Tri-Ball Revisited!

[Arisaka99]

yeah, can you use over powder cards instead of wads? that may work?

[turbo1889]

yeah, can you use over powder cards instead of wads? that may work?

Since the balls are smaller then bore diameter you would also have to have some kind of support tube similar to a steel shot wad to surround the balls if you were going to go with an old school type card wad type load.

I have been experimenting with building my own sabots for sabot slug loads, single wall shot wad cups for lead/bismuth shot, and double wall shot cups with the slits on the inner and outer walls offset from each other for steel/hevi-shot by rolling my own paper tubes and cutting and gluing them in combination with various size nitro cards to build loads where the wadding is 100% bio-degradable and I'm not spreading plastic litter junk all over ever time I pull the trigger.

I haven’t yet tried this for making a 20ga. Tri-Ball load and have only tried building 20ga. Tri-Ball loads using various steel shot wads. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if rolling a 1-1/2” long brown paper tube 1/2” inside diameter and 5/8” outside diameter, gluing a 50-cal 1/8” thick nitro card inside the bottom flush, then gluing a 20ga. 1/8” nitro on top of that, slitting the resulting wad-cup with a razor knife a little more then an inch to form two or three petals, and finally dropping in three 0.490” hard cast balls would probably do the trick nicely. I know Dixie is limited as far as what he can use for components to produce commercial ammunition but for a private hobbyist with the time and dedication to literally “roll your own” that may be an option.

[RMc]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=114669

[Navy_Guns]

the "recipe" says to use 3" Cheddite, Fiocchi, or Federal Gold Metal hulls. Precision Reloading is out of the Cheddite and the Federal hulls they have are one-piece, so apparently not "Gold Metal" hulls. The Fiocchi they have in stock come with magnum primers installed. The "recipe" does not specify a primer type. Is it ok to use the specified 28-29 grains of Blue Dot with the magnum primer in the Fiocchi hull?

[RMc]

the "recipe" says to use 3" Cheddite, Fiocchi, or Federal Gold Metal hulls. Precision Reloading is out of the Cheddite and the Federal hulls they have are one-piece, so apparently not "Gold Metal" hulls. The Fiocchi they have in stock come with magnum primers installed. The "recipe" does not specify a primer type. Is it ok to use the specified 28-29 grains of Blue Dot with the magnum primer in the Fiocchi hull?

Try Graf and Sons for Cheddite primed hulls:

http://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/...ategoryId/412?

[Navy_Guns]

I was trying to avoid having to buy the wads in one place and the hulls in another. If I can't get an answer about the Fiocchi with the magnum primers, I may have to.

[turbo1889]

I cannot speak for Dixie as far as primers that go with his loads, but last I checked primers are removable and can be replaced with a different one if needed. A little extra work compared to just using primed hulls but it can be done. Usually CCI primers fit the european hulls if you can't find european brand name primers to use in them (euro and CCI primers are slightly bigger diameter and other primers may be a loose fit in euro hulls without swaging the primer pockets back down with a special tool made and sold for the purpose).

I'm thinking swap the magnum Fiochi primers out for regular hotness primers (euro or CCI) if your worried about it. Just de-prime and re-prime on the press like loading fired hulls only save the still good magnum primers for later use in another load.

[doubledown]

What alloy are you guys using for the tri ball load ? Do you think lyman number 2 would be hard enough? or do I need to step it up a notch .

[nanuk]

I"m wondering if HT WW would work well for this also

[BABore]

IIRC that's what James uses for his commercial load. I use 50/50 WW-Pb and water drop them. You want them hard to minimize distorsion and setback.

