Making .690" round balls work in 12 ga

[yondering]

Thought I'd post my results here of sizing down the Lee .690" round ball for use in 12 gauge. Like others have posted, I found the .690" ball to be a bit too large for use in shot cups in the 12 gauge, so I decided to size them down using a push through sizer.

I used a 5/8" grade 8 nut, and opened up the hole with a 21/32 reamer. I then opened part of the hole in a taper, using a larger tapered reamer. I polished the hole with emery cloth wrapped around a 1/2" steel rod in my cordless drill.

Using Hornady Unique case lube, resizing air cooled wheel weight balls takes about the same effort as full length sizing 30-06 brass. Water quenched ww balls required a 5 ft cheater pipe on the press handle, so I won't be doing too many of those!

Right now this sizes them down to .670". I was planning to go bigger, to .680", but they shoot pretty good. Accuracy is about the same as unsized round balls from Lyman's .685" mold (I don't have that mold, just some samples, or I wouldn't bother with the sizer idea).

I thought I might have an issue with the balls seating crooked in the shotcups, but they seem to be pretty much self aligning, if I start them in somewhat straight. I'd like to try this in a rifled bore too just for fun..

Any of you guys tried something like this?

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/molds/IMG_1808.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/molds/IMG_1821.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/molds/IMG_1811.jpg

[bobk]

How do they shoot? Any weird flyers?

Bob K

[missionary5155]

Greetings Yondering.... I made a sizer for my 44-40 using a nut before I found a .433 mold. Difference was I was mashing the boolit up. Fanatastice what a little bit of labor can do.
God Bless you !

[yondering]

How do they shoot? Any weird flyers?

Bob K
They seem to shoot fine. Accuracy might even be a little better than the .685" Lyman balls I tried, but with all the snow here lately, I haven't had a chance to do as much testing as I would like.
I do plan to make another nut sizer like this one, but for .680", and will give that a try. The .670" size, in Win WAA12 wads, measures ~.722", so another .010" should be about right. I've also been using WAA12R replacement wads by Claybuster, and these have a raised rib on the petals, making that area measure .740" with the .670" ball. Might have to make another nut at .660" for that one.

[longbow]

I think that whatever it takes to get the ball down the barrel without bouncing around or wrinkling shotcups will give decent accuracy.

I have tried several sizes of round ball naked and in shotcups and so far the best accuracy I have gotten is around 4" at 50 yards with both 0.662" in a shotcup and patched to take up slop, and with 0.735" naked on hard card wads.

I have found 0.690" too large for the shotcups I have and too small naked. Yondering has a solution in sizing to suit the shotcup.

Missionary5155 used 0.680" RB in shotcups with good success too.

BP musket shooters are claiming accuracy with patched round ball of 3" at 75 yards and I have heard and read of many instances where smoothbore musket shooters have placed against round ball rifle shooters in matches to 100 yards.

If they can do it we can do it!

Let's keep working on this and improving our accuracy.

Longbow

[shotman]

what are you shooting? Why WW . I been playing with a RB in a rem 870 rifled barrel ,first results are VERY impressive. about same hole at 50yds that is off hand. I am useing a .728 pure lead in cut off shot cup and cut off case sealed with bee wax. The bee wax is the lub going down the barrel. I like it so much going to do a 20ga soon

[yondering]

I’m shooting a Mossberg 500 with a smoothbore slug barrel. I cast pretty much everything from WW because that’s what I have most of. As others here will agree, I want these round balls cast hard so they will penetrate. Pure lead is way too soft, may as well shoot a factory slug.

I cast my last batch of .690” balls air cooled, so they will size easily, but will heat treat them after sizing so they will be hard.

I’ve been using large chunks of firewood to stop my round balls that I’ve tested so far. All of the water quenched balls have been re-usable for several shots (I tried one for 4 shots before I lost it). I tried some cast from an air cooled 50/50 mix of ww/pure, they deformed quite a bit, and didn’t penetrate as far.

[longbow]

I'm talking 4" at 50 yards in smoothbore just to be clear. I got 2" groups from a short run in a borrowed rifled barrel and I think the gun/load could have done better if I wasn't so punchy by them.

Personally I think one of the benefits of this big bore round ball shooting is that the balls are so big and tough that even in pure lead they hold together and are quite devastating while hardened can provide spectacular penetration. The best of both worlds!

Longbow

[defib]

what type and size shell and shot cup? please.

[longbow]

I have been using Fiocchi 2 3/4" hulls with up to 38 grs. of Blue Dot and Winchester 209 primer for round ball loads with up to 0.735". Under bore size balls are loaded in shotcups and bore size are on hard card wads with plastic gas seal over powder.

