bp six shooter molds

[corey012778]

a friend of mine is going to go into half with me on a round ball mold for 3 six shooters. two colt and one remington.

I am not too sure what size to get. .451 or .454 most likely it will be lee.

[Nobade]

If you have access to pin gauges, just measure the chambers on all the revolvers and pick a ball size that is bigger than the biggest one. Then, if you want something that will really make you scratch your head, slug the bores on those revolvers. You may find out that the bores on some or all are bigger than the chambers. That makes for less than stellar accuracy, but they make 'em that way for some reason. But unless you are prepared to open up the chambers, just get a mould that casts a ball bigger than the biggest hole. It will shave lead off to fit them all that way.

[Hellgate]

The .454 double cavity LEE roundball mold served me for many years and has been the right diameter for about 30 different Italian .44 cal Colt & Remington repros I have owned over the years. The only reason I don't use it anymore is because I found a 4 cavity Lyman steel mold. The LEE actually casts a ball with a smaller sprue which is nice. I've been waiting for over 2 years for a six cavity aluminum gang mold in .454 but technical difficulties with manufacturing have prevented its development. The 4 cavity mold filled my needs. I probably have cast over 20,000 from the 2 cav Lee mold and it still works fine. There's no better deal in my opinion.

I have fired a few boxes of .457 Hornady or Speer balls and they loaded fine too since they are soft. Sometimes I end up with scrap lead that is a little harder than pure and a larger than needed ball may strain the rammer or over work a brass framed gun while ramming the harder ball. I've had some guns that a .451 diameter ball was way too loose. A fair number of Piettas like the smaller .451 ball but the rest (ASM, Uberti, Euroarms) prefer the .454.

[Omnivore]

What Hellgate said ^

I still use .454s in my Piettas, and they'll take a soft .457".

[corey012778]

thanks for the advise, my friend has been shooting swaged balls out of all three for years, not sure of who made them. all of them loaded with an ring left. he will be over tonight to help finish a wire project up. maybe we will order tonight.

[Omnivore]

Some say that your chamber mouths should be chamfered so as to swage, not shave, the lead down to chamber size. I chamfered the chambers of one of my Pietta '58 Rem cylinders, just to the point where they no longer shave. It's a bit cleaner in that you don't have lead shavings, but I haven't been able to tell a difference in accuracy.