Tumbling cast balls

[Ted W. Coombs]

I read on a recent post about tumbling cast balls in graphite to eliminate the sprue.Could someone give some info on how to do this? Where do you get graphite? Thanks for you help. Teton Ted

 

[romeoh]

For eliminating the sprue the graphite is not necassary, but of course you can add some while tumbling.


My "tumbler" is a pickled-cucumber-glass. :grin:
Anything elese you can find around your household made from glass thick enough not to brake will do the job.
Vine-bottles, liquor-bottles, jam jar,...

Don´t fill the glass to much with your cast balls, they need a little space and then - start shaking.
That´s all. :thumbsup:

 

[Johnny Tremain]

i use a noisy cheap rock rumbler I got at a yard sale for 5 bucks

 

[smokehouseman]

Why are you eliminating the sprue?

 

[Stubert]

I have an old Lyman mold that throws a .610 roundball that leaves a sprue 1/16 high, they shoot good. leave the spru up when loading.

 

[Ted W. Coombs]

I have shot swaged balls without the sprue,and cast with the sprue up and placed down. I like not having to be concerned with a sprue. Jest my preference. Teton Ted

 

[bwhoffman]

I dont get much of a sprue on my cast balls, but I do put them into an empty birdshot bag and squish them around for about 4-5 minutes. They all come out looking the same.

..just because I can!

 

[longcruise]

My Lyman molds leave a pretty long sprue, but the Lee molds just leave a little flat spt.

I put my Lee mold cast balls in my vibrating brass case cleaner without any medium and with the bottom just barely covered with balls. If you et them too tight or stack more than one layer you will hammer in some flat spots.

Anyway, they come out in about two hours looking like they are swaged and perfectly round. My little Vibra Shine will do over 100 balls at a shot.

Never tried it with the Lyman castings with the longer sprue though. Maybe I'll try cutting the sprue off with wire cutters and then vibrate them and see what gives.

Tumbling and vibrating probably give the same results.

 

[mmahlock]

Never heard of using graphite. Just put the balls in a tumbler and turn it on. Oh, BTW you have to use a drum tumbler. The vibrating kind don't do much. As for why tumble, besides removing all traces of the sprue, it will also identify any balls with voids in them with a dimple. You can then decide if the dimpled balls are ok to shoot based on your experience with them and the size of dimple. :thumbsup:

Also if you shoot two calibers that are very close like I do .600 and .610 tumbling one size makes it easy to tell them apart.

 

[bub524]

And there is aways the golf ball theory. Tumbling leaves them with tiny dents all over the surface like a golf ball. Urban legend has it that that helps create "lift" and makes the ball go straighter and farther.
Who knows????

 

[mmahlock]

It may be that I'm tumbling 4 pounds of .610 balls at a time but mine don't come out with flat spots or dimples (except where there are voids). They are uniformly round and smooth.

 

[Will Bison]

I tumble mine just so I don't have to line up the sprue. As far as accuracy is concerned I can't tell any difference.

 

[longcruise]

It may be that I'm tumbling 4 pounds of .610 balls at a time but mine don't come out with flat spots or dimples (except where there are voids). They are uniformly round and smooth.

Mine are nice and smooth and round also. They are not round out of the mold though so I attribute the vibrating (not tumbled) to rounding them off. I don't get dimples from voids. Guess vibrating does not show dimples on voids or I'm not getting any voids in my castings. My balls are .535 and smaller so maybe voids are mor likely in the larger balls you cast?

 

[Joel/Calgary]

And there is aways the golf ball theory. Tumbling leaves them with tiny dents all over the surface like a golf ball. Urban legend has it that that helps create "lift" and makes the ball go straighter and farther.
Who knows????

IIRC, that only works at low-sub-sonic velocity, way below anything we'd likely be using these at.

Joel