I based my load off Precision Rifle's PileDriver load for a 610 gr. full bore slug and their published loads with up to 44 grs. Blue Dot ~ too hot for my liking and I find the 0.735" RB at 580 grs. beats me up enough anyway with 38 grs. behind it.

I have used this basic combination for RB's with 0.662" in shotcup, 0.690" RB in shotcup, naked and with attached basewad and 0.735" RB naked as well as other slugs in the 500 to 600 gr. range with no signs of pressure. Oddly, it seems to work well even with the 1 oz. 0.662" ball which is pretty light for Blue Dot.

Longbow

[yondering]

I'm using Win AA hulls, and WAA12 or WAA12R wads, depending on the load. Check the hodgdon and alliant websites for load data. The basic rule of thumb is that you can use the round ball in place of a shot charge of equal weight. I've been using 1 1/8 ounce load data.

[jsizemore]

Does anybody have the weight in grains of the .662, .680,etc of the various round balls. All the claybuster wads I've looked at have a rib in each petal that varies in thickness along it's length. If the plastic pipe works for missionary, you should be able to select whatever size round ball matches your choke/wad/roundball combo and throw some #7-9 shot into the pipe to bring your shot weight up to whatever load data you decide to use. Just a thought.

[longbow]

Round ball weight calculator here:

http://www.beartoothbullets.com/rescources/calculators/php/roundball.htm

Longbow

[jsizemore]

Thanks Longbow. Just what I needed.

[shotman]

The .735 ball is about 550gr .I had some old wads that herters made about 35yrs ago they are a chalis and bottom of cup is rounded. I bought a mold that cast .728. I cut petles off and set ball in the cup. A.728 is .004 over the bore size in a rem870 rifled barrel. I like 25gr blue dot . It shoots good and recoil is fine. The first try is looking good <2in at 50yd. With open sights that is good to me. I just got a box of old win wads off feebay these may be the thing. I have never seen them before but it is a over powder plastic wad about 1/2in thick that is cupped. Also there is 2 ball molds on feebay[about 5days to go] for .690-.670 rick

[mcgiiver]

I’m shooting a Mossberg 500 with a smoothbore slug barrel. I cast pretty much everything from WW because that’s what I have most of. As others here will agree, I want these round balls cast hard so they will penetrate. Pure lead is way too soft, may as well shoot a factory slug.

I cast my last batch of .690” balls air cooled, so they will size easily, but will heat treat them after sizing so they will be hard.

I’ve been using large chunks of firewood to stop my round balls that I’ve tested so far. All of the water quenched balls have been re-usable for several shots (I tried one for 4 shots before I lost it). I tried some cast from an air cooled 50/50 mix of ww/pure, they deformed quite a bit, and didn’t penetrate as far.

How do you harden the balls after they are cast? Is there a way to soften bullets cast from lead that is not exactly pure?

[yondering]

How do you harden the balls after they are cast? Is there a way to soften bullets cast from lead that is not exactly pure?

Search for "heat treat" on this site for more details, but basically, you heat the balls or boolits in the oven, I use about 450 degrees, and then quench them in cold water.
This works great to harden wheel weight alloy. It doesn't work for straight lead-tin alloys, or pure lead.
You can soften hard (heat treated or water dropped) boolits by heating them and letting them air cool.

[missionary5155]

Greetings mcgiiver and WELCOME !
For load development shoot what ya have. You can reteive and recast later. If you are going to pop deer and other SOFT targets shoot what ya have. For Piggys, big crocs, rhino. griz... things that bite use a hard ball.
I am presently using a Soft mix (All I have right now here) and it works just fine for experimenting. But if you have some WW start using that. Water dropped WW will penetrate and at 70 caliber does not need to expand. But do be carefull as it will go through two deer standing side by side and continue down range.
God Bless You !

[flipfew]

Their back!!!

Attention Lee .690 round ball lovers, finally they're back! about 2 weeks ago I spent two days emailing back and forth with the ballistics products trying to talk them into doing a run of their "122ct2 1/4 felt donut wads" for those of you that have never used the donut wad and arent familiar with them they're the perfect answer to the 690 round ball. It's a special one they make for law enforcement and military loads, 1/4in thick high-density felt with a .230 hole through the center that acts as a cradle both cushioning and keeping the 690 round ball centered down the bore. I love to use these with the cheap claybuster wad found locally (petals removed) roll crimped, these are the best answer for using the cheap lee round ball mold.I'll try to get a pic uploaded later.