Cutting sprues in the 18th century?

I don't have much.

THE SOUTH-CAROLINA GAZETTE
July 28, 1766
CHARLES-TOWN
...large hunting horns, smallest size round trimmed swan shot, and FF gun-powder, Kirby's hooks, hanks of silk lines and fishing reels compleat,

Buffaloes in the Corn, James Wade, late 18th:
He ran all his bullets in a pair of moulds that had a knife in them to cut them off…. at the neck as they were run.

Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, Vol. 33 Printed 1904
Cadillac Inventory August 1711.
1 cast iron mould weighing fourteen livres, making seventeen balls on one side and, on the other, moulded flat.
1 pair of poor scissors to cut the balls.
1 small copper mould making nine balls lessening in size.

Joseph Doddridge, Notes on the Settlements and Indian Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania 1763-1783
Quoting Capt Teter preparing against an attack on his father's fort:
"….when you run your bullets, cut off the necks very close, and scrape them, so as to make them a little less, and get patches one hundred finer than those you commonly use, and have them well oiled, for if a rifle happens to be choked in the time of battle, there is one gun and one man lost for the rest of the battle. You will have no time to unbritch a gun and get a plug to drive out a bullet.”

Spence

Lead won't really dull your edge, and if it does, you have a bigger problem...

Very nice. Thank you Keith.

brokennock said: 
"I might try an old pair of scissors and see how they do, but, I'm suspicious that the bypass cutting style, as as apposed to the 2 edges meeting, will lead to an uneven cut."

I cast balls for my .54 with a brass bag mold which has shearing cutter just like the old original. The sprues are not symmetrical, but accuracy is excellent. The randomly shaped and sized sprues don't seem to be a problem.

I've been impressed that balls with significant damage will shoot well. I shot several which had been pulled, with a big screw hole in them, they shot into the same group.

Spence 

Tumbling does work to eliminate the sprues.





Problem for me is that as best I can tell, they shoot the same as balls with the sprue. I decided not to go to the effort.

Spence