john i have not weighed them in fact it never occured to me that this weight thing would make a differance..i will weigh the next batch and do as you recommended.thanks for the info... dennis i m sure somebody s got a crystal ball to look into i m gonna need some help for sure i m gonna tote my lucky knife too when hunting with the 8 ga.. charlie

Charlie - I come from a past history of benchrest shooting competitions in my yoot. I was making my own .224 bullets in 1958 in order to control the accuracy of same and try to be in the top 5 or at least mentioned in the top 10.

My last venture into casting .50 cal. muzzleloader bullets opened my eyes to the wide variation in bullet weights coming out of my molds. I did a careful analysis of performance by weight and found that the closer the batches of bullets weighed the better results. I never determined where the glitch was in the weight differentials, but, the weighing, sorting and loading by weight batch and stored in marked (by bullet weight) containers made a difference.

John, with all due respect to your bench rest experience in shooting and reloading (and I do totally agree with you when shooting bench rest) do you really think weighing each round ball will make a difference at 25 yards? I have my doubts. With a smooth bore there are so many more variables that the weight of the ball (within reason) hardly seems like it will make a difference. I am asking because I don't know, not to be argumentative.

Dennis

Don't know anything about round balls (among other things), but I do know that a high-level .22 benchrest shooter friend of mine weighs and measures the overall length of his shells, and segregates them based on those measurements

8 ga round balls
 

Here's the question. If one is going to shoot disparate weight projectiles at a target only 25-30 yards away, that's fine. The margin of error is probably not more than 4" as Charlie reports. But what if the finest buck that you ever saw is 50 yards away - or 80 yards? (See photo). And you take a shot that you know only has a 1 in 20 chance of hitting on the point of aim???? Charlie states he's using Kentucky windage to get the slug on the target with a 4" deviation at 30 yards. Shooting a too heavy or too light round ball and missing that buck would be sad. And even more devastatin' than finding out that the cork in your flask came loose and all your warmin' juice ran off onto the log you're sittin' on.

Me? A little more time weighing the balls or bullets into some order of weight deviation - and later feeling confident if that buck steps up to the zeroed in area - makes sense to me. It sure beats watching American Idol or Duck Dynasty.

john if i can get this old 8 to shoot out to 50 yards with some accuracy i would be happy for sure..i m conifdent i could hit a deer in the heart area at 25 for sure ...i will start my next round of shooting at 35 steps..when i get this mastered if possible i will go to the 50 yard line..but with these round ball loads in the 8 with no better site picture than that big brass front site i think this will be the 8 s limit for sure..but i will try weighing them for sure.i dont watch duck dynasty or american idol either... charlie

Wait a minute!!!!!!!! ole Johnny Reb and them Damn Yankees learned a long time ago that the Minnie was much more accurate than a round ball in a rifled barrel.--So, does this hold true in a smooth bore?

Then there is the question of ----say, 000 buckshot. In an 8 bore, you could get a lot of them in the hull. Do you have a better chance of killing the deer at 70 yards with a bunch of 000 buckshot than you do with one round ball?

I don't know the answers, but now I am curious.

Daryl

I don't believe the 000 buck would retain enough energy to kill a buck at 70 yards - could be wrong. I shot a lot of black powder muzzle loading RB - it's easy to get air pockets, more so in the bigger RB's. You can eliminate a lot of this by having a cut off sprue plate on top of the mold about 3/8" thick. The weight of the lead in the plate weighs down on the lead in the mold and pushes out any air pockets. The neighbor showed me this trick. I made thicker plates for all my molds. I don't believe the mold Charlie got from overseas has a plate - at least mine didn't for my .68 cal. rifle. It's made of brass and round so it would be hard to add a cut off. For this reason I would weigh all my RB's - you'll fine some with air pockets. When I shot the Tradegun matches [ flintlock, smooth bore with no rear sight ] past 50 yards was getting iffy. You may have to limit yourself to a closer shot for a sure kill. Couple of years back I got a nice big doe at about 20 yards with a 12ga smooth bore Matchlock I had made myself. They are a PITA to hunt with trying to keep the wick burning at the proper length. It dropped in it's tracks. I used a .715 RB. The only sights was a shotgun bead on the front. Good luck.

i have killed deer with 00 buck in the 8 ga..but the old 8 s barrels have been cut off so no choke it will scatter the buckshot to much past 40 yards for a clean kill.. i know of a doe that was killed at 115 steps with a 12 ga single barrel useing 00 buck only one pellet hit the deer.the buckshot hit the deer rite in the ear it dropped in its track.so i believe the buckshot would have enough energy if the deer was hit in the vitals...young deer are fairly easy to kill but the big does and bucks can take a lot of hits and still get away.. i hope i can get the old 8 to shoot out to 50 yards but i know i ve got a lot of practiceing to do.. think i ll go load up a few rounds and try the 35 step target... charlie

I like a guy with tenacity and the courage of his convictions. You're da man, Charlie!!!!