Spur Up or Spur Down

[Moose_Meat]

Do you load with the Spur up or down?

I was taught spure up, and a close friend of mine was taught spure down.

Is there a correct way or a preferred way?

I’ve tried both and have never found one to be better than the other.

 

[No Deer]

I load with the sprue up, cuz I can see it better. The Bevelbrothers in MuzzleBlasts Mag. did an article on this sometime in the past year. They did a lot of test fires with sprue up and down, did not find any major difference in accuracy either way.

 

[RC]

:hmm: reminds me of a good question....involved a egg and a chicken... personal opinion, ..as long as ya do it the same way every time, it shouldn't matter...whichever way floats yer ball! :winking: RC

 

[Rebel]

Up, so i can center it the same every time.

 

[Claude Mathis]

Up, so i can center it the same every time.

I agree. If you care whether the sprue is centered and consistant each time, then place it up. If it doesn't matter to you, then... well, it doesn't matter where you place it. :grin:

 

[roundball]

Right...and in fact, intentionally seated balls with the spru location off to the various sides and saw no difference.

I bought 1000 very cheap...very, very cheap....50cal cast balls just to plink at 25 & 50yd steel targets. They had some really ugly marks where the sprus were, had some voids where the sprus were...borderline junk to the naked eye...but I intentionally loaded them as if they were my normal Hornadys, that is I just plunked them down on top of a patch at the muzzle without looking or caring where the spru mark was...and after several hundred of them I have to say I never saw any difference at 50yds compared to the expensive Hornadys...maybe there would be at 100yds, dunno.

Now, I have seen a batch of cast balls with 1/4" raised stubs sticking up on them for a spru, and I'd certainly center those up just to keep the big stub from any possible interference with bore walls/rifling through the patch.

However, here's how strong the "power of suggestion is":
In spite of the Bevel Brothers tests, and my own first hand experience mentioned above, this year I hunted with a .62cal smoothbore and cast balls for the first time...and even as good as they all seemed (Rush Creek) I centered the sprus up for every deer hunting load I put in the barrel...JUST IN CASE....!! :grin: :grin:

 

[SCATTERSHOT]

Like most above, I load sprue up so I can see that it's centered. On most of the balls I cast, I tumble them to remove the sprue, but you can tell where it was and I load them with the sprue up, too.

 

Sprue up so I can center it and make sure it looks real purdy before I shove it down the bore.

 

[PreglerD]

I cast my .45 RB's with a Rapine bag mould and only cut the sprue with a nail cutter. I load also with sprue up to center the RB.

 

[bob308]

i was tought spru up. but we did an exsperiment. took a plat of steel and put another ring of steel on it that was the dia. of the ball.then put another steel plat on top and rolled the balls till the spru was gone. that way there was no spru to worry with. they shot as good as any other ball. but was a lot of work.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Up, so i can center it the same every time.

Ditto, I can see to center it up, can't when down and covered by patch.

 

[renovato]

I load sprue up just out of habit. It's easier to center. Also, I would guess that the ramrod tends to round out the sprue as you ram it. Lead is pretty soft afterall.