Less expensive .36 round balls

[grayghost]

Recently I was at a local gun shop and saw a box of Hornady 000 buckshot for $7.99. I got to looking and the diamiter of these little round balls was .350. I thought, what the heck I might as well try these in my >36 rifle. They shoot great. I figure there is probaly about 1000 shots in there for the nornal price of 100. Does anyone see any problems with shooting these through a muzzle loader?

 

[Dave K]

I don't see any problems. I am using Hornady 00 buck in my 33cal. since the ball measures .330. I can't seem to find cast ball this size. If I could find some the correct size, accuracy would be something I would want to check.

 

[TN.Frank]

The only problem(if you could even call it one) is that buck shot is an alloy and not pure lead. That being said I've shot a lot of WW metal cast round balls out of rifles that I've had and they worked just fine so I'd not worry about it. The fact that you get 10x the shooting for the same cost more then makes up for any small amount of accuracy you may give up. :thumbsup:

 

[crgabel]

I've been using the buck shot for over 4 years now in my underhammer and had no problems
Craig

 

[CoyoteJoe]

As others have mentioned, Hornady buck is a harder alloy and may be harder to start and ram. They are more round and consistant in weight than their swaged lead balls. If patched "tight" they shoot fine. :grin:

 

[grayghost]

I have miked out several of the buckshot and they all mike .350. Hornady must have their ducks in a row.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Antimony only addes a couple of points in hardness on the Burnell Hardness scale for testing the hardness of lead. The reason it feels like these balls are so hard has to do with the small diameter of the ball, rather than the alloy.

 

[Slamfire]

Are Hornady's buck shot dropped or swadged?

 

[roundball]

Are Hornady's buck shot dropped or swadged?

Hornady buckshot are cold swaged...see page 72:
[url] http://www.hornady.com/media/Shotshell_Reloading.pdf[/url]

 

[FSCGunslinger]

There wouldn't happen to be any cheap alternatives like this for shooting .36 cal. cap & ball revolver would there?

 

[TN.Frank]

If you can find some 4 ought buck it would work. :hmm:

 

[gooddw]

Ballisticproducts shows that their 0000 buckshot is .380. Which is it - .375 or .380? Is buckshot as hard as WW? It is very difficult to seat a WW ball into a revolver - to hard. Will the buckshot allow lead to be shaved off when seating? They offer an 8 lb bag for 18.95. I don't know how many balls are in 8 lbs.

 

[paulvallandigham]

That .36 chamber is actually about .375" in diameter. Those OOOO buck ball that measure .380 will leave a very thin shaving of lead when rammed into the chamber, which is what is suppose to happen. Use them. They are much softer than Wheel Weights, which are often 30% ti, 5% antimony, and the rest lead. I understand that some of them now are being made with zinc, so I am staying away from wheel weights unless I know they are based in lead.

 

[TN.Frank]

You can tell the ones with zinc because they'll stay shinny and not dull up like normal WW metal. WW metal is a 9 on the Hardness scale where as pure lead is around a 5 so wile it is harder it's not that much harder. I think the 4 Ought buck should work fine as that's what the Late Elmer Keith used in a Navy revolver that he had back in the day. :thumbsup:

 

[FSCGunslinger]

This just makes my day! I'm gonna have to find me a bag o' 0000 lead buckshot. It's gotta be cheaper than buying .36 cal. lead balls from cabela's! Haha.

Of course, I haven't started trying to cast my own yet. I know that if I can tap a dentist, then casting my own would be cheapest.