tumbleing

[freekforge]

Does anyone tumble their round balls. i tumbled some in an old pyrodex can chucked into the lathe and it seems to kinda swage the sprue and any imperfections.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Not deliberately. Kicking around in a container in my range box does that as does having some in leather bag.

 

[freekforge]

I just shook a bag of them for a while and then decided the lathe wont get tired of doing it as fast as me. :haha:

 

[Big John]

300 or so in a plastic maxwell coffee can, shake by hand, in 10 min. no sprues

 

[freekforge]

Running the lathe relatively slow (but not on back gear) takes about a minute or two.

 

[1sgt]

Does anyone tumble their round balls. i tumbled some in an old pyrodex can chucked into the lathe and it seems to kinda swage the sprue and any imperfections.

I tumbled a few by hand in a small steel drum. I liked loading them, no spru. I made a motorized tumbler with a bar-b-q rotisire motor. Doing them by hand wore me out. Now I can cast a new batch while I tumble about 50 50 cal. or 75 36 cal. They load easy, and shoot as good or better than balls with the spru on.

 

[Zonie]

I suppose tumbling can't hurt a lead roundball but some folks like to know where the casting sprue is on the ball.

On many cast balls, the lead in the supply hole freezes before the lead in the mold cavity does.
As the lead in the mold solidifies it shrinks and without a supply of liquid lead to make up for this shrinkage a internal hollow cavity will form.

This internal cavity is always right under the supply or sprue.

As I mentioned, some folks like to locate the sprue straight up so the cavity (if one exists) will be centrally located with respect to the flight of the ball.

There have been several experiments done to see if this loading with the sprue up helps or hurts accuracy.
The Bevel Brothers in their experiments found that it really doesn't make a noticeable difference in their rifled chunk guns but some folks want to make sure when their shooting at a shooting match.

I have no doubt that a roundball with a sprue or other abnormality on its surface when fired from a smoothbore would definitely be affected by it.

Because the ball isn't spinning when it is shot from a smoothbore, any shape other than a spherical one will cause the ball to be deflected by the air pressure as it flies downrange.

 

[freekforge]

The ones i tumbled by hand i was able to get a 1" three shot group at 5o yds offhand with bed sheet patch with spit on it which is way better than the ones that were not tumbled. I imagine i could do better with a better patch and lube :idunno:

 

[nkbj]

Somebody a while back said they put them in a two liter pop bottle in the pickup bed. Sounded like the best idea I'd heard in a while.

 

[ohio ramrod]

I "roll" all of my balls used for serious target and hunting. I use two steel plates with "spacer" bars. I leaves a slight "dimpling" flats around the balls. And ensures axcact diameter.

 

[msuspartan]

I glass mine.
one large piece of glass with a low border (1/4 inch0 and a small piece of glass set in a thin (1/4 inch) small wood frame and a circle cut in the middle of frame exposing the glass, then put the balls down on large glass take small glass and get all balls into the 'circle' and roll using weight of you hand. You can do this on your lap. Takes about a minute per 25 balls and they are nice and smooth.

Cheers, DonK

 

[matt denison]

"Because the ball isn't spinning when it is shot from a smoothbore, any shape other than a spherical one will cause the ball to be deflected by the air pressure as it flies downrange."

That is why I load my cast balls with the sprue down. Not up. You think I'm :youcrazy: It is so revolutionary! No really, think about it. Spherical surface facing forward into the wind. No odd surface to deflect the ball. It's so simple how come no one else does this?

I know, I am a rebel.

 

[necchi]

Well, cause if you can't see the sprue, you can't really be sure it's directly down in the bore.
just sayin,,

Sprue up for me. It's a perhaps useless habit I guess. If I can see that it's centered and I blow the shot I have nothing to blame but myself.

`Spose I got a bunch of goofy little picky thing's I try to do the same each time, if for no other reason than the confidence factor.

Tried tumbling a few times and it does make the sprue vanish, scared me, I couldn't see which way to put the ball in,,

 

[rr11]

Have never tunbled myn bullets. After reading this will have to try it this weekend. To see if it makes a differance.

 

[ohio ramrod]

For ranges less than 50 yards I don't think it makes any difference. But if I did not think it helped at longer ranges I would not bother to roll mine! :idunno: :idunno:

 

[ladysmithtrading]

I use a harbor freight rock tumbler, throw 3 lbs of ball into the canister and tumble for 1 hour, any voids will show as dimples after the sprue is rounded off and those go back into the pot, when finished they look like factory swaged balls and shoot perfectly!

 

[juancho]

some times I do it on the lathe.Put a couple of hundreds in a can together with some big chunks of lead and leave it overnight before closing the shop.
Some other times I don't do it.
As for accuracy, I see no diference , they just look better.

 

[Curt LaManna]

I do a tumble on all of my smaller cal. RBs.
The Ex Wife and I, bought a small Rock Tumbler, for our boy, for Christmas, back a couple of years ago. It didn't tumble small rocks very well, even after running it day and night, for a week. So it just sat there, in the garage shelf. Last year, after a bought a new Double RB mould for my .36 Rifle, I thought I'd try it out to tumble them with a little Balistol, sprayed into the plastic barrel of the tumbler, and ran it over night.
Next am., nice smooth RBs, and measured and weighed within 4-5 grns each. I'm happy with the results and finally got some use from that Tumbler, that was sitting on the shelf.
I just find them a little faster to load and maybe a little more accurate than the sprued RBs I shot from the same rifle.

 

[Dphar]

Does anyone tumble their round balls. i tumbled some in an old pyrodex can chucked into the lathe and it seems to kinda swage the sprue and any imperfections.

Vibratory case cleaner will beat the sprues down and make a ball like a swaged ball, except they are rounder.
But only pure lead will do this harder lead like W-W alloy will not deform.
REALLY noisy though.
Dan

 

[hanshi]

I've tried tumbling cast ball and was pleased with the results. I may eventually routinely tumble everything I cast.