Muzzle loader bullets - shotgun slugs

[BULLETNOSE]

HELP ! ! - - - - Does anyone know if it is OK to use Lyman #2 Alloy to cast bullets for Muzzle Loading or Shotgun Slugs. Do they perform as well as pure lead bullets. Are there any problems or pitfalls to consider if using #2 Alloy for either of these. I see references on using pure lead, but no mention of using #2 Alloy.
THANKS

[HammerMTB]

I do both.
I cast a .50 cal 320 REAL boolit for my muzzlestuffer from WW. I use it for sighting and practice.v It is lighter than the pure Pb, and it won't expand, but it is
OK to load. You'd want to be mindful of how hard they are to seat, and be sure to get them all the way to the powder.
I cast the 525 Lyman for my 12 gs from WW. It won't expand, but that does not concern me, as a .700 hole is big enough without expansion.

[onondaga]

Muzzle loading bullets will be a lot harder to get started in the muzzle if they are a press in fit to the muzzle bullet. I have cast R.E.A.L. , a small batch just to try. I had to use a rubber mallet and smack them to start them before I could use the bullet starter. The big surprise was that they were more accurate than soft pure lead for me but way too hard to load.

I do cast my Lee 1 oz slugs in #2, only because that is the alloy I have the most of. The benefit is that the lighter #2 alloy translates to higher velocity. My slug velocity is over 1500 fps and the #2 will expand fine at that velocity but not as much as pure lead does, 80% instead of 100%.

Gary

[troy_mclure]

for a cap and ball revolver use only lead. i grabbed the wrong ingots once and made balls too hard to seat and broke the pin on the loading arm of my revolver.

[BULLETNOSE]

THANKS for the input guys. I will try casting some of each soon and then shoot a few.

[turbo1889]

I do have first hand experience in these areas so:

For a muzzle loader using harder lead creates two problems. Loading problems as already mentioned (you can use them in a cap and ball revolver just don't use the guns loading arm and instead remove the cylinder from the gun and load it on the bench) and sometimes leading problems if you are using a boolit too small for the bore and it doesn't bump up and you get gas cutting. The only thing worse to clean then baked in black powder fowling is baked in black powder fowling with iatrical lead reinforcement (leading mixed in with the fowling) especially if it leads badly on the first shot in a completely clean bore so the leading is under the fowling sticking directly to un-seasoned virgin metal.

Personally, for a true muzzle loader (not a cap and ball, must be loaded from muzzle) I only use hard lead boolits if they fully fill the bore and will not use an undersize hard lead boolit. I've learned me lesson about trying to clean a mixture of leading and black powder fowling out of a muzzle-loader especially some of the older side lock guns that don't have a removable breach plug. I also, like to prep such boolits to allow easier loading at the time I want to shoot by pushing them through a special press mounted sizing die very similar to the Lee boolit sizing dies made from a length of barrel (extra bought from track of the wolf for the home-builts made from their "sold by the length" barrels or cut off the end of the gun itself). With the boolits so prepped by pushing them through such a press mounted die those hard boolits already have the guns rifling profile engraved in them and all I have to do is line up the grooves and the muzzle and ram them home.

I also shoot a lot of hard boolits out of cap and ball revolvers. But as I previously mentioned I take the cylinder out of the gun and load it on the bench. I've even got a 36-cal cap and ball that I've got three extra cylinders for. That was my carry gun from when I was 18 until I was 21 since a cap and ball revolver is a loop hole in the law for legal concealed carry of a handgun by an individual under the age of 21 but over the age of 18. Bought the aftermarket high strength stainless steel cylinders for it and then swapped out the standard nipples for special conversion nipples that allow the use of musket caps with the petals carefully trimmed. Loaded them with a heavy charge and then capped them off flush with hard cast DEWC's pressed in tight to be flush with the cylinder mouth. Loaded that way it packs a serious punch with ballistics equivalent to a 38-spl +P load from a small cap and ball gun and goes off every time with the musket cap ignition with the caps edges sealed water tight with finger nail polish. If the SHTF situation had ever occurred for the first three reloads I would just be swapping in a fresh cylinder and after four cylinders worth of firing I figured I'd have a real nice smoke screen built up to cover a hasty retreat to a safe spot to do reload the really slow way with soft RB's and the loading arm if necessary and it would have to have been one heck of a lot of bad guys for me to go through four cylinders and still need to shoot more.

Now as to shotgun slugs, from a casting perspective, most SG slug molds are HB molds and using hard lead can make the slug stick to the pin which can become a PITA. This can be especially problematic with the Lee shotgun slug molds where the HB pin has that key slot in it. From a shooting and loading perspective there is the little problem with shotguns that have a bird shot type constrictive choke on the end of the barrel. With a rifled slug barrel or a cylinder bore (no-choke) shotgun there isn't an issue but with a gun with a choke on the end of the barrel if the slug is larger diameter then the choke constriction on the end of the barrel things can get rather interesting if the slug is made of hard lead. It becomes a question of whether the slug or the barrel is going to yield and the question takes place with the slug slamming into the constriction point at near fully velocity. I should note that unless one has an extremely tight (turkey) choke this usually isn't a problem with the slugs that are designed to go inside a shot wad since the slug is undersize by the thickness of the wad-petals which are plastic and those thin plastic petals are what gives if the slug is fired in a gun with a choke. This is mainly a problem with full bore diameter type slugs.