I Have A Question

[jjarrell]

Great day today. Burned a pound of Olde Eynsford with my son in our .54s and his .50. But I do have a question. Or maybe more of an observation, and wanted to know if I'm nuts or anyone else has experienced it. I cast my own balls but have a couple boxes of Speer balls. Both are the same diameter. I figured the Speer balls would be more consistent than mine, but what I cast seems to be more consistent and accurate from my rifle. You can't really tell a difference out of my sons rifles. They are just Lee molds, not high dollar molds. I would think that's kind of odd and should be the other way around.

[koger]

Why I have cast my own for 25+ years! I weigh mine also, for best target accuracy, sort them by lots, does not really change zero, make for super tight groups in competition. Every once in a while you will get one with a void, and instead of weighing 130 grains, it weighs 85, and when shot, they always are way off.

[54bore]

Have you weighed the speer balls to see how consistent they are in weight? I dont shoot round balls but that would be my first thought if i were shooting them and had this problem. Someone else on here with more experience shooting RB's should chime in soon

[mooman76]

No, not wierd at all. Speer is mass production and you can take your time. Lee moulds may not be the high dollar moulds but they are still very good moulds.

[jjarrell]

No, not wierd at all. Speer is mass production and you can take your time. Lee moulds may not be the high dollar moulds but they are still very good moulds.

That's what my son said. He's only 16 but we were driving home and he said "Dad maybe you just pay closer attention. I've seen you throw a lot of of them back in the pot". He said I should melt them and use them to cast what shot good for us. From the moths of babes I suppose. Lol

[rfd]

i prefer my own cast balls over any commercial balls, cast or swagged. far tighter casting control and tolerances.

[Bent Ramrod]

Like you, I'd thought that swaged round balls would all be the same weight, but when I weighed some .32 swaged balls (per Dutch Schoultz's instructions) I was astounded at the variation. Much worse than a comparable box of jacketed bullets.

I think Lee roundball moulds are the best there are. With proper technique, it's no problem getting a very narrow weight distribution with them.

[rfd]

i've tried lotsa diff'rent ball moulds, from brass to steel to aluminum, and lee's are the best for me. as with any casting, consistent handle pressure and dumping a full ladle load over the sprue plate still apply.

[curator]

I can't understand why the swaged commercial round balls are neither consistent or accurate when the advertisement speaks so highly of them! Actually, swaged round balls SHOULD be more consistent if they were properly made. If you weigh and measure commercially made balls you will find a small percentage of them that are perfect in both weight, diameter, and roundness. Unfortunately the others, while looking the same, have internal voids and are not as round as they should be. These imperfections affect accuracy. A properly cast round ball loaded sprue up and centered will usually shoot better. Any imperfection in the cast ball will be under the sprue where it will be the center of rotation and have little effect.

[Ithaca Gunner]

Just Lee molds? Once in a while someone designs and makes something that's near perfect and is able to sell it at a very low price, such is the case with the Lee round ball molds. I honestly don't think you can do better with a commercial round ball mold at any price. I'm not a fan of all Lee molds, but I wouldn't spend money on anything else for making round balls.

[Standing Bear]

Been casting RBs >30 years minus a period when swaged balls were not ridiculously high priced. Used aluminum for years based on $ but about a year ago I needed some of a size I only had in steel. Wow!! Better looking balls and way higher % that weighed in tolerance. Maybe I'm getting more particular in my old age.
TC

[OverMax]

Swagged Balls typically are perfectly true/round. Not so with home cast.. Perhaps a little out of round garners a little better accuracy too.
Know of a old Tip: a deliberate lightly dimpling all over Ball gives better accuracy than a perfectly smooth one. Although my rifle is sighted to 100 yards. My sport shooting takes place under 25 yards. I haven't found a need to dimple my 45 cal Balls to test that dimple theroy.

[country gent]

Swaged balls can also have voids and inclusions in them. This comes from the wire being a square ended cylinder to start with and the forming pressure to make them. Most swage dies have a "squirt hole" in them to bleed of any excess If to much or to little excess is there weight variations can occur. Forming force can affect roundness and shape also. Its an interestng process with as many varianles as casting. I also believe cast balls are more ductile than the compressed lead from swaging, this may allow for balls to swell and grip rifling better. Dimples on golf balls reduce wind friction allowing them to fly farther and truer, should hold tru with lead round balls also if they make it thru the swelling stage of firing. That would be a fun mould to make for a dimpled round ball. Im betting the swaged round balls may be slightly harder or tougher than the cast.

[rfd]

as always, do and use whatever seems to work best for ya and make most sense. i don't and won't buy balls. they're too dang easy to make for near nothing by casting 'em myself. whether casting balls or bullets, the name of my game is DIY as much as possible, the balls i cast, from .310 to .600 come out perfect and +/- .1 to .5 grains for the vast majority. lee ball moulds are best ... for me. ymmv.

[curator]

Country gent hit the nail on the head as to the way swaged balls are made. When I toured the Hornady factory two decades ago, I was told by the machine operator that the lead wire was precision cut so there would be ZERO bleed off as this waste was money lost. I have "miked" and weighed thousands of commercial round balls when I was shooting competitively. In any given batch I would find about one-third were out of round by a few thousandths. When cast balls are out of round or variable weight it is most often due to a warped mould or a caster who has not quite learned the technique for maximum consistency. Melt temperature, casting cadence, sprue-puddle size and cutting technique all contribute to irregularities. The devil is in the details.

Overmax, dimples on golf balls work at sub-sonic speeds to create lift. Your dimpled lead balls may be more accurate because dimpling them makes them slightly larger. You can do a search on this site to learn more about this subject.

[jjarrell]

I think I'm just going to melt them down and use the lead to cast my own. I weighed 10 of them and only 2 were within a grain of the correct weight. there was a total deviation of 14.3 grains with the 10 balls I weighed. I weighed 10 of mine after the Speer balls and they varied by 3.6 grains. I wouldn't have thought that would have been the case but it is............I'll never put a Lee mold down again. Thanks for all the insight and information. I appreciate it very much.