What 69 caliber RB mould

[Bill Stallings]

What are the go to 69 cal moulds for smoothies in the N-SSA? Gonna purchase a smoothbore eventually. Also whats the favored lube?

[efritz]

Bill
You will find a Pandora?s box of what people use. I suggest you shortcut right to the best sources. Seek out and engage in conversation with proven winners. Obviously what firearm you wind up with will determine what you put in it. You can pm me if you wish to discuss.

[John Westenberger]

There is an ooooold thread on here, from 2012, titled "Smoothbore theory". It's 12 pages long and has lots of information and things to try. I read through it when I started shooting smoothie last season, and kept trying their ideas until I found one that worked. Eric Fritz (Who commented above) is an exceptional resource for smoothbores. Those 149th PA guys really have smoothbore down to a science. I farmed out to their B team for a regional last season, and watched their A team miss only a handful of shots the entire match!

But, I will comment, having bought a smoothbore and gotten it shooting more recent than most...

Moulds are a problem these days. There isn't a roundball mould with sprue cutter made anymore. But these are what's out there that I've had experience with:
https://www.ballmoulds.com/ is a great source for single roundball moulds for sizes down to the thousandth.
https://www.martysarms.com/ is where I got my .680 mould. He makes gang moulds, but only to the hundreth of an inch.
Lee .690 mould. You can probably play with alloying to get the lead shrinkage down to where you need your ball diameter to be. Seems like a hassle.

You'll find many use liquid alox lube, some people roll each ball between farrier rasps before using the lube. I don't, but I may try it when the weather improves before nationals. Personally, my setup is this:

1842 springfield with bedded whitacre barrel, .680 roundball with sprue trummed off. Rolled in a tupperware with liquid alox twice, then before each relay, put a dollop of musket lube on top of each round. Every shot is smooth as butter. The musket lube wasn't necessary for ease of ramming, making little difference, but I noticed it helped with the cleaning, since smoothbores are dirty!

[Maillemaker]

I use an RCBS .678 round ball mold roughed up with either files or my Vortex Ball Roller machine.

This mold has been discontinued so used is your only option.

Then double-dipped in Lee Alox (I use Xlox a competing equivalent).

Lee will make custom molds and will have a nice tangent-cut sprue plate. It will be pricey though for a Lee mold.

Steve

[Sven205]

I use a Russian mold sized .678 for a 42 repro. Svarog is the name.
Its a nice double cavity aluminum mold that has a sprue cutter similar to a Lee.

[PoorJack]

There are pages and pages on smoothbore stuff but here's what I found to work with my gun. First off, my gun is a "Macon" that was made from a cut down Armisport 1842. The bore measures dead on .690. My mold drops at .685 with pure lead. I tried all the Aloxing, dimpling, farrier filing, and so on. Then in frustration, I tried shooting the ball as cast, with sprue still attached with 65g 3f Swiss. Only thing I did was load with sprue down, and the exposed part of the ball dipped in musket lube. A Shazam moment ensued. Best grouping I've ever gotten with that gun. Group in the pic is that load shot offhand at 25yd with a called flyer.



Accuracy is about variable control. Smoothbore has tons of variables but at this point, I'm convinced that windage is a key variable and if not, why go to great lengths to dimple or otherwise mechanically deform the ball?