Sprue direction?

[crockett]

What was the tightest groups?

 

[Ames]

I found out sprue up put an end to my flyers. Now I cant blame the ball anymore when I miss.

 

[Mr. Troll]

The best groups were with the Hornady swaged ball, where there were quite a few cloverleaves...however, the #2 target in the pictures isn't bad...the orange sticker is 1", and the paper plate is 7"...now if I could only get one of my Colts to do that.....

 

[yonderin]

Interesting and I understand your logic. I think over a long range it definitely could come into play. Could be one of the reasons my groups at 100 are more than 4 times the size as 25.

Would it be the same result whether sprue is straight up or down? I would imagine so but placing the sprue up so I can ensure it's as close to centered as possible to begin with is best to minimize the effect.

 

[davescott]

I shoot sprue up if I have them. Prefer hornady balls with no sprue to worry aboug

 

[davescott]

Also, loading sprue up, I assume the sprue is diminished if not eliminated by the pressure of the ramrod pushing down on it when seating

 

[Adui]

I havent cast in a long while, but I remember my cast ball having more of a flat spot than an actual raised sprue. I generally tried to center that on top myself, but never have been a good enough shot to tell if it made a difference

 

[Billnpatti]

Earlier on this thread, I stated my opinion about the placement of the sprue when loading. I know many folks disagree with me and a couple of the posters on this thread have what appears to be emperical evidence to disprove my theory. Since I lack that data necessary for me to form a strong opinon one way or the other, I will say that at this point with the evidence presented, I am willing to say that I could be wrong in my opinion. However, before I will emphatically state so, I would like to see more well controlled experiments (single blind would be sufficient) that will establish whether the placement of the sprue makes any difference. One thing that I would like to see included in any such experiment would be balls having different size sprues. I would assume that if the position of the sprue on loading makes any difference, the difference would be greater with balls having a larger sprue. Of course, larger sprues would be expected to be inherently less accurate than smaller sprues when location upon loading were controlled for and this would have to be taken into consideration. The balls that I cast and shoot have been cast with Lee molds which leave little to no sprue and then they are tumbled to remove all evidence of a sprue mark. So, I just load 'em and shoot 'em. I also cut my patches at the muzzle so I have eliminated almost all fiddlin' and diddlin' when I load. Okay, so I'm old and I can't shoot as well as I used to and it is difficult for me to hit a barn ..... from the inside, but, though infeebled I may be, I do still enjoy the smoke and noise. :haha:

 

[Bobjim216]

Keep in mind that the spue is a small amount of additional mass.In theory, the farther off axis that mass is, the more erratic the ball flight will be. Again, sort of like an out of balance tire. One of the most important contributors to accuracy is consistency. I suspect that straight up or straight down doesn't matter, but it's easier to discern with the spue up. I have shot both cast balls and swaged balls. Once, out of curiosity I weighed a box of Hornady swaged balls, and the ball to ball weight spread was quite a bit more than what I was getting out of cast balls. Main thing is find what works, then do your best to do it the same way every time.