Are my balls to big?

mr.e moose

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Now that I have your attention just a quick question to the more knowledgeable members out there.I recently acquired a Mk2* 3 groove snider carbine that I slugged the bore at approximately .587(the joy of accurately slugging a odd numbered groove rifle). I came across a video where you could reload for the snider using 24 gauge plastic hulls and .60 cal round balls.My question is that while I patch my muzzleloaders basically 10 thousands over is this a bit of a crap shoot with the Mk2* and the detent pin breech block?Would I be wiser to start with a .590 RB and see how accurate or not she be?
 
Check things out here .... despite the name, it is almost exclusively a 19th Century British military firearms site: http://britishmilitariaforums.yuku.com/directory

As you will discover by a little reading there, many of us shooting Sniders with a view to achieving some consistent accuracy are using .590 up to even .600 solid base conicals. The recommended round ball size seems to be .60 cal. - the area of a round ball in contact with the bore is pretty small, when you think of it. (I haven't shot round ball in any of my Sniders, but others report good results.

Assuming your rifle is sound, and you use black powder, a decent BP lube and a suitably soft ball, you won't be generating any excessive pressures ....
 
Well I guess my balls are to big.Spent a small fortune on some plastic 24 gauge hulls.Ordered a .60 cal round ball mold from the states and proceeded to cast up a couple of hundred balls.Made up a jig and proceeded to cut 50 hulls to the prescribed length of 2 inches.All set to go right?Well before I went too gung ho I thought lets make up a dummy shell with no powder and see how it fits.Well to make a long story short,it was a no go.Shell stopped short of chambering by about 5/8 0f a inch.Guess I'll dig out my .578 minnie mold and see if I can make a go out of that.
 
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