casting ball

[blackpowder shooter]

Cast the first round ball in my new .395 lee mold last night. After measuring ball diameter I found all ball to be .398. Checked digitial calipiers - they where o.k. why am I .003 over ? ::

 

[silverfox]

Shooter: I can't answer your question as to why they are oversize just hope you can use them maybe with a thinner patch. Now the big question is I just cast a couple hundred .395 balls from a Lee mold I got last night and now guess I'll go and measure them right now.
Fox :thumbsup:

 

[Stumpkiller]

One cause could be your lead is more or less pure than what the mould was designed for.

Did you measure the ball from several different positions around the circumference? The mould could be slightly out of round or a fleck of dirt was keeping it fron closing fully.

 

[Nightwind]

One cause could be your lead is more or less pure than what the mould was designed for.

I agree with that one. I used to retrieve lead from a dirt bank, and of course, would end up with varying degrees of lead hardness. I always added an equal amount of pure lead to the recycled stuff when melting down and making ingots. I just miked out some .395 balls from four different boxes that I know came from different dates. Three of the boxes read out at all .395, the other box had a couple of .393 but mostly .394 and some .395's.

Here comes the real shocker for me! I opened up a new box of .395 Hornady's and guess what? they were WORSE! I got .391 to .395's and the durn things are kinda' egg shaped! :shocking: :shocking:

I've been looking for a .398 mold, but think I will buy a .400 and maybe end up with what I'm looking for.

 

pure lead shrinks more than alloys

 

[JeffinNZ]

Have you shot them to see if it matters.
Could be your musings are academic.
Take for example I am bigger round the middle than I used to be or should be but still shoot great. :crackup: :crackup: :blah:

 

[amccall]

I usually do not count or worry about the first 3-5 RBs that I make. It usually takes the mold that many to get to a temperature that I get a good consistant RB. Also what others have said about the impurities in the led can effect consistancy in size and weight of the RB. I usually remelt a third of the RBs that I cast because of one thing or another. If you cast 50 RBs and 35 are oversized then that is something to consider. One thing you do not want to do is cast one RB then wait for it to cool and measure it. Cast about 50 let them cool then see where the majority measure out and weigh. This will give a better idea of how the mold is casting the RBs. :results:

 

[horkeye]

There can be several reasons why a mould does not cast to the appropriate size:

1 - the mould is not closing properly, although the balls would have an obvious "fin" at the seam.

2 - the wrong size is stamped on the mould, but in your case I do not believe that is the prob.

3 - I know absolutely NOTHING about machining metal and things of that nature, so the following is MY THEORY ONLY: When a manufacturer like Lee makes a cherry, I imagine it would be made OVER-SIZE, because as the cherry cuts more and more moulds the size of the cherry would decrease from wear, even though in the case of Lee moulds being made from aluminium (Aussie spelling), the cherry would still wear.

So, today Lee have just made a new cherry, and for the sake of this discussion we will say that it has been made to the correct size. We are now going to start cutting the moulds, the first one will have the biggest cavity because the cherry is new. At the end of the day we have cut 5,000 moulds (that only equals 10 moulds for each US state!); the last mould would have to be a smaller size than the first.
Furthermore, it makes sense to me to make things like this in batches ie today we are going to make .490 moulds, tomorrow 45/70 loading dies etc etc. So even if you purchased the moulds NEW they could have been from a batch made years ago.
This really doesn't help you though; if you really want that particular size ball then take it back to where you purchased it from or contact Lee.
Jim.
:m2c: :thumbsup: :imo:

 

At the end of the day we have cut 5,000 moulds (that only equals 10 moulds for each US state!)

Um... when I do that math, I get 100 moulds for each state.

:results:

:blah:

 

[Rat]

.003" really is not much to worry about, unless your ball and patch combo is already so tight that you can hardly get it down the bore.

Pure lead will cast out smaller, and harder alloys will cast out bigger. Your lead may not be as pure as you thought.

I got a .735" mould from Dixie, that cast a "pear shaped"[url] ball...in[/url] digust I sent it back, after casting about 100 balls. THEN I discovered they shoot very accurately!! Do'h!

Then I got a .727" from Tanner...and it cast a "long ball" that measured a nice .727" from end to end, but about .680" around the waist...DO'H!! Need to send that back, but I keep putting it off. Anyhow, that "long ball" must really tumble as sometimes it doesn't even hit the back-stop at 50 yards, whereas the "pear balls" will group around 3".

Rat

 

[horkeye]

Um... when I do that math, I get 100 moulds for each state.

OK, OK!!! I just got the Scientific Calculator out & you're right!:sorry:

I think we'll only produce 1,000 moulds today, and worry about the 45/70 dies tomorrow!
Jim.
PS Math Class continues 9:00am sharp Monday morning! :crackup: