Cast vs. Swaged

[shaman]

I'm getting back to shooting my .54 TC Hawken with patched round ball after many years. I was digging around and found a few Hornady swaged .54 balls, but I also have a Lee mold for casting .54 ball.

Is there a great difference in performance between cast and swaged bullets? I'd like to hear your opinions.

 

[tenngun]

You don’t have a spru on a swaged so you just plop the ball on your patch.
I understand in average they are more uniform in weight then cast, but lots of folks weigh their cast balls anyway
A draw back is size
I’ve had three .54 over the years and all liked .526 over .530. In my first a green river barrel I couldn’t find a patch to work .010was too loose, and the gun shot all over the map.015 was too tight to load, but .526 and .015 was perfect.
Howsomever you can’t get that choice in swaged
.530 the recommended soze for your gun, but a .535 or .526 may well shoot better

 

[French Colonial]

Hold on to your seat....

Get ready for the ex spurts that are coming to tell you their cast bullets are better because the weight is within a smidgen of perfect every time yada yada yada and they tried ( insert swaged or whatever here) and they were terrible.

Here is the truth, you are shooting either an antique or reproduction of an antique that has so many variables baked into the design (Barrel bedding, ignition time etc.) and so many variables in the loading and swabbing between shots that 99% of the shooters of these arms will never realize their potential or lack thereof.

Choose either cast or swaged, develop a load and stick with it and you will be ahead of the game whichever you choose.

 

[andy52]

I use a swaged ball for competition shooting and cast for hunting and plinking.
There isn't a whole lot of difference I accuracy.

 

[AlexB]

I would run a bunch of both through some calipers and a scale.
I was kind of surprised by the results of that.
I prefer cast just for cost alone and they are more consistent.

 

[shaman]

Thanks all.

 

[Duk]

If you buy swaged balls the weight will very quite a bit, if you cast you can keep the balls that are in the weight range you want to shoot, and throw the rest back in the pot.

 

[Frontier's]

Cast for me. Last store bought hornady balls I bought 2 years ago? Were lop sided.

 

[Spikebuck]

Cast for me. Last store bought tornado balls I bought 2 years ago? Were lop sided.

I have had boxes of .530 Hornady swaged where significant quantities were well out of round. Weights were inconsistent as well, but the out of round condition is what bothered me.

If a swaged ball is round then I'm happy to use it, and I have used a lot of them.

Casting my own allows me to control the quality and just re-melt if there is an issue, so I have moved that direction for much of my usage.

 

[stubshaft]

I bought into the swaged ball consistency hoopla until I weighed some of them. Cast can be much more consistent if using a single cavity mold. Multi cavity molds have their own problems.

 

[wiscoaster]

It's my understanding if the ball has a sprue you just ram it so the sprue is aligned with the bore axis? Either up or down? Does that really make any difference or not?

 

[RobertIN]

I haven't seen any notable difference personally. I cast my own because I enjoy the process and it's less expensive overall, they do their job on targets and critters.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

I'm getting back to shooting my .54 TC Hawken with patched round ball after many years. I was digging around and found a few Hornady swaged .54 balls, but I also have a Lee mold for casting .54 ball.

Is there a great difference in performance between cast and swaged bullets? I'd like to hear your opinions.

In my younger years, I shot a lot….pounds of powder burned each year. Swaged balls always shot tighter groups for me, and I reserved those for shooting competitions. For me there was an accuracy advantage with swaged balls, and in competitions I know it helped my scores.

That being said, 90% of my shooting was with cast lead RBs…