Hey longbow. I hit the way back machine (page 7 in the search for "12 ga. round ball success"), other wise known as the advanced search on this site, and found my 12-7-2016 thread on constructing the shell. I referred to a 33 grain load of blue dot, but have since dropped it back to 32 grains. The ball was soft but not pure lead. The petal on the clay buster wad showed rather deep marks from the pinch between the ball & the barrel, but at the lower loads, did not tear or separate. Driven too fast, I had petals that did, in fact, tear. It's been awhile, but I think I zeroed at 50 yards and point blank runs way beyond that. I held direct on a 90 yard deer and POI was exactly (as good as I can hold) where the cross hairs were. I know the the desire to run loads hotter to get better performance, but really, I can't ask for a better result from what most would consider a mild load. Makes me want to repeat the commercial, "Try it ~ you'l like it!"
PS: .702 as cast from an old Jeffery Tanner mold.