Balls too big!

[Abert Rim]

Awright, knock off the snickering ....

I have a new Kodiak .72 which specs at .725/.734 or so. I ordered a Lyman .715 RB mold and cast several dozen balls of close-to-pure lead. Lo and behold, the balls are running about .721-.722, much too large with any reasonable patch material to load without a mallet. Any ideas on how to reduce diameter, or if it is even possible? I owned one of these molds before and it cast balls much closer to .715.

[StrawHat]

Any sizing method I can think of would leave a belt on the round ball which would have to be aligned with the bore and would not be an easy reload in the field. It seems to me you are going to need a new mould.

The British had a rifling designed for a belted ball but the belt was a raised area and fit in to the two groove rifling. Also not easy to do in the field.

[DIRT Farmer]

You might try wadded balls. Load as a shot gun, 11 gauage wads work fine, with an over ball wad. The ball will expand to take the rifling. Just be sure the other ball does not move forward and leave an air space. I have used 715 loaded this way.

[curator]

Abert,

Try cleaning the mould faces and allignment pins. These may have something on them that is preventing your mould from closing completely. Lyman moulds are "measured" by casting with Lyman #2 alloy which always casts larger than pure lead. If a good cleaning doesn't fix your mould problem return it to Lyman with a note.

If you get no satisfaction from Lyman (I think you will and this won't be necessary) you can always give the mould cavity a coating of "mold release compound." That will result in castings at least .005 under what you were getting with a bare mould.

[Abert Rim]

Curator: I'll check the faces and pins. It is a brand new mold, and I cleaned with engine degreaser and shot it with Dropout before use. Maybe I got too much release agent on the faces.

[missionary5155]

Greetings
You do NOT want any release agent on the block faces.. just the cavities.