.680 ball range report.

[littlejack]

Hey fellas:
I got a chance to go to the range today and do some R&D.
The average diameter of the balls are .683 around the waist, and 690+ from top to bottom.
The range was 50 yards. The gun was my 870, with the Hastings rifled barrel, and a Burris 2x7 scope. I was shooting off the bench with the butt against my shoulder, no rear rest. In the front, I had my left hand resting on the sand bags, and holding the forearm for better recoil control.
Cases were Remington Gun Club. Winchester 209 primers, 8 point fold crimp.

Load #1:
30 gr. Herco, ball shimmed .180 in WAA12W wad. 10 shots. 9 balls in 2 1/8" ctc one shot pulled to 3 3/16" ctc.

Load #2:
33 gr. Herco, ball shimmed .135 in WAA12W wad. 10 shots. 10 balls in 6 5/16" ctc.

Load #3.
35 gr. Herco, balls shimmed .225 in (WAA12R) wad. 5 shots. 4 balls in 1 13/16" ctc. One shot pulled wayyyy out.

Load #4:
35 gr. Herco, balls shimmed .135, in WAA12W wad. 5 shots. 5 balls in 5 7/8" ctc.

Notice that the more the ball was shimmed (raised up) in the wads, the tighter the groups were. I believe this is due to the ball pushing the folded crimp out of the way for the petals to pass by without distorting them. Any thoughts?
The sprue was pointing straight up.
I was using the Lyman 525 grain Sabot Slug loading. The .680 balls only weighed 470 grains, so these loads worked very well in my gun.
I am not advising anyone to use this load in his or her gun. This information worked fine in my shot gun, but may not be safe in yours.
Regards
Jack

[pipehand]

Glad to hear of such good results, Jack. I'm puzzled at what you used to "shim" in those increments. Did you use COW or any other filler? BTW, I got my crimps adjusted much better on the MEC. Since its like a fourth hand machine, it was missing instructions, but was able to download from MEC.

From what Longbow said, its probably good that your mold casts a little larger for that rifled bore.

Did you recover any wads, and what did they look like? How fast were the loads?

[littlejack]

Pipe:
I have a hand punch that I use. I have been using card material from bottle separators from the liquor store. The material is .045 thick. I stack as many as I need in the wad. I haven't used any filler. Trying to make my loads as simple as possible.
Wads were all over the place. Some had four petal, some with 3 petals, some with 2 petals, and some with none. The majority had three to four petals. I couldn't close the range down after each group to separate the wads.
Sounds like you are getting to a place where you can get some good loading done with your MEC.
Jack

[pipehand]

Is it a 5/8" arch punch? I have a press mounted cutter in .461" that I use for some 45-70 loads. I believe it is a Fred Cornell cutter. I bought it through Buffalo Arms. The design doesn't look like it will work at 5/8 in a regular reloading press, though. I'd like to make some of my own wads. Anything that I can do myself instead of buying adds to the sense of accomplishment.

[longbow]

Certainly looks like you are on the right track there with that accuracy. I am actually surprised it is that good since the balls are oval/football shaped or whatever. I would have thought the out of round ball would pick up a spin fairly quickly and start veering off course like a "curve ball".

I think you are right about the petals being protected with the ball sitting higher in the shotcup. Also, the fit is not quite as tight with the ball raised up as the petals are tapered. You might try some comparison shooting with the ball sitting low but petals trimmed shorter to see if the tighter fit helps or not. Mind you, with group size hovering around 2" I am not sure you could do much better! That is pretty impressive.

Good shooting!

Longbow

[littlejack]

Pipe, you ask about the velocity of the loads I shot today. Sorry, I forgot to comment on that. I did not clock them today, maybe on my next session. Just guessing, I would think that the 30 grain loads would be getting close to 1400 fps, with that light ball.
The 35 grain loads, maybe 1450 fps or so. It will be interesting to see just how fast they are going.
As for the punch, I just went out and checked. It is a arch punch stamped 5/8", made in England, but it mics at .645.

Longbow, I would like for the mold to cast perfectly round ball, but I don't know if the groups would be any better or not. With human error factored in, groups can only get so tight. I don't think it realistic to get rifle size groups from a rifled barrel shotgun, for me anyway?
I do plan on playing with the ball depth in the wads, and trimming the petals off to see if there is any significant improvement in groups. I will keep you fellas posted.
Have fun, be safe.
Jack

[longbow]

Hah! I should learn to read better! I was thinking smoothbore and those are very good groups for smoothbore. Not bad for rifled gun either.

I shot some 0.735" RB's in a rifled Remington 870 with several groups running around 2". Those balls were cast in my Lyman mould and are very smooth and round within a couple thou. I was getting a little punch drunk from recoil by that point so maybe the gun and load could have done a little better but 2" +/- a bit is not bad.

I think your groups are quite decent as is even with your out of round balls. Since the gun is rifled, accuracy may even hold up at longer range. My comment about picking up a spin from air drag was aimed at shooting from smoothbore where the ball is launched (hopefully) with no spin but will start to pick up spin from drag on any rough or uneven surface. The further it goes, the faster it spins so the more randomly curved trajectory it follows.

Again, good shooting.

Longbow

[KinkBreaker]

abandoning your post?
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?194680-loading-a-680-ball/page2
plus i showed my balls dont we get to see yours? [smilie=l:

[littlejack]

Hey, to ya Kink:
No, not abandoning, just reposting to keep things simple. I have not yet got to where I can do photos.
Actually, the balls look like yours, just round pieces of lead.
Glad you joined in on the topic.
Jack

[KinkBreaker]

i was sipping coffee just as i was reading your last post, had to go get a paper towel.

was just pokin at ya in good fun littlejack [smilie=s:

[littlejack]

Kink, when you'r pickin on me, you're leavin someone else alone, And that's OK.
I didn't say lead for your pencil.

[KinkBreaker]

alright funnies aside
will you be testing further raising and lowering the ball in the shell? are all of these fold crimped?
by the way very good groups it would seem so far

[littlejack]

Yes sir, I will be doing more testing. I want to get all of the bugs out. I will be raising and lowering the balls with the card wads, and using both the white and red wads in the loads. All of the loads have an 8 point crimp. I will also be trimming the wad petals and comparing them to the untrimmed ones.
Might be a week before I get t do any more shooting though.
You fellas may wonder why I use only Herco powder in my loads. I use the Herco for my 45 Colt saa, my .41 magnum plinking loads, and my heavy 45 acp loads.
This makes it very handy to have this one powder that will do it all for these applications.
Jack