[Dixie Slugs]

Let's talk about Dixie Tri-Ball for a moment. As you know, I have put various recipes here on Cast Boolits for reloaders (they buy few factory rounds) and have had trouble in the past by loaders wanting to use components other than those I have listed.
Now.....the first Tri-Ball loads were with Blue Dot and they worked very good. Over time we were able to buy Primex 513 and since it was a all-temp powder, we moved to that.
We have seen very little difference when sub'ing the following:
(1) Hulls...Fiochhi, Cheditte, Federal (as long as they were not tapered hullls)
(2) Very little difference in primers
(3) Most important to use the Precision "orange "wad
(4) Very little (if any) difference if heat treated balls or not....as long as they are as hard as at least 10 to 1 (lead.tin). Only those with antimony can be heat treated. Some of the best balls can be made from melted high antimony shot!
Now....Primex 513 is getting hard to get and we are now testing Primex 516 (Lil'Gun). 28 grains of Blue Dot equals 28 grains of Primex 513 equals 32 grains of Primex 516 (LiL'Gun)....all are the same volume for crimp index with a rolled crimp and pressure.
When our testing is done and I am satisfied with all the results....I will post the revised recipe....don't ask me yet! And don't ask we about other componenet either.
At present we are working very hard to keep up with nationwide orders on Dixie Tri-Ball!!!!!
Regards, James

[Dixie Slugs]

We are also testing 12 ga 3" RIO hulls but are not ready to state to use them...James

[nanuk]

this is why I like this site.

info given freely for OUR Safety!

[500cadillac]

Finally something other than Bluedot. Too cold in Canada to hunt with bluedot.

[doubledown]

Has anybody loaded the Dixie tri ball load in a 3.5" shell? I know James at Dixie sells them, I want to pick up a few boxes, I was just wondering what componants were used. I have loaded the 3" with great results.

[Dixie Slugs]

OK! Here is the exact recipe for the Tri-Ball in 3 1/2" hulls.....note I sat exact!
(1) Cheddite 12 ga 3 1/2" primed hull.
(2) 32 grains (3.4 cc Lee Dipper) Alliant Steel powder.
(3) The Precision Reloading Orange (TUPRW123) wad.
(4) Most Important!....a 20 ga overshot disk in the inside bottom of the Orange wad. If you do not do this, the wad base will blow!
(5) Three .600" hard cast round balls.
(6) Buffer
(7) Important!....a 1/8" pure cork wad over the buffered balls
(8) Fold Crimp
This load runs about 1175'/" and patterns excellent!
Regards, James

[missionary5155]

Good morning
It sure would be fun to find some large free roaming raptures to try this load on...
Anyone have a herd of beefys that you want thinned out ?
Mike in Peru

[doubledown]

James, thank you for sharing your recipes with us. I have loaded and shot both of your Tri-ball loads now, the 3" and 3.5" both with great sucsess! The 3" load I shoot out of my Remmington 870 with a 18.5" barrel (the forcing cone has been lengthened) its short light and east to carry and I get an honest 1000 fps out of it. At 50 yards it will keep all three balls on a pie plate, and boy does it smack the target HARD!

The 3.5" load I have only shot a couple dozen, but they give a little more range. I shoot them out of a 26" barrel autoloader and get 1200 fps. I have knocked over a three foot 12x12 standing on end at 50 yards! This load hits like a truck! I am going to leave my lever guns in the safe and take my shotgun with me on my next hog hunt useing one of your triball loads, I cant wait.

In the beginning I would get two balls hitting together and one 4"-6" away. I tried spreading the wads by hand before loading, to help release that last ball, but it seemed to make the groups worse in my case.
Then I started to lube and mica dust the balls to get them to release from the wad uniformly. I found with my loads, in my guns. Slicking those lead balls up seemed to help me.

Great info on a great load, thanks again James.

[Dixie Slugs]

We have tried to keep our friends here on Cast Boolits informed on our load recipes and development. We found the if two ball hit close and one out a ways was caused by too tight a choke. Also there was one run of orange wads that were not cut far enough down. This was quickly corrected at the wad maker.
We are now testing a new powder that is available to the reloaders. We do not know the complete results yet, but it looks good so far.
The hunting results from all over are outstsnding indeed. Looks like another good year for Tri-Ball......Regards, James

[doubledown]

[QUOTE=Dixie Slugs " We found the if two ball hit close and one out a ways was caused by too tight a choke".


James, both shotguns are cylinder bore. Even with the 20 gauge overshot disk in the wad, if I load all three balls in the wad and turn the wad over only two come out, the bottom ball has to be tapped out. In my mind thats the ball thats late to the party, but that is nothing more than a "guess" on my part. I also like a challenge, if it was easy I would probably lose interest.