Quote Originally Posted by tacfoley View Post
1. H&N balls are not cast, they are swaged and are therefore more uniform than cast.

2. Naturally it matters if there is a difference in weight - H&N balls do not have a sprue that will inevitably differ from one to another. Remember that you are only shooting a light charge - not for velocity but for accuracy. Even a very small deviation from a common weight will make the ball fly differently, as will having the sprue not exactly centered every time in the bore on loading. With a swaged ball, there is no sprue, hence the increase in accuracy.

3. H&N claim that their balls are cast from pure lead - who knows what the composition of your scrap lead sheet might be? How much cr*p did you skim off the top when casting from it?

4. A couple of manufacturers make a simple point-impact lead hardness tester - not a lot - maybe around $2025 or so. In any case, this SIMPLE test will do well enough -

a. if you can scratch the ball with your thumbnail - it is soft enough.

b. if two balls roll together and make a dull sound on impact - they are soft enough. Thud = soft and clink = too hard.

There should be absolutely NO alloying of lead shot from a single-shot pistol of this design.

tac
Thanks for your response.

I remember when I was casting those balls, there was some waste material that I had to remove from the pot. but not as much as when casting with other lead such as range scrap from our indoors shooting range (no jacketed bullets there, mostly .22 and .32 with some .38)
I melted the range scrap on other pot to keep the casting pot cleaner.

My clubmate roughens the surface of his projectiles with some metal mesh. He says it makes the balls fly better and be easier to handle with greasy hands. That step surely makes the sprue get really small, almost invisible. Iīll try that too. Buying balls would feel odd as I have casting equipment.
Only single cavity moulds for .330 so that is a bit slow but.. Long winter is just around the corner.

As for the hardness of lead.. I have a little experimental hardness tester in mind. Drop a sharpened object on the ball and see how big dent it leaves. Will post results when I get it done.