LEAD BALLS-SPRU,POSITION?

[musketman]

To properly load the rifle, orient the barrel's front sight to true North, NOT magnetic North. You'll need to know Magnetic Declination in your area to determine true North with a compass.
Now, with the ball in the left hand, cross your hand under and around the right hand, which is holding the barrel upright.
Place the ball with its terminal axis and point of deviance aligned 23 degrees off true North (or, if you're a Southpaw, reverse hand positions and place the 11.5 degrees off).
Now, the preponderance of the sprue's radius must be in the Metric Zone of Ballistic Stability of the bore. You'll need a metric pocket calculator and a metric compass for this.
They're available for only $39.95, each, at GatMart. While there, you may wish to purchase a metric watch. They're only $69.95 and well worth the money if you plan to use Metric Time (which you should, cuz it's easier).
When all is aligned with the bore, gently ram the ball down while bodily moving around the barrel so all pressure is even.
The ball should be pushed in a soft-medium-hard motion, rising with each Octimeter. Um ... Octimeter rulers are also available at GatMart ... for only $17.95. Mark each octimeter on your barrel.
With the bore properly loaded, you'll need to magnetically align your percussion cap. Use flint? Aw hell, that's too complicated to explain. Switch to percussion caps, willya? Aligning a flint will drive a person absolutely mad!
Oh, and your target should be 317 degrees relative to your barrel's declinatory ballistic alignment fracatory sublevel.
There now. Wasn't that easy? :haha:

You forgot to cut the patch using Occam's Razor... :crackup:

 

Gatofeo
I must say that if I ate a 28oz can of Bush Baked beans and swallowed 2 .490 RB and waited 29.7 minutes and then dropt my britches and spread my cheeks at a 37 degree inclination and give a lil grunt I could drop the neighbors cat running at 6.2 miles per hour @12:01 am no matter how I loaded the @#$%^&# ball :crackup: :crackup: :crackup: :results:

You may have to relieve a lil gas and BS before you swallow the RB :shake:

 

[RussB]

Woody, It is way to early to be laughing this hard!

"You may have to relieve a lil gas and BS before you swallow the RB"............I reckon a feller just might.
:redthumb:

Russ

 

ROFLMAOPIMP!!!

The visual of that one is too much to handle! :crackup:

Must....

Breathe.....

Side.....

Hurts.....

 

[montanadan]

MY..MY.. Gatofeo, you sure can tell when it is winter in the western states. Thanks for responding, and good luck. Respectfully Montanadan.

 

[Gatofeo]

Yeah .. well .. mebbe so, Woodhick.
But what would ya use for patch grease? Preparation-H?
And who would ya find to tamp-home the load?!!! :crackup:

By the way, next time ya visit yer doctor, ask him what the bore size is!

But getting back to the central point ... it is probably best to have the sprue centered and up. With it up, you can tell if it's centered. If it's down, you can't see it and can't tell if it's centered.
I know .. I know .. tests indicate it doesn't make a difference but I've been doing it from habit for 35 years and it's a hard habit to break. I don't get manic about measuring whether it's centered, I just quickly eyeball it and leave it at that.

And yessssssss ... it has been a longgggggggg winter here in the Utah desert.
The lady friends I talk with in the chat room claim, like some of you, that I was forced to live out here so I couldn't interact with decent society ... heh heh heh.
Sheesh ... a few impromptu gropes of feminine flesh and yer branded for life! :shake:

 

Preperation "H".... now I wonder if anyone has used it for patch lube??????????
Natural lube, it's made from sharke oil.
Maybe soon to be a new additive to moosemilk??....ya never know. :hmm:

 

[NoJacketRequired]

Just to add confusion, I tried a test with my .50 Hawken rifle that kinda astounded me. I had three balls which had, for various reasons, been pulled from the barrel. Each one of them sported a huge deformation resulting from having been stuck and threaded with a ball puller. I fired a 50-yard 3-shot group with them, having fired a similar 3-shot group with the same Hornady .490 ball just prior, and again just after the group of 'pulled' balls. I thought the pulled ones would group in, well, maybe a chamber pot. Lo and behold they produced a group under 1.5", while the factory-new balls grouped in .75 - 1". So for short range work it would appear to me that a considerable amount of ball deformation won't have as large an impact on group size as one would first suspect. It would only follow that sprue location would likewise be of less consequence than we would intuitively believe it to be.

 

[BLAHMAN]

Should the question be: To sprue or not to sprue? Or when you have a bad day at the range, shooting real bad and everyone's making you the but of their jokes do you yell at them "Go sprue yourself!!!!" Or if you use a ball with a sprue, miss a shot, do you mutter "Sprue'd that shot". So much sprue, so litle time!

All I know, when I shoot my gun, regardless of sprue'd or non sprue'd balls it alwasys comes out the end of the barrel (unless I forget to add that "black fluffy stuff").

 

[roundball]

Just to add confusion, I tried a test with my .50 Hawken rifle that kinda astounded me. I had three balls which had, for various reasons, been pulled from the barrel. Each one of them sported a huge deformation resulting from having been stuck and threaded with a ball puller. I fired a 50-yard 3-shot group with them, having fired a similar 3-shot group with the same Hornady .490 ball just prior, and again just after the group of 'pulled' balls. I thought the pulled ones would group in, well, maybe a chamber pot. Lo and behold they produced a group under 1.5", while the factory-new balls grouped in .75 - 1". So for short range work it would appear to me that a considerable amount of ball deformation won't have as large an impact on group size as one would first suspect. It would only follow that sprue location would likewise be of less consequence than we would intuitively believe it to be.

That's exactly the experience I've had...I pull my loads after a days hunt and save the Hornady's for plinking at the range...huge ugly deformations with them but they shoot just as accuratly at 50yds as new ones out of the box...if all I had left was one of them to deer hunt with I wouldn't even hesitate.

Sometimes I wonder if we tend to over analyze and attempt to over-engineer what should be a laid back hobby attempting to recreate the ways of yesteryear.

I see posts where people who cast lead balls weigh each and every one and recast any that are more than 1 grain off...I mean, a 180grn .50cal ball that weighs 178grns or 182grns??

Personally, I'd like to meet the shooter who can tell me after every shot if the ball he just shot was the proper weight, or if it was 2 grains lighter, or 2 grains heavier, etc.

I handloaded rifle and pistol cartridges for years, measuring things to 1/10th of a grain, etc...but that's not what muzzleloading is supposed to be about...I wouldn't WANT to weigh balls that I cast...Daniel Boone sure didn't weigh his...IMO, if we do things like that, we're trying to make muzzleloaders act like modern centerfire rifles.
:results: :imo: :m2c: :relax: :redthumb: