Is it possible to make hollow lead balls?

Is the goal just to make a lightweight, high speed ball? If so, then I wouldn’t bother making it hollow, I’d just fill the space with something else. Like if you could find a .30 Aluminium/glass/ceramic ball, put it in the mold, then just pour lead around it. Not sure how you’d center it... maybe a tuft of Dacron to suspend it in the middle of the mold, then the hot lead would melt it down to nothing while keeping the center ball suspended? Or maybe a single very fine curl of shavings left over from drilling though aluminum? Thin enough to not mak a weigh difference, but strong enough to support the inner ball?
 
tigrr said:
Easy, buy a round ball mold and before the core solidifies tip it over and drain the inside out. Not sure why you would want to do that to a 147 grain .478 round ball though. 30 grains of ffg black behind it is lots of fun.
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That would not work. :)
 
The goal is to produce a high speed ball for competitive flintlock or matchlock muzzleloading (in my case in pistol) and the requirement is a lead round ball. A hollow ball I thought would all me to use less powder to achieve the same or higher velocities.

Not sure how much i want to invest in this idea just yet.
Brian
 
I’m aware some shooters are using a smaller ball than they would normally and are using a rasp to dimple the ball which increases the all diameter by ever so slightly.
 
Brian James said:
The goal is to produce a high speed ball for competitive flintlock or matchlock muzzleloading (in my case in pistol) and the requirement is a lead round ball. A hollow ball I thought would all me to use less powder to achieve the same or higher velocities.

Not sure how much i want to invest in this idea just yet.
Brian
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Are they doing tests on the purity of the lead? If you want a lighter ball, why not alloy it with a lighter metal, or make a smaller ball of something light and then put a lead outer jacket on it. You would have to be pretty precise on the concentricity of the ball and core, but a hollow ball would suffer similar challenges.

From a ballistic point of view I am pretty sure a heavier projectile travelling at lower initial velocities would have a higher BC and would perform better than a hollow or lighter than pure lead ball.
 
I know nothing about competitive matchlock pistol sports... I’m assuming accuracy is goal #1. Wouldn’t your performance be better served by striving for better ball consistency, and identical powder measures?

How would a higher speed ball help your game?
 
kodiakjack said:
I know nothing about competitive matchlock pistol sports... I’m assuming accuracy is goal #1. Wouldn’t your performance be better served by striving for better ball consistency, and identical powder measures?

How would a higher speed ball help your game?
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Just a guess here.....

But maybe they do a power factor type calcualtion based on ball dia and velocity?

This would accomplish the needed “power factor” of the sport in a light recoiling (quick follow ups) easier to control platform to gain some edge while gaming....

Personally I’ve always been a fan of heavy slow projectiles in target pistols...
 
A lighter weight lead ball that has to be a "ball"? Can you use thicker wadding to get to diameter down be a few thou?

What about using high zinc content lead? I know that a lot of casters swear at zinc in the melt, but it is lighter. Downside is that is a bit more of a pita to cast with.

I don't know how much weight I am saving you here. Maybe 10 or 20 grains?
 
Does the lead bullet have to be exactly a round ball, or can it be another shape? I'm also thinking of the "button collar" boolits. A flattened wadcutter looking kind of affair that is shorter than it is wide. I've heard of a few guys using them over on Cast Boolits as either a self defence load or as a practical joke at the firing range by putting 2 holes in the target with one shot (boolits are short enough that 2 can be loaded in a case and still weigh the same as a single boolit)

I don't know who makes the mold for these, but I am just throwing ideas out there
 
Brian James said:
The goal is to produce a high speed ball for competitive flintlock or matchlock muzzleloading (in my case in pistol) and the requirement is a lead round ball. A hollow ball I thought would all me to use less powder to achieve the same or higher velocities.

Not sure how much i want to invest in this idea just yet.
Brian
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There were good physics based reasons that lead was chosen to make bullets and round ball back in the day - one of which is that lead is heavy stuff. There are issues with using hollow lead roundball:

1. a hollow ball would have a markedly lower ballistic coefficient than a solid lead ball. The hollow ball would lose velocity faster than a solid lead ball and would drop faster.
2. a hollow soft lead ball would deform on firing. It would cave in and become a non-round chunk of odd shaped lead - and would be inaccurate and shed velocity faster than a solid lead ball.

This is not a good idea.
 
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