.62cal "practice marble" testing

[roundball]

Just finished sorting some 15mm solid glass marbles to plink around with in my GM .62cal.

Since GM .62cals are only bored at .610" instead of a full .620", I sorted out anything over .600" to leave myself room for my patch.

I have about 70 that mic in the .600" -.615" range and won't be able to use them...if anyone has a .62cal with a full .620" bore and would like to run some tests with these leftover marbles, send me a PM.

 

[Keppy]

Roundball
You got to fine someone to play marbles with or find another hobby. Sounds like your getting bored. :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: I was out fishing this afternoon. To cold to shoot. :grin: :wink:

 

[roundball]

"Oh ye of little faith"... :grin: Just remember, you heard it here first! :wink:

14mm for the .58cal, 15mm for the .62cal, precisely as accurate, and a penny apiece to punch holes in paper :hmm: :hmm:

 

[RiverRat]

Do they stay whole on the flight to the target?
What kind of charge do you use? This sounds interesting :hmm:

 

[Keppy]

Now I might play too. I have a 58 rifled barrel. I know I can find marbles too. So at what distance are you shooting them? Reduced loads I suppose. Of course there not heavy enough for any thing but practicing. I shoot my 22 off for practice( it's a single shot target) and it seems to help with shooting my BP's. Not the same recoil but still open sights.
Just fun intended RB :grin: but I always laugh when I read about your marbles. Your may have started something. I know I think of ways to practice without spending a lot of money and the 22 seems to help. :wink:

 

[roundball]

RiverRat & Hacksaw...

I applied a significant amount of scientific analysis...got to the range with my .58cal and said: "50grns Goex 3F ought to do it".
Only tested at 25yds but it ate the bullseye out as if I had been shooting Hornady .570s.

9/16" size solid glass marbles weigh 65grns have more diameter variance in them than a typical lead ball because they are a low tech manufactureed item and for their marketplace and cost environment, they are not held to strict manufacturing tolerances.

So I got a few hundred to try in my .58cal, set my dial calipers to .575" and sorted them all through that to weed out everything larger than .575" and set them aside for potential use in the .62cal later on.

Then went to the low side setting of .560" and sorted those that dropped through the first pass...ended up with a couple hundred in the .560"-.575" range.

.50grns 3F, .018" pillow ticking, 25yds, extremely accurate, and have no reason to believe they wouldn't be darned accurate right on out to 50yds too as long as you didn't use too light of a powder charge and kept them under a full head of steam.

Just some fun tinkering, but have proved to myself that if the price of lead go4es through the roof, or becomes hard to get, banned, or any of that whole mess, at a penny apiece this is an incredible substitute.

 

[Rikeman]

These reviews are great :bow: Now if we can just locate something to fit the .54!

 

[roundball]

These reviews are great :bow: Now if we can just locate something to fit the .54!

I share that frustration...so far, in various lots of different sizes I've found:

1) The current sizes of marbles just happen to include a couple sizes that align very closely to the typical ball diameters for the .58 & .62cals;

2) The larger size marble dimensions are more consistent, have a smaller range of variance.

3) Conversely, there is a very wide range of dimension variance in the smaller marbles sizes that are even close to being able to work in the .50cal and .54cal...so much so that as yet I haven't found a manufacturer who makes a size that would work and give a high yield without there being a very high rate of rejects within each batch...the error is that the majority of them are usually too small or too large for the .50/.54cal;

4) So far, haven't found anybody who makes them small enough for the .40/.45cal but there is the .43cal rubber balls that should work fine in a .45 (I'm currently waiting on my shipment);

 

[Mulebrain]

You keep this up Roundball, and they will try and ban glass marbles :grin:

I wonder if you can take any game with a marble? :hmm:

 

[RiverRat]

My backyard range has a backstop of a pile of hemlock logs. Do you think the marbles would penetrate the logs or would I have to deal with broken glass all over the place?

 

[roundball]

You keep this up Roundball, and they will try and ban glass marbles :grin:

I wonder if you can take any game with a marble? :hmm:

After using them at the range you could hunt small game with them at typical small game ranges no problem at all...

 

[roundball]

My backyard range has a backstop of a pile of hemlock logs. Do you think the marbles would penetrate the logs or would I have to deal with broken glass all over the place?

From 3 range trips and seeing them in action I havn't seen one break yet...and I have repeatedly tried to break them by throwing them down on the concrete floor at the range as hard as I could but they just bounce back up in the air....made me wonder if they might have an additive to make them unbreakable, ie: a trace of acrylic blended through out the molten glass.

BUT......what I would be worried about is them bouncing back off those logs of your backstop...not being heavy like lead they probably won't have the dead weight required to cause them to penetrate those logs...better use a dirt bank or a slanted down piece of plating so they glance down into the dirt...or even just shoot them at a paper target stapled to a thick sheet of cardboard so they can't bounce straight back at you, etc

 

[gmww]

This is very interesting. You might see how they do on wet phone books.

 

[gmww]

This is very interesting. You might see how they do on wet phone books.

 

[Darkgael]

RB - For a .62 smoothbore load, you think 50grs. of fffg and a tight patch will do??
Gonna look into a source for 15mm marbles.
Pete

 

[roundball]

I just picked 50grns 3F out of the air and it was perfect in the .58cal...could probably use other charges as well...the 15mm marbles only weigh 65grns.
Tonight I'll post the name of the company in West VA that I bought these from...and be aware that their normal order is qty 5000 for $37.00. I explained that I was running some tests and was reluctant to order that many until I knew thay'd work so she agreed to sell me a couple hundred as a sample.

If she won't do that for you, they're so cheap we could just get the 5000 order and divvy it up among a few of us at cost like splitting a case of Goex if a handful of people got interested.

 

[mazo kid]

Thanks Bill. If you go the large order route, I would be interested in a bunch. I just sent you a PT but will wait now for your ordering info. Emery

 

[gonzomann]

You have some great ideas, Roundball. Keep them coming!

 

[roundball]

Got some 14mm for the .58cal and 15mm for the .62cal from this place:
http://www.jabovitro.com/splash.shtml

 

[Herb]

Roundball- From the July, 1959 MuzzleBlast magazine, story by H.H.Walker as a kid in northwest Ontario years ago: He had a 17 bore muzzleloading shotgun that he cobbled up to shoot. Had to use match heads for caps. He wrote "As there were Red Deer and other medium sized game in the country, I needed round balls for my gun. I had found several marbles or allies lying about that I had played with as a small boy. Some of them fitted my gun. I believe they were made out of some kind of gloded (GLODED-? what he wrote) clay. I used to load up with one for a ball and use them for target practice at about 20 or 30 yards range. They would go clean through the one-inch board I had for a target and being light they were spent and fell in the snow. I would go out and pick them up and use them again. Of course, they weren't much good for shooting game so I had to get something better."