Holy Giant Lead Balls Batman!

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soonerboomer

soonerboomer

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Holy Giant Lead Balls Batman! UPDATED: Tested/Patterned

UPDATED Post May 6, 2011:
Today, I went out and tried the Centurion load described below. Here are my observations:
1) The recoil was not as bad as I anticipated. About the same as regular buckshot.
2) It made a very unique sound when fired. It was kind of like a metal trash can lid being hit hard with a big mallet.
3) Its groups were tighter than I assumed they would be. At 25 yards the two .65 cal balls would pattern anywhere from 3"-8". Gun used was an 870 with a 20" barrel and an IC choke tube.
4) These so-called "groups" would not necessarily be centered to point of aim. While they would hit the 14"x14" paper, they would hit just about anywhere. (while this maybe poor shooting on my part, I do believe the patterns did have a tendency to float)
5) While this would be a devastating and effective defensive load inside of 20 yards, I'm not so sure I'd want those big .65's flying in my house. Buckshot is more predictable. Slugs are more accurate for longer distances.

Original Post May 2, 2011:
Just for kicks I purchased a very unique load made by Centurion. The item number is AC12RB2 and it features TWO .65 caliber lead balls. These lead balls are massive! :eek: I cut one of these shells open, along with some other shells for comparison (all are 12ga.). I've attached a picture. Here's what you're looking at:
Upper Right: Activ 7 1/2 Birdshot
Lower Right: Federal #4 Buckshot - 27 pellets
Center: Remington 7/8 ounce High Velocity Slug
Lower Left: Sellier & Bellot #00 Buckshot - 12 pellets
Upper Left: Centurion 2 X .65 caliber Roundball
It's notable that just one of the Centurion Roundballs felt heavier than the Remington slug.
I can't wait to try out this round, but I'm kinda wondering how my shoulder and the chamber of my shotgun will hold up. This is a very HEAVY load advertised at 1200 fps.
What do you think? Any experience with these?
 

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Turning your shotgun into a musket that will have an extreme spread due to bounce and surface area, and will be very unlikely to hit anything beyond point-blank due to low shot density. Sounds like a great idea. Or not.
 
What is their purpose? It looks like they are trying to bridge the gap between buckshot and slugs, but it would seem that this load has fewer positives than either...

Less accurate than slugs, less spread than buckshot.
 
Well, I bet they will put a hurting on anything they manage to hit. Bet they will put a hurting on you too! :D
 
that's noit true about the poor patterns. Paraklese Technologies makes a load they call bore shot, in both 12 and 20 ga. the 20ga load I have fired through a few different shotgons, pattern was to poa and never more than two inches beteween the two ball load. granted, these balls are .58 caliber, thats still close to the op's load.
 
Need to group them at different distances for us
Dixie slug make a shell that holds 3 of those balls believe they are 325 grains a piece
 
To: Kozak6,
For many, price is a consideration too.
The Dixie Tri-Ball costs $2.40 per round.
This Centurion Double-Ball costs $0.36 per round.
At that price I'll buy a box of Centurion to try out for kicks.
However, I would not buy the Dixie.

To: memphisjim
Yeah, I'll get out and pattern a few of these. It may be a few days, but I'll post the results here. There's not much out there written about these, but some are experiencing tighter than expected patterns (if you can call two holes a pattern).
 
What is their purpose? It looks like they are trying to bridge the gap between buckshot and slugs, but it would seem that this load has fewer positives than either...

Less accurate than slugs, less spread than buckshot.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be surprised if they were more terminally effective and penetrated better than slugs, at least at shorter ranges {less than 50 yards}.

Big round chunks of solid lead just seem to have some amazing effects downrange according to my own experience and those of some muzzle loader guys I've known.
 
I'm interested because I bought some myself but haven't made it out to try them
I've been aware of Dixie triballs for a while and yes they are expensive but most prohibitive to me is that you have to order them by snail mail

I do like interesting ammo for instance ddupleks hexolit32. Cost me over 3 bucks a round to get them to my door but they look like the nastiest things made

As for the 2x65 rounds I'm not sure of the purpose either If they stay relatively tight might make decent mid range hog load
 
The 12 gauge Dixie Tri-Ball .60 caliber pellets are hard cast, buffered and contained in a steel shot type wad. The other loads noted use soft swaged lead.
 
