tumbled balls

[George]

I shoot both self-cast and commercial swaged balls, and for my purposes as a hunter I see no difference in my results as far as accuracy is concerned. I do notice a difference in the speed and ease of loading, though, simply from not having to find the sprue, orient it and keep it centered while loading. I've never had any swaged .600" balls for my 20 gauges guns, so I decided a while back to make some fake ones. I put a few in a plastic bottle and shook them for about an hour, and I was pleased with the results. I started with soft lead balls cast with a Rapine mold, and the sprues were fairly large, but I couldn't find them after the treatment.

Mikey likes it.

Spence

 

[George T.]

Well the results look really good. I hope you do not mind my asking a couple of questions. If you see no delta in accuracy do you weigh you finished balls. If not you must be a very good caster. I always had problems with air voids but once I started useing a bottom drop pot they got better but I still weighed then. If or when I go back to casting I will tumble them as yours look great. Geo. T.

 

[George]

Yes, I do weigh my balls and sort them into groups. The balls I tumbled in this exercise had already been weighed beforehand.

Weighing them is probably a waste of time and effort for my style of shooting, but I enjoy fooling with such stuff, gives me something to do when I can't make it into the woods. The same goes for tumbling, certainly not essential.

Spence

 

[jdkerstetter]

Neat trick Spence. I heard somewhere....maybe here....that you can achieve the same thing by putting them in a plastic jar/bottle and leaving them in the trunk of a car far a spell. But I haven't tried it yet.

Enjoy, J.D.

 

[necchi]

Did you hafta wear ear plugs?
And when you stopped shaking the ball, how long did it take for you to stop shaking?

 

[George]

It's noisy, that's for sure. If I were going to make a habit of it I'd have to figure a different way. We used to have a kid's rock polishing tumbler which I think would work, but it seems to have been passed down to a grandbrat.

Spence

 

[George]

Yeah, I've read about that trunk of the car trick. I suspect that would take a fair amount of time, and I don't know how much tumbling you'd get just driving on city streets. What I did was much more violent than that, but much quicker.

Spence

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

I always load with the sprue up. I hold my mold the same way each time I pour balls. With the sprue in the same position each time you load. I have to see the sprue in order to do this.

 

[fleener]

a few years ago I toured hornadays plant in Grand Island NE and they were using plastic cement mixers to tumble the balls with a towel thrown in as wellif memory serves me.

snapper

 

[blackdog of vt]

I wonder if putting them in a case vibrator will do the same? A test may be in order....

 

[Little Wattsy]

I do the same thing, no sprue to be found!

 

[Robby]

Here's my home made tumbler. The bowl is stainless steel, the motor is variable speed.

Robby

 

[cynthialee]

I find myself wondering if you needed to shake that can so long.

I put my cast roundballs in a tobbaco can, shake it for just a few minutes and they come out looking pretty much golfballed like those you pictured.

 

[smo]

I find myself wondering if you needed to shake that can so long.

I put my cast roundballs in a tobbaco can, shake it for just a few minutes and they come out looking pretty much golfballed like those you pictured.

Be careful with that tobbaco can,some of those are getting rare and may be worth more than the box of balls. :shocked2:

Nice job on the tumbler Robby, I like it :thumbsup:

 

[Squeeze]

cheap tumbler
Link

I use it for those...."futuristic type projectile holders"
I remember seeing somewhere that the dimples on a golf ball greatly improved aerodynamics and distance achieved with similar swings.

 

[S.Kenton]

I like that trick Spence... how many RB's did you shake up at a time? I may try that.

 

[Billnpatti]

I use a small rock tumbler to tumble my balls. It has a black rubber liner that will give the balls a black finish but they come out looking like shiny black ball bearings. Tumbling time is critical. I have found that the balls need at least 30 minutes tumbling time but no more than 45 minutes. If you tumble for less than the minimum of 30 minutes, the sprue will not be removed. Any longer than 45 minutes and the balls come out with a frosted appearance from very tiny dimples in the surface. I did an experiment that proved that the tiny dimples have absolutely no effect on the performance of the balls. It is simply an appearance problem. If you want nice round and shiny balls, tumble them (no tumbling medium) for 30 to 45 minutes.

 

[George]

I only did 18, since I was just checking the possibilities.

Spence

 

[hanshi]

I use an old Thumbler Tumbler I bought 40 years ago. The tumbled balls don't have a sprue anymore and are nice and uniform.

 

[S.Kenton]

Forgive me for my ignorance on this.. but where in the thunder do the sprues go?.. do they get smashed into the ball and smoothed out? or do they get knocked off and turned into dust?