.40 cal round ball for 410

[Andrew Mason]

so, today i was at the gun show and i one of the goodies i got was a lyman .40cal round ball mold for $20
i hope to be able to load some tripple ball, and perhaps even quad ball in 3" 410 shells.

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Hello Andrew, here read this:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?158740-Here-s-a-treat-for-410-lovers!!
also be on the look out for Turbo's post on .410 here!

Hoping it helps.

Warmest regards,
Ajay
BlazingSabots@Gmail.com
Blazing Sabots, LLC
www.BlazingSabots.com
www.facebook.com/BlazingSabots?ref=hl
www.PreciousVideoMemories.com
www.facebook.com/pages/Preci...75489969155338

[Big_Blue]

I did a search and the post which I think VdoMemorie is refering to from Turbo is: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?20473-Need-Help-Input-for-Custom-410-Wad-Slug-Mold-Design&p=228333&viewfull=1#post228333

[Andrew Mason]

thank you both very much.

today i smelted some range scrap and cast a small handful of balls,
then drained my pot and threw in some random alloy that i have, i made
123 balls and figured that i had enough for some testing, i water dropped
them and then shook the bunch in a jar to smooth out the sprew.

i cant wait to get a hold of my girl's gun and test these things out

[Swamp Man]

Have you checked to see how well they go thru the bore. Just wondering if they are true 40 cal round balls from that mold. If they are I may want to get one of them myself. The only thing I would worry about with a triple ball load would be the balls compressing against one another and becoming deformed. I read somewhere where a guy used plan flower in buckshot loads to buffer the shock to the lead balls.

[Andrew Mason]

No,
I have not yet checked to see if the ball fit in the bore.

This whole project Is for my girl friends gun, and we are currently doing the long distance thing,
So it may be a few weeks till I see her, and get my hands on her gun.

As far as what the mold drops.
It's very close to .400,
It's so close infact that I wish I bought the .410 diameter ball mold that the guy had.

I guess if I find that the .400 is fine, I will go back and get the .410 mold and try that.

As far as the deforming of the balls, yes, it is something that I do see as a possibility,
To combat the issue I use a alloy that when water dropped is about 20 on the hardness scale, at least when it's in ingot form.
I may or may not buffer the shot.

[Swamp Man]

Cool I'll be waiting to see how it pans out. I'm trying to locate some thick walled brass hulls for 410 in 3" to test a few hot loads in later on.

[Andrew Mason]

i had bought a few rounds of the Russian golden bear 410 ammo,
it is a brass coated 2.75" length hull.
it was my intention to shoot this and then reload it,

but Murphy had to show up with his stupid law,
some one get into her car and stole a bunch of stuff.
to include the10 rounds of this 410 ammo.

[Swamp Man]

That sucks. I can get the Megtech brass hulls but I prefer to get a brass hull with thick wall that uses standard 410 wads and 209 primers.

[JIMinPHX]

When I cast buckshot for .410, I ran into a problem with the balls crushing down into an oval before exiting the barrel. Even water dropping WW (23bnh) did not give me hard enough shot to prevent the deformation. I believe the root cause of the problem is the fact that the standard .410 wads don't have any cushion in them. You might want to keep that in mind when planning your wad stack.

[Swamp Man]

When I cast buckshot for .410, I ran into a problem with the balls crushing down into an oval before exiting the barrel. Even water dropping WW (23bnh) did not give me hard enough shot to prevent the deformation. I believe the root cause of the problem is the fact that the standard .410 wads don't have any cushion in them. You might want to keep that in mind when planning your wad stack.That's why I was wondering about buffering the lead balls to help reduce shock to the round balls. By using some type of buffer the balls may not make as hard of an impact on each other.

[Swamp Man]

Andrew RMC is still making their brass hulls I posted the reply I got from them on the thread I started about Megtech hulls.

[Andrew Mason]

i am not sure what i will do about buffering yet,
i do plan on using a thick over powder card, to help
act as a shock absorber.

dont pressures tend to increase when shot is buffered???

