How much bullet dia. is too much. I try to get a really good groove dia. and then size the bullet 5 ten thou over. We all realize the bullet must be sealed (smokeless) So sealed is sealed, any bigger just produces bigger longer fins on the base and, makes the bullet harder to chamber which starts to deform the bullet but it seems most shooters talk about 1-2 or 3 thou over groove dia. what do you shooters think.  Ledball

ledball wrote on Aug 13^th, 2020 at 8:47pm:


Not always. I have at least two rifles capable of perfect scores with just over bore diameter bullets. When a bullet is breech seated or muzzle loaded can see light shining through the grooves. 

Alloy used in these rifles is rather soft at 40-1. Rifles have not leaded to date. 

Westerner, maybe smokeless will bump-up a bore sized bullet in 40/1 alloy.  Ledball

And I use less tin too. Tin doesn't grow on trees, you know. 

Geez, my posts sure are thread killers aren't they? 

I always used 20-1 or 30-1 until acquiring my first breech muzzle loader which I tried everything from dead soft lead to 20-1 in. It liked 40-1 best. 

My other rifles shoot it very well breech seating. If a rifle won't shoot the soft alloy accurate I start adding tin to the mix till it comes around. So then I have a bunch of hard lead and wind up shooting rifles that like hard lead till it's gone. 
Then it starts all over again. 

Oh the misery. But it keeps me happy and I get to shoot all my rifles. 

Here is a target from my first outing with the Hammerless Ballard acquired last summer. The bullet is tapered to fit the bore as close as I could get it. Alloy was 40-1. Used that combination at Glasgow MT last weekend. No leading and the rifle shot very good. The rifle appears to have a Hudson throat so bullets are seated about a quarter inch ahead of the case mouth to get into the rifling.