Round ball spin.

[Freedom]

BP is instant, like an explosive.

No it is not. The Davenport formula for example.
BP can even be used as a rocket propellant when compressed properly, because it burns slowly from the rear to the front.

 

[necchi]

The Davenport formula for example.

Wow! You can lead'm to water,,

 

[Freedom]

The back is not flat, and you can plainly see the patch imprints from the rifling on the side of the ball.
Both ball struck something hard and punched into or through, that's where the deformation happened.
You can't really use those as example of what happens during or because of internal ballistics.

You can clearly see the patched roundball expanded to fit/fill the rifling grooves. And No this did not happen when I loaded it because it was a hunting round and it was easy to load with just my ramrod.

 

[IanH]

The revolver bullet made a trip through the barrel's forcing cone so what appears to be upsetting into the grooves is actually mostly drawing down through the barrel wich is smaller than the cylinder plus metal displaced by the lands.

There is no powder granule imprint on the first ball, just patch. That's gas. I have an 8' oiled sawdust bullet trap and have shot more cast bullets and balls into it than I bet this while board combined. Even copper gas checks will show smokeless powder kernel imprints if the load is hot enough, but that never happens with black powder.

Bullets can and do upset under pressure under certain conditions, but not in the manner most people think. You have to be very careful drawing conclusions from recovered bullets unless you really understand the forces at play and which ones account for what features observed when the bullet finally comes to rest again.

 

[Tumbledown]

Deleted

 

[Whitworth]

Sorry, I beg to differ, even being an ignorant BP noob, because when I load a ball into a revolver's chamber it shaves a ring of lead off the ball. Maybe it's not exactly "squished" as I said, it's still definitely deformed by the act of loading. I can't speak to rifles from lack of actual experience, but given the force required to ram a patched ball down the bore of my Kentucky pistol, I can't hardly believe it remains a perfect sphere either.

Further, the ball engages the rifling during its passage through the barrel and that deforms it. Any little irregularity on a sphere's surface is going to disrupt the airflow around it. The ball's spin counteracts the disruptive force of the disturbed airflow, of course, but the spin rotational speed diminishes with time in the air.

Have to disagree, a ball/bullet retains it's spin much better than it's forward velocity.

 

[Relic shooter]

In my 60 some years of BP competition I've always consistently 'firmly' seated my PRB loads in my rifles & pistols to obtain consistent pressures that are required to get the tightest groups possible.
This loading procedure absolutely requires that the tip of your ramrod is close to bore size & fits the contour of the ball diameter.
The ramrod tips on most factory built BP firearms are way undersized, that can be corrected by fitting it with a flush-fitting cleaning jag of the correct caliber diameter.
Newer shooters can review Treso brand cleaning jags to see examples & obtain the correct thread size for their firearm.

 

[Shiloh]

The wad cutter bullets was designed to cut precise holes in targets made out of wad not paper, hence their name. Wad targets were made of compressed fibers that easily broke off when struck by a wad cutter making seemingly perfect holes and making easy for scoring. WC will tear paper as easy as round balls if the paper is not glued to a cardboard backer or a wad target is used.

 

[Shiloh]

Load powder. Load ball. With patch if needed. Fire. Did it hit the target? If yes then who gives a rats rear what shape the bullet/ball is.

Maybe we could pool our money and have balls made with dimples like golf balls and have special sabots made so that the ball doesn’t deform during loading. They should fly much straighter and further.

 

[64Springer]

The mentioning of petroleum-based lead ball koozies is forbidden here.

 

[Shiloh]

The mentioning of petroleum-based lead ball koozies is forbidden here.

They could be made of paper. Paper patched round ball.

 

[shorthair]

Load powder. Load ball. With patch if needed. Fire. Did it hit the target? If yes then who gives a rats rear what shape the bullet/ball is.

Maybe we could pool our money and have balls made with dimples like golf balls and have special sabots made so that the ball doesn’t deform during loading. They should fly much straighter and further.

You been watching Mythbusters too much , but I was surprised when the car got measurably better mileage with dimples.

 

[shorthair]

What ‘pushes’ the patched roundball out the bore if the gasses are forced sideways? Seems if the gases were ‘forced sideways’ we would have a stuck ball situation.

The base of the powder charge ignites first, then as the powder burns it produces gas which expands and pushes the rest of the charge forward with the patched ball atop, with unburned powder between the burning gas and the ball. Remember that about a 1/3rd of all the powder is unburned until it exits the barrel which explains the muzzle flash.

 

[oldwood]

One of my 80 something yr. old hunting buddies shot a mature whiretail doe at about 30 yds. distance w/ his flint rifle , .50 cal. , 80 gr.FFFG. First , the round ball cut through a tough 1/2 " diameter limb of Pa. Mtn. laurel. The 180 gr lead ball was sheared in half by the limb . Both pieces of oddly shaped lead were effective. One chunk penetrated the lower neck on the doe , and shredded the veins and arteries going to the deer's head. The second chunk of lead penetrated the heart lungs in the chest cavity. Needless to say , the deer died instantly.. Both chunks of the ball were recovered and put on a plack , along with the Mtn. Laurel limb , and the written story of the hunter making the kill. The memorial plack hangs in a place of honor at camp , as the deer was the first m/l flintlock kill at camp. ..............oldwood

 

[windini]

have balls made with dimples like golf balls

"Chewed" Balls? I believe I read bout that somewhere, long ago...

 

[Mogadishu Meanderer]

Load powder. Load ball. With patch if needed. Fire. Did it hit the target? If yes then who gives a rats rear what shape the bullet/ball is.

Maybe we could pool our money and have balls made with dimples like golf balls and have special sabots made so that the ball doesn’t deform during loading. They should fly much straighter and further.

I find your lack of faith in terminal ballisticians, disturbing !

 

[RAEDWALD]

The revolver example is a red herring. Albeit loaded into the muzzle of the cylinder, the ball acts the same as in a breechloader once it enters the forcing cone (note the name) and is squeezed into the rifling of the smaller barrel. Hence it acquires a cylindrical centre.

On the OP, any hole in the ball will unbalance it and make it erratic. A pure soft lead ball will expand quite adequately by itself thank you and has no need of a hole. Black powder will only speed a bullet up so much and has a lower limit than smokeless powder. As you cannot make it any faster for a given bore and that does not do the presumed hunting job then the black powder answer is a larger bore for a larger ball which will hit harder by virtue of it’s greater mass. The unmentionable modern answer is to throw their small bore hard cases bullet ever faster.

Short answer, do not bother making a hole in a round ball.

 

[shorthair]

"Chewed" Balls? I believe I read bout that somewhere, long ago...

I would guess that the risk of lead poisoning 20 years later would be preferable to losing your hair in the next 10 minutes, doing the spit ball with several in your mouth might cut down on reloading time when you're in a real hurry.

 

[mjpchief]

Well we are getting closer to firing the hollow point round ball. We will short start the ball and we have a tool that will drill the hollow point before we seat the ball on the powder. We will fire 4 or 5 of these to see how this plays out and then we have made a small cone to insert into the hollow point before we fire it to maybe aid in the spread of the ball on contact with the target. Beginning to think we need a job to occupy our time instead of setting in the coffee shop thinking of things to do.

 

[mjpchief]

Want to thank you guys for all the responses to this post. We are not going to try firing any of the hollow point round balls as we realize the we would be waisting time and lead in this endeavor. This bunch of old bp shooters have enjoyed all the responses. Thank you.