Tri-ball suggestions--RB size

[John in WI]

I'd like to pick the brains of some tri-ball loaders. I'll start off by saying I load a lot of buck, but have never loaded tri-ball or slugs. I've settled on a slug mold, but now am curious about tri-ball. I've done a lot of reading on the forums and there are tons of pictures of deer and hogs taken down with it. I'm sure it's some mean stuff!

The "tri-ball revisited" post says that any hard cast ball from .575-.600 would work for the load. I know that the commercial stuff uses .600 balls, but I'm curious if .575 balls pattern equally well (probably with a little extra choke). I'd like to use smaller balls to take the weight of the load down a notch (the factory stuff comes in at around 2 ounces!), and hopefully cut some of the ferocious recoil it's supposed to have.

I have a good WW+linotype alloy that gets good and hard with water dropping. And with all the talk of copper alloys, I'm wondering if .2% copper might help toughen the balls and prevent deformation even more. Thanks for any info!

[jmort]

There is no reason it should not work depending on the wad. I'm sure Ajay will weigh-in with some sage advice on this.

[pipehand]

The original and revisited recipes were posted here. I use the .600" roundball from a Lee mold, water dropped. 2+ ounces of lead at around 1050 fps sure gets your attention. At similar distances, the pattern of the three balls is usually smaller than the group of 3 separate shots with the Lee 1 ounce slugs from my bead sighted smoothbore. So far I haven't tried it on game.

As far as the smaller balls being used through a tight choke- the .600" is supposed to be usable with a full choke. I like how they stack in the Precision Reloading Steel wad with just enough room around them to vibrate in the spherical shot buffer. I would imagine the .575" balls would not line up quite as straight. I can't imagine recoil being significantly reduced by going to the slightly smaller ball. A firm mount into the pocket of the shoulder, and rolling with the push works pretty well. I still feel a little tenderness the next day if I shoot too many (more than 10) in a session. TANSTAAFL.