.509 round ball bag mould

[benjaminw7528]

I was wondering what size bullet is a .509 I found it on the trake of the wolf site it says it's a 50 cal but 509 seems bigger to me any info will be a help

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Assuming that means it will cast a ball of .509" diameter you would probably find that very tough to ram down a .50 caliber rifle with any sort of patch but could be greased and loaded bare, no patch. Many new reproduction rifles of nominal .50 caliber have very shallow grooves and .509" might be a full groove diameter ball. It also could have been custom made for an old original rifle. Backwoods gunsmiths had no way to make precision measurements. The customer would specify a bore of a certain number of balls per pound. The smith would bore a barrel, ream it till it was clean of any pits or drill marks and then cut the grooves. Lastly he would make a ball mold to fit. If the customer had requested 45 balls per pound he would neither know nor care if the finished product ran 43 or 47 balls per pound. If you said you wanted a .500" bore he'd likely not even know what that meant.

 

[Joel/Calgary]

Don't know what it was made for, unless it was a 32-36ga smoothbore. I have an older Pedersoli .50 rifle that has a bore of .510"± with groove diameter of .520"±. They changed their specs to .500" some time ago. They used to list balls of something like .504" in accessories for these early ones, but .509s would probably work with thin patches (.008-.010"). I use .500s by preference, but can use .495s with ~.020" patching or .490s with .028-.032 denim (have molds for .500 & .490). Since I now double-patch or use some other sort of wad underneath, I could probably go to thinner patching, but I haven't bothered trying yet.

Joel

 

[paulvallandigham]

I would recommend using the .495 ball and a .020" patch in that barrel. The thicker patch will help hold more lube, and keep the patch from burning, or tearing. The thick patch, small ball combination should allow easy loading and give excellent accuracy. You certainly don't want to by buying a .509 diameter ball mold if the bore diameter is already .509"! You want to be .010" to .015" undersized in selecting the ball to shoot in that gun. You have deep groovews so that the .020 patching should work like a charm.
Good shooting. Be happy that you can use a commonly available ball size, and do not have to custom order a special ball mould in order to shoot the gun. :hmm: :grin:

 

[Joel/Calgary]

I usually use .018" patching with the .500" balls, but .015 store-boughts work well with the double patching. I only use the .495" balls when I don't have time to cast and have to buy some.

Joel