Today the roundball is viewed as an anachronism, being relegated to buckskinners who stuff theirs in the other end of a rifle. Long experience has indicated, though, that roundball loads make sense in breechloaders too, and can do some tasks as well and a lot more cheaply, than an elongated bullet. New England Yankees, frugal as they are, never seemed to lose sight of this, since they never saw fit to send a man to do a man to do a boy's job if the simple, cheap load would suffice.

Serious reloaders, particularly the cast bullet buffs, found roundball loads worked well for small game and gallery practice. It was usually possible to find an acceptable 25-yd. plinker which used the normal battle sight setting on the Trapdoor .45-70, Krag, or '03 Springfield. Our Canadian co-horts applied the same wisdom to their well-used Sniders and SMLE's too.

Using suitable smokeless powders with a relatively light round ball of correct size, carefully loaded, you can get highly respectable accuracy which far exceeds the potential of the old blackpowder roundball loads used in breechloading rifles and handguns around the turn of the century. The twist rate limits the useful velocity level and accurate range, because of the ball's very short bearing length and the extreme softness of the nearly pure lead buckshot often used for this purpose. Use of home-cast roundballs of somewhat harder alloy, such as wheelweight metal will help, as does using a somewhat oversized round ball which is swaged down somewhat in the throat for a firmer bite in the rifling.

Slow twists, such as the 16" per turn of the .32-40, compared to the 10" per turn of the .30-40 Krag or .30-'06, permit higher velocities, and consequently longer practical range and better accuracy with roundball loads.

Many modern rifles which. are well suited for cast bullets, having moderate rates of twist, are also well suited for the roundball loads. Some of these are the .30-30 which typically has a 12" twist, the .32- 40 and .32 Win. Spl. with 16" twist, the .35 Rem, and .350 Mag. with 16" twist, and the various .357 Mag. and .38 Spl. carbines such as the 1894 Marlin with 16" twist and Rossi 92SRC which has a very slow twist around 30". The .38-55 with its typical 16" and 18" twists is ideally suited, though its modern counterpart, the .375 Win. with 12" twist should be OK. Most .44 Mag. rifles and the .444 Marlin have slow twists around 38" which will handle a round ball well. The .45-70 and .458 Win. handle round balls well with most of the common rates of twist from 16"-22".

As the size of the ball increases, of course, the weight goes up rather impressively. A .25 cal. ball weighs only 25 grs., though a .50 cal. ball twice its diameter weighs about 200 grs., eight times that of the .25 ball. Generally you should use a ball about .005" over groove diameter, so the ball can be pressed snugly in an unsized, fired case. This requires the minimum in loading technique, since you merely decap, reprime, charge the case and press the ball in with the thumb, wiping a bit of waterpump grease or bullet lube over the case mouth as a sealant and lubricant.

Fast burning pistol powders such as Bullseye or 700X give the most uniform results. These are clean burning in the small charges required. You must be careful about not using too much powder, or accidentally putting multiple charges into a case. I charge each case singly and press the ball in immediately, rather than trying to charge a whole group in a loading block. A brief shake will insure that you indeed did charge it also. No fillers of any kind are used in these loads.

Correct powder charges vary with the case capacity, but you should remember that all of these are low velocity loads attaining about 700-1200 f.p.s. A charge of 1⁄2 gr. of Bullseye would be adequate for a .22 Hornet, or about 1 gr. for a .30-30 plinker or up to 3 grs. maximum in the .30-30 case. The Speer No. 10 Handbook gives data for roundball loads in .44 Spl. (2.3 grs. of Bullseye for 500 f.p.s. with .433" swaged ball), .44 Mag. (2.9 grs. for 550 f.p.s.), .45 Auto Rim (3.0 grs. with .454" ball for 590 f.p.s.), and .45 Colt (3.2 grs. for 550 f.p.s.).

I have also had good luck using 1 gr. of Bullseye and size 0 (.32) buckshot in .32 revolvers, and 1.5 grs, with size 000 (.36) buckshot in .38 revolvers.

In larger rifle cases like the .375 Win., the .444 Marlin or .45-70 you can use 3.0 grs. of Bullseye for a plinker, up to about 4.5 grs. max in the .375, 5 grs. in the .444 and 6 grs, in the .45-70. Over the years I've shot thousands of rounds of roundball loads using Bullseye powder and carefully weighed charges. If you measure these, check your powder measure very carefully, dumping ten charges on the scale pan and weighing them in aggregate, adjusting the measure by trial until it's right on the button. Although a lot of folks use homemade charge cups with .22 short cases, etc, soldered onto wires for these (and I've done it myself) I don't necessarily reccommend the practice. With proper shook & struck technique you can get good charges this way, but simply running the cup through like a coal skuttle and slopping some in the case is NOT the way to do it. These loads are safe in my experience, but I'd suggest you start light, standing by with a rod in case you stick one in the bore initially, since I don't know if Bullseye powder has changed much over the years.

In .30-'06 match rifles I know quite a few fellows who got their gallery practice during the winter months using size 0 (.32) buckshot with 3 grs. of Bullseye and a large pistol primer. This load shot fairly well in the Springfield at 50 ft. The loading technique was the same, charge, thumb-press the ball in and smear waterpump grease, Ideal lube or tallow over the case mouth. If you don't flush-seat the ball, but simply press it in just snug, you can chamber it carefully and achieve a snug fit in the rifling origin which gives good gallery accuracy. We used to buy buckshot in 5 lb, bags for this type of practice, usually offhand, during the winter. You can also use 00 buck (.33 cal.) by running it through a .313" sizing die so it will be a press fit in the case neck, yet still chamber easily. This also gives a short cylindrical bearing to the "bullet", which helps accuracy.

We used to have lots of fun with roundball loads in the .45-70 and .45-90 rifles, using pure lead balls around 1000 f.p.s. The usual load with these 150-gr. .460" balls was 9 grs. of Unique or 6 grs. of Bullseye. Balls were seated flush with the case mouth.

Noise of these loads was mild, more than a .22 but without the crack which carried a long way. Their killing power on small game was remarkable, though, all out of proportion to their energy, I guess because of the large ball size. Also, though, the pure lead ball flattens easily at striking velocities over 1000 f.p.s., and a woodchuck or coon out to about 30 yds. or so is a sporty proposition with such a load.

In the modern .45-70 rifles such as the Marlin, these roundball loads do surprisingly well, and I have found they also do well in the other Micro-groove barrels of .44 Mag., and .444 and .357 carbines. 35

The .435" ball seems to work best in the .44 cals., and the 38" twist of the Marlins seems to favor a velocity of about 1150 f.p.s. A .363" ball at the same velocity works well in the .357 M1894. There are an ample variety of roundball moulds available today, thanks to the blackpowder clan, to enable about any CBA'er who wants roundball plinking loads for his favorite rifle or handgun.

The somewhat oversized lead ball which is perhaps .005" over groove size, swages down easily upon firing, creating a good gas seal, having a firm bite in the rifling, for a concentric launch, which is afforded by its fitting the case as tightly as possible, within the limits of easy chambering. The oversized ball is the trick, and permits far better accuracy than a ball of groove diameter. In rifles, the accurate range of a round ball seems proportionate to the weight and diameter, which consequently favors the larger calibers. Also, the larger calibers in blackpowder practice had relatively slow twists which favored the round ball.