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When I first started shooting smoothbore in N-SSA competition, I was advised by one of my team's top shooters to use an RCBS .678 round ball mold in my .69 bore Chiappa/Armisport M1842 replica. I was advised to prepare the ammunition thusly:
This is what the balls look like raw, roughed, and dipped:
I do not think there is any aerodynamic aspect to the roughening up. As you can see, the Alox fills in all the dimples, and you end up with essentially a round ball when finished. Although, the roughening does obliterate the sprue.
I have tried applying Alox to unroughened balls, and the Alox tends to flake off. The dimples provide a "tooth" to allow the Alox to adhere to the ball.
I do not think the Alox functions as a lube at all. In fact, after firing several rounds you can start to feel a gummy band of resistance about a foot from the breech that I suspect is Alox fouling.
So, what is going on? When you rough up a round ball, it grows about .01" in diameter. Imagine you are squeezing a ball of clay in your fist so that it squirts out between your fingers. The amount of clay has not changed, but the effective diameter of the ball of clay has grown. So why not just se a ball that is .688" to start with? Well a solid larger round ball will become impossible to load after a few shots. But a smaller ball covered in lead bumps will consume the windage in the bore with the bumps, but the bumps, being lead and tiny, will smear away on loading, even with fouling present. The Alox just adds another layer of deformable material to the surface of the ball. The balls fit so tightly that I have to be careful on loading because sometimes the ball will compress air in front of it and bounce the ramrod right out of the barrel of the gun when you let go for another go at ramming! My balls are a very snug fit in the bore.
The N-SSA does not allow flammable patch material in muzzle loaders (the fear is cook-offs). So, roughening up the balls is a way to reduce windage in the bore without using a patch.
The N-SSA does allow the wrapping of the ball in aluminum foil. I believe this metal "patch" serves the same purpose as the roughening - the wrinkles on the foil act as deformable windage-eaters in the bore.
Clearly, I'm in the camp of tight-fitting balls with minimal windage to get good accuracy.
But I have a teammate who shoots a significantly undersize ball in his musket (about .015" as I recall). He seldom misses. I've seen him go 16 hits for 16 shots and 18 hits for 18 shots. Clearly, there is more than one way to achieve accuracy in a smoothbore.
For some years I did the "files" trick. I found it very tedious, time consuming, and it made my hands hurt something awful. So, I invented The Vortex Ball Roller. It is a machine that works with a drill press and achieves the same result as the files but in seconds per ball. You can do an entire skirmish season's worth of balls in 30 minutes.
This video shows how it works and how I used to do it with files:
- Roll the ball between two farrier's files.
- Double-dip the balls in Lee Alox.
This is what the balls look like raw, roughed, and dipped:
I do not think there is any aerodynamic aspect to the roughening up. As you can see, the Alox fills in all the dimples, and you end up with essentially a round ball when finished. Although, the roughening does obliterate the sprue.
I have tried applying Alox to unroughened balls, and the Alox tends to flake off. The dimples provide a "tooth" to allow the Alox to adhere to the ball.
I do not think the Alox functions as a lube at all. In fact, after firing several rounds you can start to feel a gummy band of resistance about a foot from the breech that I suspect is Alox fouling.
So, what is going on? When you rough up a round ball, it grows about .01" in diameter. Imagine you are squeezing a ball of clay in your fist so that it squirts out between your fingers. The amount of clay has not changed, but the effective diameter of the ball of clay has grown. So why not just se a ball that is .688" to start with? Well a solid larger round ball will become impossible to load after a few shots. But a smaller ball covered in lead bumps will consume the windage in the bore with the bumps, but the bumps, being lead and tiny, will smear away on loading, even with fouling present. The Alox just adds another layer of deformable material to the surface of the ball. The balls fit so tightly that I have to be careful on loading because sometimes the ball will compress air in front of it and bounce the ramrod right out of the barrel of the gun when you let go for another go at ramming! My balls are a very snug fit in the bore.
The N-SSA does not allow flammable patch material in muzzle loaders (the fear is cook-offs). So, roughening up the balls is a way to reduce windage in the bore without using a patch.
The N-SSA does allow the wrapping of the ball in aluminum foil. I believe this metal "patch" serves the same purpose as the roughening - the wrinkles on the foil act as deformable windage-eaters in the bore.
Clearly, I'm in the camp of tight-fitting balls with minimal windage to get good accuracy.
But I have a teammate who shoots a significantly undersize ball in his musket (about .015" as I recall). He seldom misses. I've seen him go 16 hits for 16 shots and 18 hits for 18 shots. Clearly, there is more than one way to achieve accuracy in a smoothbore.
For some years I did the "files" trick. I found it very tedious, time consuming, and it made my hands hurt something awful. So, I invented The Vortex Ball Roller. It is a machine that works with a drill press and achieves the same result as the files but in seconds per ball. You can do an entire skirmish season's worth of balls in 30 minutes.
This video shows how it works and how I used to do it with files:
