William Joy
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I weigh my 50 cal round balls and sort them accordingly. approx 30% go back into the pot....not much fun . How much grain difference do you accept?
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acceptable weightdiffrence in 50 cal balls
- Thread starter William Joy
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jtmattison
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How far off are those in the 30% you reject?
I've weighed roundballs to see how consistent my casting is. They've never been more than +- 1-2 grains. I have never seen a difference in my targets because of that slight variance.
Are you a match shooter? If not, shoot them balls. It's more fun than tossing them back into the pot.
HD
I've weighed roundballs to see how consistent my casting is. They've never been more than +- 1-2 grains. I have never seen a difference in my targets because of that slight variance.
Are you a match shooter? If not, shoot them balls. It's more fun than tossing them back into the pot.
HD
William Joy
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+- 1 gr. Can see a difference in 50m rifle. In the pistol ( 25m) and my shooting skills it definitive doesn't make one....
paulvallandigham
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If your balls are within 1 grains, plus or minus, they should be good enough for most shooting situations. Only when shooting target matches involving bench rests will you usually see a difference in group size.
The general question about how much of a variance is okay for cast bullets needs a slightly broader answer. It really depends on the caliber and weight of the RB. 1 grain makes much more of a difference when shooting a .390 RB in a .40 caliber rifle, when the ball only weighs about 85 grains. By contrast, in a .58 caliber, when the RB weighs more like 280 grains, 1 grain is far less significant a factor. Think not in terms of a specific weight for your tolerance factor, but in a percentage of the total weight that you can accept within your tolerance range.
A good friend who was shooting a "Slug Gun " at Friendship that was .69 caliber, and fired a 2-piece bullet that weighed 1760 grains sorted his bullets so there was NO--NONE-- difference in the weight of 10 rounds he had carefully packaged up in a wooden box he made for them. Zero Tolerance. Even he admitted he was probably being a bit Anal about the subject, but he had the time to sort his bullets, and the equipment( electronic scale) to do the job. Each bullet was in turn wrapped in paper toweling to protect its outer shape, and his loading jags were custom made to exactly mirror the outside diameter of the nose of his bullets. Those huge slugs were loaded with a false muzzle, were paper patched, with sperm whale oil, and slid down the barrel like water on glass! A drop tube was inserted in the barrel to load the powder in the base of the barrel, without leaving any dust or granules on the sides of the bore. He had a photocopy of a 10 shot group he fired at 500 yds. that measure 5.26". That is what consistency means to target shooters.
The presense of air pockets in the balls, wrinkles on the surface, and distorting the surface with an ill-fitted loading jag on your ramrod are more likely to affect the group size. Some casters have begun to use case tumblers to round their cast RBs, by putting the balls in the tumblers, or vibrators, without any grit, and letting the balls pound against each other. With pure lead, this will often reduce the size and effect of any air bubbles or pockets in the balls, and the tumblers tend to remove sprues, and make the balls uniform in diameter, if not weight.
Balls should be sorted by both weight and diameter if you intend to do serious target shooting with them. It helps if you sort the balls so that all of the balls used to shoot a given target, or " string " of targets are the same weight, and the same diameter, regardless of what the actual weight may be.
You can, and will have to, adjust your powder charge based on relative humidity, and temperatures at the range each time you shoot in a target match. Most target shooter keep notebooks to record every shot taken, weather conditions, etc.
Fortunately, most of us mere mortals can have plenty of fun shooting what we get, either from a mold, or from a commercial supplier, without bothering to measure them by diameter or weight, and without tumbling the balls to get rid of sprues. There is accuracy, and then there is ACCURACY. Unless you are going to get into the bench rest shooting game, Extreme Accuracy with a RB is just not necessar, IMHO.
The general question about how much of a variance is okay for cast bullets needs a slightly broader answer. It really depends on the caliber and weight of the RB. 1 grain makes much more of a difference when shooting a .390 RB in a .40 caliber rifle, when the ball only weighs about 85 grains. By contrast, in a .58 caliber, when the RB weighs more like 280 grains, 1 grain is far less significant a factor. Think not in terms of a specific weight for your tolerance factor, but in a percentage of the total weight that you can accept within your tolerance range.