[Swamp Man]

dont pressures tend to increase when shot is buffered??? I have no idea about that.

[LUTNIT]

Pressures tend to increase a little but the buffering has a larger effect on preventing shot deformation then the somewhat increased pressure has on deforming them.

[JIMinPHX]

dont pressures tend to increase when shot is buffered???

That would seem to make sense, but the deformation that I got with the buckshot was so bad that the wad got cut up into little pieces by the pancaked lead ovals that got forced out the muzzle. I have to sort of suspect that when the lead balls get deformed that badly, & then get mashed back sown to a smaller diameter in the choke, that probably also bumps up the pressure. I was using a mild charge of 2400 that was a well tested old-timers standard powder charge for a .410 shot load. I was surprised to see the mangled conglomeration of stuff that came out of my barrel from that modest powder charge.

Barrels on shotguns tend to be pretty thin & I don't have pressure testing equipment. Anything off the books in a shot shell load gives me pause.

[Andrew Mason]

JIM,
what is the "mild charge of 2400" that you use?
for my 1/2oz loads of reclaim shot that i reload in 2.5" plastic hulls i use 12 grains of 2400

what did you have as a over powder card for when you were reloading buck shot?

[blackbike]

I use 311 rb in a standard shot cup with 13gr of 2400.

[Andrew Mason]

I use 311 rb in a standard shot cup with 13gr of 2400.

with how many balls?

[Andrew Mason]

well, i got the girl friend to bring her gun for when she came to visit.

the .40 round balls roll freely out the bore.
the bore mic's right around to .410,
kinda makes me wish i bought the .410 caliber round ball...but o well

i have a few rounds allready loaded, so my next test will be when i shoot these thing.
my hope will be to collect enough newspaper to make a back stop to capture these round balls when shot.

[BAGTIC]

I would have preferred the .410 balls. At least they would have uniformly centered in the bore. Undersized ball were why the old 'pumpkin ball' loads were so inaccurate.

Advantage of a single projectile load is that they don't get deformed by banging/crushing against each other. IMO one ball that goes where you aim is more important than three that go where they please.

[BAGTIC]

By the time the balls reach the choke the pressure has dropped so far that any pressure spike would be inconsequential. The danger is that when the fast moving projectiles hit the choke they can peen it out due to their momentum (just like shot blasting). OTOH most .410 shotguns have tighter chokes than they really need anyway and their barrels tend to be much thicker than larger bore barrels.

[trapper9260]

I have tested some 00 buckshot in my 410 and load them in place of the shot in the 2 1/2 " ones and put 4 balls and I case my own that I got the mold from sharpshooters and they went all over and then I roll the balls to get the sharp edges off and then at about 20yards I had a 7" patten and then at 15yards I had a 5" patten .I did not use any buffer on it.I fold crimp my cases.

[Andrew Mason]

well, went to the gun show today and i found the dealer that had the mold that i had pass on, AND IT WAS THERE!!!

so, now i have a .41 caliber round ball that i will have to check to see if it fits, and if it dose, i will have to do some testing on those as well to see what shoot better.

[Andrew Mason]

okay, i took my "new" .410 caliber round ball mold out today and cast a few slugs,
good news is that measuring from most positions they are spot on at .410,
however, in other positions... they measure as small as .407, and some times .412
and in one particular orentiation, .418'' i know that this .418 is from where the sprue is on
the top of the ball.

so my question, are these balls safe to shoot out of my .410 bore shotgun?

what i currently do after the balls are cast and cooled, i place them in a small glass jar and shake the **** out of it to round off the sprew,
from here on i believe i will begin shaving the sprew off with a razor to get a bit more sphereical result.

thank you.

[Andrew Mason]

Okay,
I fired the shells over my crony today
Velocities were
1036
1493 (I think this was a poor reading)
1194

Well,
No that I have fired a few of these,
I will make allot more to allow more velocity testing and patterning.

687636876468765
Here is one of the balls I recoverd from the berm,

I have another, but it's in the truck.