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I tested and patterned this load today. I posted my observations in the original post.
 
Please God, allow me to think up something really useless and make a lot of money on it...like mini-cannon balls for shotguns...
 
Dixie Tri-Ball compared to an equal weight of 00B

Three Tri-Ball buckshot weigh the same as 18 00B.
 

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It's a very, very, very old idea. Double ball loads in muskets and blunderbuss were ways of increasing short-range effectiveness and increasing firepower downrange. The buck and ball loads are similar. You lose velocity unless you increased the charge, which also increased recoil. Accuracy was scattergun level. But these were fair tradeoffs for a flintlock that took a bit of work to reload. There was also an intimidation factor, as anyone entering a fort would know that the huge wall guns 10 yards away were packed with double or triple charges.

In a repeating shotgun it doesn't make as much sense. And from your description of recoil it sounds like these are downloaded quite a bit for safety. So your velocity may be pretty low. Not that that matters at 25 yards with lead roundball. And remember that if you increase charges in a modern smokeless firearm using these "stacked" ball loads, you can end up with squished roundballs. This has been seen pretty dramatically with the stacked buckshot loads in .410 shotguns, where the last bit of buckshot is flattened out and useless. I would think hardcast like Dixie's would be the way to go, and I also like the idea of keeping them in a wad to prevent leading.

FWIW I've gotten best results in musket shooting with double ball by treating the balls as a column of shot. So I do not patch them and do not try to keep a tight grip on them. I pad them on the bottom with a wad and put a bit of padding on top to keep them in place. That gives me pretty workable patterns out to 25 yards with the .54 smooth and the 11 bore blunderbuss.
 
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in 20ga, paraklese technologies avertises 1200 fps with a load: 2 - .58 285gr (ea.) hard cast balls. Recoil is on par with 2 3/4" brenneke. Downrange performance is impressive versus either a single slug or a standard buck load on pumpkins and watermelons.
 
$

Costs. Dixie Tri-Ball and the Centurion Double.
For many, price is a consideration too.
The Dixie Tri-Ball costs $2.40 per round.
This Centurion Double-Ball costs $0.36 per round.
At that price I'll buy a box of Centurion to try out for kicks.
Click to expand...
The Dixie is $2.40 per round ($12.00 per five - shipping and handling included).
I googled the Centurion Double Ball and found boxes of ten at $9.95 (basically a dollar each) but....shipping was $13.24 to my address for a final cost of over $23.00 a box, about a dime per round less than the Dixie.
That $17.95 (plus $12.00 s/h) is a great price....$0.60 per shell by the time you get them. The issue is only how effective they are - pattern wise. I have tried the Dixies and they pattern - from my shotguns - as advertised, a very tight pattern at 40 yards - about three inches.
I will have to try the Doubles.
Pete
 
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Pete D. said:
Costs. Dixie Tri-Ball and the Centurion Double.

The Dixie is $2.40 per round ($12.00 per five - shipping and handling included).
I googled the Centurion Double Ball and found boxes of ten at $9.95 (basically a dollar each) but....shipping was $13.24 to my address for a final cost of over $23.00 a box, about a dime per round less than the Dixie.
That $17.95 (plus $12.00 s/h) is a great price....$0.60 per shell by the time you get them. The issue is only how effective they are - pattern wise. I have tried the Dixies and they pattern - from my shotguns - as advertised, a very tight pattern at 40 yards - about three inches.
I will have to try the Doubles.
Pete
Click to expand...
If you order over 5 boxes from Dixie Slugs ammo co. the price per box drops one dollar. Dixie also has a "Volume Order Incentive Plan" for orders of 10 boxes or more.
 
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buckshot

A Gimmick to seperate you from your Money

If I need slugs I wil use Brenneke
If i need buckshot I will stick with these
Federal's LE 9-pellet LE132-00 load @ 1,145 fps with LR Flight Control wads
 
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