Mystery solved.

For months I have been trying to locate the source of a .127 ball bearing that appeared on my work bench. For any of you that have taken something apart and re-assembled only to find parts left over, you know the feeling I have been having. During that period of time I had worked on a bunch of SAI NM rear sights with the bearings and a few Savage bolt rifles that I took apart the bolts and put them back together. Being sure this freaking bearing came from one of those jobs, I went back over them all to no avail.
By chance today while loading a few hundred Berger 150 fb bullets I found a duplicate of the mystery bearing in the bottom of the container I dump bullets into for loading. Source turned out to be from one of the 100 rnd Bullet boxes from Berger. I have no idea how they might have found their way into them, but they were sealed when I opened them and dumped into the container which I had just cleaned and dusted this morning so I know it wasn't there earlier. Whatta Hobby!


Attachment 8100

Wonder if Berger finish tumbles their bullets with the steel balls?

Had a PM on another forum with a very good possible explanation that brought out a good belly laugh. " Judging by the size it could be a snowflake ball ". And all this time I thought snowflakes were balless bags of hot air.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NF1E

Had a PM on another forum with a very good possible explanation that brought out a good belly laugh. " Judging by the size it could be a snowflake ball ". And all this time I thought snowflakes were balless bags of hot air.

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:biggrin-new::biggrin-new::biggrin-new::thumb::thumb:

Had a very nice email reply from Berger stating that the bearings were used in part of the manufacturing process and occasionally one gets into packaging.

Sounds good to me.

When I was trying to coat my boolits i used a jar with bearings in it along with the coating powder. They were .125" though and not .127".

That was kinda common back when people first tried moly coating bullets. Some tried shotgun shot thinking it would not deform the bullets as much. But, it meant that most of the moly ended up on the shot and not the bullets, so they went to steel ball.

When we tried coating cast bullets with moly (and some other stuff) the steel balls also worked better, for the same reason.