Hardness for .360 roundballs? (buck and cat sneeze)

[PerpetualStudent]

So I've finally got my lead furnace and the roundball mold is in the mail. Now I need to procure lead and get casting before the weather turns too cold.

The .360 roundballs are going to be used to load up 000 buck shotshells in case of zombies and for fun (not hunting). They are also going to be used to make cat sneeze loads for my .357 revolver.

I know that for hunting applications hard buckshot is favored to minimize deformation and thus spread. For cat sneeze since the ball is .003 inches over bore size it's going to get swaged to bore diameter. So softer lead might be better for that application. Do I need to keep the balls seperate for the two purposes? or is there a good in between hardness I should be looking for in my lead alloy?

[KCSO]

Plain old wheel weights work just fine.

[PerpetualStudent]

You mean I should stop over analyzing and just get casting?:shock:

[Geezer in NH]

Ya don't make it into rocket science.
Think real, there are no Zombies in real life and that the new carp about it make folks look stupid IMHO.

[PerpetualStudent]

I use it mainly as a tongue in cheek way of saying "just in case" because it sounds less paranoid than saying "if the balloon goes up" or "TEOTWAWKI" or "social work" or any of the other ways I've run across of saying "In case I need it"

Still. Point taken, I'll just see about getting some alloy and actually get to casting.

[izzyjoe]

Use what you got, but pure lead or WW will both work fine!

[6pt-sika]

I've been casting and rolling .380" and .395" round balls this week for 0000 and 00000 buck . And my alloy is straight WW's that I water drop from the mold . I've already loaded and patterned them at 25 yards and I got what I was looking for in the guns I wanted to use .
My rifle bullets cast from the same alloy and water dropped I think came in depending on the day at 12-14 on the Brinn scale with my old friends Saeco hardness tester so I would assume my "buck shot" to be about the same .

By no means am I saying you need to water drop I just decided to so far !

I also have some 50/50 Pure/WW I may try at some point . I have Lino as well but I do not think I wanna chance it using that stuff in my old SxS guns .

Oh and what I've been making is not for Zoomblets or Catsnot . Some of it will be used to kill ferociouse man eating Virgina Whitetail Deer or poor unsuspecting Virginia Whitetails whichever way you care to look at the deer population in Virginia .

[victorfox]

PS, FWIW I loaded some 00 buckshot 8-pellets inside shotcup for social work, though I didn't pattern it yet. I've read somewhere they usually pattern better than the 8 000 pellets, but don't have 1st hand experience yet. Will shoot tru fixed cylinder bore. It patterns 9 00 pellets decently at about 25 yds. Have no idea on hardness bought them directly from the maker and he said it's about 3-5℅ antimony.

[HangFireW8]

PS the .003" overbore roundball doesn't need to be softer. All lead alloys are much softer than the softest copper alloy bullet jackets, and will swage down and obturate.

[Petrol & Powder]

And by the time it exits the cylinder throat it will be a cylinder shaped slug with rounded ends.

I'm with hangfire, it will reach the forcing cone a little over the groove diameter but will have no problem swaging down.
If the round balls are too soft the performance as buck shot will suffer due to damage during firing. However, if your expected ranges are very short, who cares if the pattern opens up?

[PerpetualStudent]

So I took the excellent advice of "just do it". I've had 2 casting sessions, each about an hour and a half.

1st batch I had about 80 roundballs with about 10 rejects
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2nd batch I'd gotten into a better rhythm
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All told I've got about 250 roundballs waiting to be loaded out of simple Clip On WW alloy.

The rejects I expect to go down in future sessions. These two sessions I warmed up the mold by casting with it rather than leaving it on top of the pot, or on a hotplate, or dipping it. I just started casting and let that heat up the mold mainly to get experience working the mold.