Cast vs. Swaged

[Buckskinquin]

Hate admit it, but I never knew how swaged balls were manufactured. Still not sure how they are made commercially. However, a company in Oregon, Corbin, makes staging dies for reloading presses and presses they make. Based the cost, I’ll stick casting my bals and tumbling in a rock tumbler. I have purchased and used swaged. I usually find the issue with accuracy is me, not the gun or projectile.

 

[smoothshooter]

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

Lee molds do not leave a sprue. I sometimes tumble them in powdered graphite for a few minutes just to make them look uniform.
When loading balls cast in molds that leave a sprue bump in percussion revolvers and my flint long guns, I pay no attention to sprue location. The loading and firing process deforms the ball so much that a sprue protrusion has little to no effect, in my humble opinion.
I still get good accuracy if I do my part.

 

[hanshi]

I've always cast everything I shot from .32 to .62. Always had good results with them and it is much cheaper.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

I've always cast everything I shot from .32 to .62. Always had good results with them and it is much cheaper.

I don’t go to shoots much anymore, I cannot remember that last time I shot a swaged projectile. Everything I shoot now is caste. I have an 11 year old grandson, loves to cast RBs, Conicals…etc.

 

[smoothshooter]

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.

AMEN!!!

 

[smoothshooter]

I like to cast balls and bullets BUT for ease of loading and great target scores I prefer swaged bullets. No muss or fussing with positioning the sprue. I've had good luck with either Hornady or Speer.

I trim off all my sprues if using a mold that leaves one, then maybe tumble the balls for a few minutes until no sprue marks remain.
My Lee molds do not leave a sprue so I pay no attention to where the sprue would have been.
Don’t overthink this too much. There are so many other variables.

 

[smoothshooter]

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.

No.

 

[Johnny Too-Tall]

The average shooter will be able to tell no difference.
Honestly if you weigh, and mic out all the balls be it cast or swaged and the shooter does their part you will get better consistency overall if you only use the best balls out of the batch and scrap the rest. The difference is a caster can-do better-quality control and recast any badly poured balls and nothing is lost financially other than time.
I'm a somewhat serious shooter and cast all my own. But I also own rifles from 32-62 and several in the same caliber that the gun likes a different size ball than other in the same caliber. Example one 40 cal like a .395 the other a .390, and one a .400 so I have molds for each gun.
But the reality is if you shoot 100 times or less a year there is no financial benefit to buy all the stuff to cast your own. But when I buy a mold around 40-50 dollars once I cast a few hundred ball, especially larger calibers you break even after that your saving money. I literally shoot 1500 plus round balls a year using round balls, plus I cast lead modern pistol bullets (about another 1500 rounds), and make most of the lead fishing products I use too. I like saving money and reusing lead when I can capture it. Hope this helps.