sprueless CAST rb?

[1858rem]

recently i bought lees double cavity rb mold in .454, after i cast the first balls i realized there was no sprue! i do see a small flat spot where the sprue plate cuts the lead though.... do i still need this (very small) flat pointed up like a sprue. i have been loading them like swaged balls, still taking care to not have the flat right against the cylinder wall though, just pointed up, not always perfectly strait up though... would this make a huge difference in my accuracy?
last time i shot any roundball in this gun it was more than a year and a half ago, using hornady swaged balls, so i dont really have any idea what my groups were like back then.

 

[Smokin_Gun]

It don't matter how you load um but I can't help but put the sprueless flat forward anyway. Years of habbit I guess.
All I use are lee molds for that very reason and the price , aluminum molds are a plus in my book and closer to the old brass molds only better, IMO.

SG

 

[scrat]

i either load flat up or flat down. to avoind getting flat on the sidewalls

 

[1858rem]

ya, gaps are bad anyhow you look at it

 

[arcticap]

For several reasons, I think that which way to load the flat of the ball is largely an academic question without much consequence.
Let's suppose that the flat edge of the ball is not loaded up or down but sideways. The flat only covers a small percentage of the surface of the ball's diameter. Let's estimate that as being 15%.
Then the ball is loaded and a ring of lead is shaved off all around the diameter, making the percentage of the diameter with the flat spot even smaller. Let's say the original 15% has now shrunk to 7%. That leaves 93% of the surface diameter of the ball unaffected by the flat.
Does that small 7% gap leave part of the ball unsupported when it travels down the barrel upon firing?
No, probably not. That's because the 93% of the surface of the ball that's unaltered is supporting it as it travels down the barrel. The other 7% that may still be flat doesn't matter at all.
I doubt that it even affects accuracy much at all, especially at relatively short pistol shooting distances.
This same type of flat spot occurance happens to .22 LR bullets when they enter a gun's chamber after being stripped from a magazine, and part of the outside diameter of the bullet will often get gouged by the sharp lower lip of the chamber. There's not much if any consquence unless if one is an Olympic shooter and is concerned about such a minute imperfection.
And pistol sights just aren't all that accurate to begin with to cause a person to notice any difference at all during shooting.
Also, I've had an air pistol match shooter tell me how he partially squished the skirt of .177 air gun pellets and then fired them through his match air pistol without noticing any accuracy difference at 10 meters. He said that his shots still landed inside the 9 ring which is the same accuracy average he shoots when using perfect & unsquished pellets.
So while the projectile's imperfections may matter at some point, for practical combat pistol shooting purposes it shouldn't matter at all what direction the round balls are loaded into the cylinder.
Just some food for thought.

 

[scrat]

you ever have a ball that you press in and only get a semi circle or not that thick of a ring around it. happens all the time. some times a .454 out of package or from you molds will come out .453. then when you press it in it gives you a semi circle. Well thats why sprue up or down not sideways. what if just so happens you put it sideways and then get a semi circle ring. happens. so sprue up or down. Then grease over balls regardless of wad under the ball. this will help prevent flashes coming from all directions.

 

[arcticap]

But since the edges of the chamber are round, so what if the shaving is a semi-circle?
Plus the ball is getting slightly squished or "swaged" out of perfect round by the chamber too.
So an imperfectly cast round ball is being formed to match chamber dimensions, the gap is pretty small and may not even extend all of the way to the back of the ball.
I can understand the theory of loading the flat up or down, but does it really matter in practice? Especially since the ball (and chamber) dimension is usually smaller than the grooves anyway.
If the flat spot happened to be positioned mostly over a groove, it wouldn't touch the inside of the barrel or rifling much if at all anyway.

 

[1858rem]

ya gotta note pellets and .22's are hollow based though, i have seen that little chunk taken out of 22 lr, it would be ok with them cause ya dont gotta worry about chain fire though. thanks about the thought on accuracy though. jus far as chain fire goes... id like to load flat mostly up.