.520 Round Balls

[Falco sparverius]

Hello all,

I recently inherited a .54 caliber Santa Fe Hawken (one of those that actually runs as a .53). I have been working on a load and my own accuracy all summer and have finally got things figured out for hunting season. In addition, I caught a terrible "Black Powder" fever. These things rival shooting a longbow with wood arrows! Good clean fun!

Anyway, this tight barrel seems to take the .520 ball best with pillow ticking. I went through quite a few of the swaged Hornady's that ran for 9 bucks per 100. Well, when I went to make my last order, they had discontinued the .520's swaged and only had .520's in hand-cast which end up costing almost twice as much.

I did find another supplier of the .520 swaged. I want to stay with the swaged simply because of price right now and will likely get into casting my own in a year or two. My question is this...TOW has discontinued the .520 swaged. I found them again at Possible Shop. Any predictions as to how long Possible Shop will keep them? Are they a ball that will soon be discontinued everywhere? Should I stock up now while I can until I get setup to do my own casting?

What do you think?

Take care,

Falco

PS. Awesome site, I have learned so much just from reading archives!

 

[Le Grand]

Falco, The .520s that the Possible Shop is selling must also be Hornady's. If so, their supply will last only as long as present stocks last. You'd better order a Rapine Bag Mould in .520" real soon and get a couple hundred more of the swaged balls too, just to you don't run out. Le Grand

 

[more powder]

Try one of Jeff Tanner molds 35 bucks and the Lee handles cost about $14

 

[Bountyhunter]

K-rap,,I sure didnt want to hear that. My favorite shootin iron is my Santa Fe and I use the .520's too. Guess I'd better be keepin my eye open.

 

[faw3]

MYSELF ! I better ck on my guys and see what they got, and get a mould while Im at it, or change barrels! :hmm: Nah. Fred :hatsoff: :rotf:

 

[windwalker_au]

Falco sparverius ihave an very early pedersoli tryon plains rifle it has a .530 bore if my memary is corect your gun has a .530 bore i use a lee .527 mould ,ilike the lee round ball as they cast with out a sper.
bernie :grin:

 

[MikeChapin]

I have shot a Santa Fe for quite a while. I used to shoot .520s in it but started having trouble with patches burning through about half the time. I dropped down to a .515 with thicker patching and it did the trick. You might want to consider a smaller ball with thicker patching if you are having trouble finding the .520s.

 

[Falco sparverius]

Mike,

What do you use for patching with the .515? I'm going to stick with this for this year, but may change it up next summer. Maybe the .527 would work too. It's (I'm?) shooting well now, don't want to mess with it yet. :grin:

Falco

 

[MikeChapin]

I use .024-.026 denim. I used Ox-Yoke .018 with the .520s but it would burn out about half of them. I tried some .020 denim, which worked fine, but were tough to load.

The .515 mold I use is one I bought about twenty years ago when I could not find a .520 mold. I did find a .520 mold before I finished the rifle and used it. Lyman doesn't make that size anymore. To get an odd size like that you would probably need to have a custom one made up.

If you're not burning out patches and everything else is working fine I would leave it alone. Those rifles are awesome shooters when you get the right load.