Weighing round balls

[thixotropy]

a grain over is all, after tumbling an hour with steel balls

 

[Salty]

How many weigh their lead balls and what is the variance which is acceptable?
I sat down today and started weighing some for my .58 Colonial. What an eye opening experience that was. Weights all over the place. I culled anything outside of 1 grain from an average. Hornady was hands down the most consistent. Speer was second best with about a 25% reject rate. The least consistent were from "Rush Creek Roundball". I think I purchased those from TOW. They were all over the place in weight with almost 50% culled. I think it's time to fire up the lead pot and see if I can do a bit better.

I mold all of my LRBs and weigh all. Like you, I cull any outside of 1 gr average. My accuracy has improved.
I also weigh my powder charges and found more than 1 gr variance from volume measurements

 

[tenngun]

The closer you are to exactly the same load, load to load the better. That will be your most perfect load.
This is why you see the hard core bench shooters have pre weighed charges and tension machines to record force setting the load, false muzzles and log books to temperature and humidity, even bararitic pressure.
Howsomever I have never weighed a ball. Near fifty years of ml as my basic hunting and pleasure shooting gun.
They had scales that were accurate to far less then a grain in eighteenth century, but you just don’t see them in shooting equipment for the day.
I visually inspect the ball, frosty or wrinkled or visible void at the spru it goes back in the pot, shinny smooth and no holes it goes in the bag
Old sights sucked, powder measures can hand throw a few grains difference, even cap guns have a delay between trigger pull and shot that while you can’t notice it is long enough to throw you off target, there is barrel harmonics, wind, lighting conditions that to my shooting would far outweigh ( no pun intended) ball weight variation

 

[Rodd Boyer]

I had trouble with consistency with Hornady. 440 balls in the past... some as high as 40% being -2 gr off average. I weigh whenever I get a chance and write on the outside of the box the Ave. weight.

 

[APG]

I stick to a 1% deviation. I cast .58 miniballs , .490 and .31 round balls. With the 500 grain minieballs that's +/- 5 grains. The .490 is 1.77 grains and the .31 is .45 but I go up to .5.

 

[ADK Bigfoot]

My home cast round balls are always more consistent in roundness and weight than swaged factory balls. I cast 100 .440 round balls from a Lyman 4-cavity gang mold yesterday. I ran five pours (20 balls) that were immediately returned to the pot. Then I ran the 100 I needed. I discarded twelve (early) that did not meet my "minus Zero, plus 1 grain" from target weight. I also weigh all of my charges "minus Zero, plus .5 grain" and store them in tubes. The results clearly show up on paper.

ADK Bigfoot

 

[Wncman]

Well I don’t try to drive nails. I do want a reasonable group at certain or given distances. I see comments about a 1 grain variance. What do y’all use to evaluate the base line ? The makers advertised weight ?

 

[GREENSWLDE]

Havent ever had any problem with self cast ball but only ever cast 20b. .622" for 50 &100yd off hand
target and Foxes (not legal in UK any more).. Then came the 9.6mm off hand Target rifle (read Swiss)
9.6 is .375" so I used Horna--Swaged in that. Weighed hundreds and never found any variation worth mentioning. Must have been lucky. 550 grn LR PP hollow based bullets (own design) where different. +or- 1/4 grain. tedious but helpful at 900m or 1000yds. Can't handle 10 lb rifles any more. Stick to UN-Mens---- .223" for F---s. O.D. --34.

 

[Dusty_Traveler]

Well I don’t try to drive nails. I do want a reasonable group at certain or given distances. I see comments about a 1 grain variance. What do y’all use to evaluate the base line ? The makers advertised weight ?

Weigh the lot of them together and get an average. Then do your culling based on that average.

 

[Rodd Boyer]

I start weighing them and put them into the different weight categories and throw the lighter ones back into the pot.

Weigh the lot of them together and get an average. Then do your culling based on that average.

 

[Dusty_Traveler]

I start weighing them and put them into the different weight categories and throw the lighter ones back into the pot.

Cool. How do you sort them out?

 

[Rodd Boyer]

Cool. How do you sort them out?

Either plastic cups or bowls. Anything that will keep them separated until I find the average weight on the high end.

 

[Dusty_Traveler]

Either plastic cups or bowls. Anything that will keep them separated until I find the average weight on the high end.

You mentioned weight categories. How do you decide what goes where/how many categories. Asking about your method.

 

[Rodd Boyer]

You mentioned weight categories. How do you decide what goes where/how many categories. Asking about your method.

For .440 and smaller, I segregate by .5 gr. .530 and bigger, by 1 gr.

 

[hanshi]

When I cast ball they get a visual check and that's it. Weighing ball is about as boring as watching mildew form. I haven't cast anything in several years but don't get to shoot much now. In the past I've cast 10s of thousands and have a few hundred with me in case I get to shoot soon. But most are with a friend and I have yet to set up a way to get them.

I've tested weighing ball and can't say it ever made a difference. I found that randomly selected ball shot just as well as the weighed and sorted ones. I am out of .311" ball for my .32 and will have to get out the pot soon.

 

[Wncman]

Weigh the lot of them together and get an average. Then do your culling based on that average.

Makes sense

 

[cal.43]

cast - put it in a box - take to the range - shot
never wasting life time with weighing roundballs

 

[bronko220002]

Supposedly weighing will give you better accuracy but is it worth it? I don't know. It may be a good idea for load development weighting both powder and ball to see what shoots the best.
I don't have the time but if someone would cast a lot of balls and sort them by weight into groups with a +/- .5 gr tolerance then shoot a couple groups of the heaviest and the lightest then shoot a couple groups of mixed weights then see post the differences.

 

[Howard Pippin]

Even swaged ball are formed in a divided chamber or mold or they couldn't be easily extracted. If that chamber doesn't fit seamlessly the product would have a line on it. My guess is that Hornaday tumble finishes their product a bit better.
But tumbling would also create variances in weight since you are removing some of the ball to give that pleasing full round shape with no seam line and no lead entry sprue. Weighing ball just helps to minimize one of several variables that can effect trajectory.
Minimizing variables is what we strive for to improve accuracy (shot to shot consistently). But it's only ONE variable.
Are you going to pre-weigh your powder charges? ONE more variable. Use powder from all the same lot? Another variable. Weigh and weave measure your patching material? Use EXACTLY the same formula of lube? Another variable.
Our guns are probably capable of accuracy we can't imagine if we control all the variables that we CAN.
But are we willing to do that every time we shoot them?
Most of us try to limit a couple of easily affected variables and call it good.
And why not? They are easy and we aren't making a living at it.
We're here just having fun or hunting at reasonable distances where being and inch or two off isn't any better than not.
Sorry if I ran off at the mouth (keyboard?) , it a hazard for a stats guy.
Try limiting variables in your casting process after you find what gives you good results (temp of lead, temp of mold, hold time before cutting the sprue to get a flat cut that doesn't divet the sprue's center and maybe no more than 1% or 2% tin in your lead to help the mold fill better.)
Just my process and thoughts, doesn't mean it is any better than what you're doing.

I discovered when I make round balls and weigh them, the ones the weigh a grain too heavy are easily fixed will a file on the sprue. It takes very little. I like to get rid of the unknown factors when shooting for sight adjustments.

 

[bronko220002]

Speer and if i am not misremembering(most likely) Hornady both swage their round balls. as the machines wear the tolerances change. or they don't care, take your pick. we are the smallest segment of their customer base.

Good point Deerstalker. I've seen variations of weight even in jacketed bullets. I weighed my balls one time but now I just cast and shoot and or hunt with them. At the ranges I shoot a bit of variation won't hurt me.