! Mistakes happen!

Too much to do and too little time!

Longbow

[beemer]

I shot a couple more today, not as good as the first. I didn't measure them but about palm sized and one with a flyer. Still much better than anything I got with a .690. The mold is not very refined the balls are not perfect is probably the flyer. The Light Brush Wad made the trip just fine, looked like you could use them again. I'm going to play with the powder charge a bit. I have several 12 ga shotguns, if I load a batch they will be clearly marked as to which barrel to use.

[longbow]

What shotcups are you using with 0.715" RB's?

So far I have only found two wads that have thin enough petals for 0.690" RB's and those sheared. For 0.715" RB in a nominal 0.730" bore the petals can only be about 0.0075" thick which is not very thick.

Longbow

[beemer]

I am using the LB12 Light Brush Wad from Ballistic Products, it is a double ended cup with a cushion between and no petals. The ball centers nicely in the cup. Cup is about 5/16 deep. Ballistic products recommends this wad in several of their RB loads. I cut the shell just behind the crimp and use a Russian made hand roll crimp. After more shooting I think this load does better than a .690 but maybe not as well as I first hoped, haven't given up yet.