A good friend who was shooting a "Slug Gun " at Friendship that was .69 caliber, and fired a 2-piece bullet that weighed 1760 grains sorted his bullets so there was NO--NONE-- difference in the weight of 10 rounds he had carefully packaged up in a wooden box he made for them. Zero Tolerance. Even he admitted he was probably being a bit Anal about the subject, but he had the time to sort his bullets, and the equipment( electronic scale) to do the job. Each bullet was in turn wrapped in paper toweling to protect its outer shape, and his loading jags were custom made to exactly mirror the outside diameter of the nose of his bullets. Those huge slugs were loaded with a false muzzle, were paper patched, with sperm whale oil, and slid down the barrel like water on glass! A drop tube was inserted in the barrel to load the powder in the base of the barrel, without leaving any dust or granules on the sides of the bore. He had a photocopy of a 10 shot group he fired at 500 yds. that measure 5.26". That is what consistency means to target shooters.
The presense of air pockets in the balls, wrinkles on the surface, and distorting the surface with an ill-fitted loading jag on your ramrod are more likely to affect the group size. Some casters have begun to use case tumblers to round their cast RBs, by putting the balls in the tumblers, or vibrators, without any grit, and letting the balls pound against each other. With pure lead, this will often reduce the size and effect of any air bubbles or pockets in the balls, and the tumblers tend to remove sprues, and make the balls uniform in diameter, if not weight.
Balls should be sorted by both weight and diameter if you intend to do serious target shooting with them. It helps if you sort the balls so that all of the balls used to shoot a given target, or " string " of targets are the same weight, and the same diameter, regardless of what the actual weight may be.
You can, and will have to, adjust your powder charge based on relative humidity, and temperatures at the range each time you shoot in a target match. Most target shooter keep notebooks to record every shot taken, weather conditions, etc.
Fortunately, most of us mere mortals can have plenty of fun shooting what we get, either from a mold, or from a commercial supplier, without bothering to measure them by diameter or weight, and without tumbling the balls to get rid of sprues. There is accuracy, and then there is ACCURACY. Unless you are going to get into the bench rest shooting game, Extreme Accuracy with a RB is just not necessar, IMHO.
longcruise
70 Cal.
Never weigh them! But, if I did I would set my minimum variance and it would be only allowable as a minus. In other words, if the max weight of your cast balls is 181 grains and never any higher, then for serious match shooting you might, for example, accept nothing less than 180.
Not being a serious match shooter, I just blast away with my own cast or hornady swaged and don't worry about it.
Not being a serious match shooter, I just blast away with my own cast or hornady swaged and don't worry about it.
My .490 mold will throw balls with a 3 grain spread between the high and low weight. I separate the balls into the four groups, thus each group weighs the same.
I know some who group their balls into the 1% range, thus a .490 mold would be grouped into 1.7 grain variance.
RDE
I know some who group their balls into the 1% range, thus a .490 mold would be grouped into 1.7 grain variance.
RDE
FYI, I weighed 36 Hornady .530 rbs and got the following:
High: 226.4 grains
Low: 222.5 grains
Average: 224.6 grains
Standard Deviation 1.0 grains
Surprisingly, the distribution was bi-modal; the lower group peak was about 223.7, the upper about 225.3.
The lightest ball was unique, 0.8 grains lighter than the next heavier ball, so it really should be disregarded. The heaviest ball, while the only one at that exact weight, was actually the upper boundary of the upper mode distribution.
The point? There is a significant distribution of weight within even the Hornady production round balls, so even their stuff has voids and imperfections that can make a difference in match quality ammunition.
High: 226.4 grains
Low: 222.5 grains
Average: 224.6 grains
Standard Deviation 1.0 grains
Surprisingly, the distribution was bi-modal; the lower group peak was about 223.7, the upper about 225.3.
The lightest ball was unique, 0.8 grains lighter than the next heavier ball, so it really should be disregarded. The heaviest ball, while the only one at that exact weight, was actually the upper boundary of the upper mode distribution.
The point? There is a significant distribution of weight within even the Hornady production round balls, so even their stuff has voids and imperfections that can make a difference in match quality ammunition.
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startin weighin mine last year..specially the .600's after weighin one that tipped at 308 gr. and the next at 331 gr. i decided it was worth it, just seems if you shot them one after the other,it's HAVE to make a diff.....well it seems! :haha:
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yep! :grin: and i DIDN'T say i seperated them...just weighed them....when one flies...308! low shot..331~! :grin: :grin: :grin: :grin: :haha:
Unless I'm going to be shooting off a rest for groups, I weigh "at" the balls just to see if I ran one with a void or something. If one comes up noticeably lighter than the rest, it gets tossed in the pot.
If the batch is for serious groups, I get more picky about weight. I weigh to within 1 grain then, but it's not worth the effort for plinkin' or huntin'.
If the batch is for serious groups, I get more picky about weight. I weigh to within 1 grain then, but it's not worth the effort for plinkin' or huntin'.
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