• Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

My round ball has a ***

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Casting some 0.454 round balls with a Lyman mold and they end up having a raised up flat spot where the sprue hole is, i.e a "***"... I will shooting these in a Pietta 1860 Army 0.44... will the *** have any affect on performance, and do I load *** up or *** down, or other...
Now... aren't you glad you asked?
 
Lyman molds do that. It doesn't make a difference if the sprue is centred when you load. I roll my cast ball between a pair of marble plates to round them up; but that's only because I have the plates, and it only takes a couple of minutes to do as many as I cast at a time.
what are marble plates. something you eat off of?
 
what are marble plates. something you eat off of?
One foot squares of marble counter-top material: shiny smooth and heavy. I built a wood box to hold the lower one and provide a fence so the balls don't fall out while they are getting rolled around. The marble squares were sample pieces from a manufacturer.
 
Marble plates are good for flattening and sharpening planes by putting several grades of sandpaper on the plate. Works good for sharpening chisels and gouges. In addition you can roll cast round balls to smooth out the sprue.
 
Hey, at least we’re not discussing nipples on this thread🤷🏻‍♂️
I have a nipple story. A true story. I had the thought of posting it, but. I'll wait for a nipple thread.
But in the mean time, I have a lady friend who rolls her balls an a dinner plate to make sure they're round.
 
**** up or **** down, it all depends if her shoulder blades are larger than the front!! them ones where there bras on backwards.
 
some of us use a FARRIERS FILE to roll them on and they come out looking like a golf ball with no sprue!.
 
I have a nipple story. A true story. I had the thought of posting it, but. I'll wait for a nipple thread.
But in the mean time, I have a lady friend who rolls her balls an a dinner plate to make sure they're round.
you have got me in suspense now. I can't wait to hear it!!??
 
When I first cast round balls using a Lyman mold I was as surprised as the poster of this thread with the huge sprue. I used Lee molds before and sprues from those molds are very minimal.

However, the sprue from a Lyman mold can be used as a small pedestal when weighting so they don't roll off the scale. Also, I started to enjoy the way they look.

I noticed no difference in shooting them (sprue up). If they were going to my revolver I would align them so the cylinder wall cuts the sprue off while loading.

One thing Lyman could improve on with regard to their round ball molds is that they are all(those I have) single ball molds. I can cast almost twice as fast with my Lee double molds. Lee even makes an 18 cavity mold, but those are permanently out of stock with my local shops :-(
 

Latest posts

Back
Top