9/16" Glass Marbles

[roundball]

Had occasion to stop by a Walmart today and found some marbles...clear glass, 9/16" was the only size they had...wanted 1/2" (.500) to use them in a .54cal smoothbore but will have to order those I guess.

Diameters averaged in the range of .560"-.580".
Sorted out everything over .572 (about 10%) and their average weight is in the range of 57-63grns.

When I get a chance I'm going to see what they'll do in the .58cal...see if they'll give any accuracy at all and if so to what distance...at less than a penny apiece it will be a hoot if they're actually accurate enough to shoot coke cans, etc, at modest ranges

 

[Rikeman]

That will be interesting! I have a friend that said he has a bucket of steel ball bearings at his house and asked if I wanted to try and shoot them from my rifle.

It came up because he was looking at my guns and the lead balls they shoot. He estimated that he thought they were close to the .490 balls I have for my .50cal pistol. Being new to this sport I had no idea if they would work or not and wasnt wanting to risk damage to my guns. :hmm:

 

[xbowman]

Make sure you have your safety glasses on and also, a hardhat might be good. :v

 

[roundball]

That will be interesting! I have a friend that said he has a bucket of steel ball bearings at his house and asked if I wanted to try and shoot them from my rifle.

It came up because he was looking at my guns and the lead balls they shoot. He estimated that he thought they were close to the .490 balls I have for my .50cal pistol. Being new to this sport I had no idea if they would work or not and wasnt wanting to risk damage to my guns. :hmm:

As long as the balls are under bore size like a .490 is, and you use a good quality patch there's nothing that ball can do to harm your bore if it can't touch it

 

[Rikeman]

Well then I guess I will have to get a good measure on the bearings and help my friend dispose of that bucket load! :thumbsup:

 

[roundball]

And a bucket of round balls is a lot of balls!!
Hope they're a size you can use...that would be some cheap plinking stuff

 

[mazo kid]

Just make sure of your backstop....don't want those balls bouncing and ricocheting around!

 

[Tumblernotch]

Might want to wear a cup too!

 

[Walks Alone]

As a kid I shot marbles all the time in firecracker cannons I made from any handy piece of pipe laying around. Were surprizingly accurate and would blow perfect holes through both sides of cinder block walls no problem at all clear across the yard.

A plinking load this year roundball, a hunting load next. :rotf:

 

[410-er]

Roundball,PLEASE stay away from the isle that has the small Super Balls in!DON'T DO IT! :rotf:

 

[roundball]

A plinking load this year roundball, a hunting load next.:rotf:

:grin:

Whudjado today?

Went squirrelin

Jagiteny?

Gotamess.

Whudjause?

.58cal Flintlock
40grns Goex 3F
.018" pillow ticking
.565/60grn cats-eye marble

 

[Thunderchild]

Wouldn’t glass or hardened steel balls be a bit rough on the rifling of a muzzleloader. I don't know. I have never done it but I would like something a bit softer to shoot out of my babies. Even wrapped in a patch there is a very good possibility of barrel wear by the glass ball. It is sand molded into a ball. Where it touches the rifling it will turn back into sand. I do not like the idea of shooting sand out of my barrels. Now if I had a old barrel that I did not care about,,,,,,,, maybe.

I have thought of shooting pop corn out of my musket. Especially when I see the neighbor’s cat on my car. I do not dislike cats, just do not want them on my car.

 

[roundball]

Even wrapped in a patch there is a very good possibility of barrel wear by the glass ball.

I wouldn't want to do anything to hurt a barrel either....but I'm at a loss to understand how shooting a patched marble would hurt a bore...how would it do that?

 

[BrownBear]

When I was a kid in the 50's, one of my buds loaded a small jawbreaker candy in his dad's ML, then couldn't decide what to shoot. Saw his little brother across the yard and decided to pop him in the butt. Darned sure accurate enough for that job. Don't know about the charge he used, but it left four neat little holes and ended his shooting career on the spot.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Must be a throwback to the days of the big Bess muskets a 'cause we always called the bigger marbles "shooters". ;-)

 

[roundball]

I read somewhere over the past few years that towards the end of the CW, the south was running out of lead for bullets and began making hybrid balls...ceramic cores coated with lead...saw some on EBay once also

 

[omarick1948]

You might have to call those steel ball bearings "RALPHIES"!...Ya must of never shot a BB gun at a hard surface?...I think your ooos'n for a bruise'n!.. :shake: BOOM DUUUUCK! :shocked2:

 

[BrownBear]

And that's the truth. :shocked2:

Some years ago I cast up a bunch of RBs, then seated and crimped them into the case mouths of 38 special and 44 special cases for very light practice loads in revolvers. Experiments showed that a 1 grain charge of fast powder was just right to get them downrange. Velocities were low enough you could see the ball in the air

We shot enough that paper targets were getting boring, so I stood up a spruce board at 20 feet to try a new batch of balls I cast from wheelweights. My shooting pard shot first, aiming at a small tight knot in the board. The loads whizzed right through the 1" board, in spite of the slow speed.

He finally hit the knot on the 3rd or 4th shot. That hard ball rebounded straight back and took him right between the eyes hard enough to leave a whelt and a knot.

My turn to shoot. Not being too smart, I aimed at the knot rather than bothering to walk up and hang a target. I must be a better shot, cuzz I hit the knot first time. Got a knot on my head to show for it. Getting stupider by the minute, I tried it again. Matching knots on my head.

 

[roundball]

Getting stupider by the minute, I tried it again. Matching knots on my head.

:rotf: :rotf: that's too funny

Yeah, it's hard to beat a dirt berm as a backstop

 

[Rikeman]

You might have to call those steel ball bearings "RALPHIES"!...Ya must of never shot a BB gun at a hard surface?...I think your ooos'n for a bruise'n!.. :shake: BOOM DUUUUCK! :shocked2:

Well I am not sure what you use for target shooting, but I use paper/cardboard targets with a high dirt mound backstop. I suppose I do sometimes shoot steel with my pistol, but never with my rifle and it is always lead out of the pistol.