round ball moldes

[rleete1948]

:hmm: Hi you all just a quick question I just bought a Dixie works mold think I will be able to use it with my Fifty Cal, CVA and My T/C Renegade however when it arrived on the side it reads 512 can I get it to work or should it be used in a 54 Cal, instead

 

[Zonie]

I think the first thing you should do is to contact Dixie. The number might be just a number but if it really represents the size of ball it will cast, it is IMO worse than useless.
A .50 cal CVA or Renegade uses a .490, .495 or maybe (with a big mallet) a .500 dia ball but a .512 is too large.

Unless you specifically ordered a .512 mold I believe Dixie will take it back and send you the correct size.

.512 is way too small for a .54 unless you have some material that is around .026-.030 thick.

zonie

 

A 512 ball is going to be a pretty tight fit in a 500 bore. May need a very thin patch. :grin:

The 512 will be way to small for a 54 caliber rifle unless you find a thick patch that will make it work. I would send it back and get one that will have better possibilities of working in your rifles. A 490 or a 495. Those Dixie hair curler molds are usually pretty rough cavities. Lots of tooling marks in them. If that is the style you got I would turn it in a get a Lyman or a Lee mold.

 

[RetiredMedic]

Before you jump up and down,
Call Dixie..

The 512 might be the stock number for their size 50 cal mold..

 

[rleete1948]

:thumbsup: thank's guys ill keep you posted

 

[mudd turtle]

Zonie: You answered the man's question about the mould and I have a question for you. If you have a large prb and you have to use a mallet to get the ball started wont that deform the ball and as a result affect accuracy? mud turtle.

 

[boar]

I knew a man (tom Pike),passed on, that killed a deer over 200yrds with a GMT 54 barrel on a lymans stock. He used 110grs of 2ff, a ball bore size and 10-15 patch drove in with a mallet. Now he won the shoot at friendship,plus his wife( Gone too) did to. He had it down pat. I bought my first ML from him in 1982, plus alot of other stuff. Miss him now. He had alot of good imformation. Dilly

 

[Zonie]

Yes, pounding on the front of the ball is going to deform it unless you have a metal rod with a cavity in the front of it that matches the diameter of the round ball.

I only mentioned pounding the ball in with a mallet because that is the only way a person is going to get a .512 dia patched ball into the .500 diameter bore.

An example of folks using a really tight ball is the advice given by Green Mountain and posted here on this forum. They recommended using a .500 diameter ball with a patch in their .50 caliber barrels for the best accuracy. Seems like a really tight combination but the post indicated that the group size shrunk down to almost nothing.

Some of the top target shooters do drive oversize patch/ball combinations into their guns when they load them at shooting matches and they do quite well.

One of my concerns about using a bore size ball or larger is that unless the muzzle crown is very smooth and fairs into the rifling without any sharp edges, there is a good chance of cutting the patch while loading.
Of course a cut patch would really mess up the guns accuracy.

zonie