Any shotgun slug shooters out there?

[44man]

I have been casting the Lyman wasp waist slug and shot a bunch the other day. I had fliers at 100 yd's even though they shot good at 50 yd's. I use the WW red wad and 4756. I seen the wad petals were cut off and the bore had lead in it. It looks like the powder is too fast, expanding the slug hard enough to cut off the petals and causing the leading. I use pure lead. I was getting 3" groups at 50 offhand. It is a Remington 870 12 ga, with a Hastings rifled barrel.
I am going to try Blue dot to see if it stops wad damage.
Any suggestions?
I don't hunt with it, just have fun shooting at targets.

[StarMetal]

44man,

Boy oh boy, I know this one. I had bought a single shot H&R rifled slug gun in 20ga. I scoped it. I bought that Lyman "pellet gun pellet looking slug". Used AA winchester hulls. It shot like a rifle at the range I sighted it in for which was 80 yards. Then it started to go to heck. I tried everything. It was shooting basketball size groups. I noticed in finding the wads on the ground that some were complete, some had the fingers missing, some one or two fingers missing. Through more testing and investigation I found that when the wad was complete, the slug was on bullseye. When pedals were missing the slug shot wide. I knew there was a correlation, but hadn't figured it out, so I called Hornady. I got a tech and told him just what I typed here. He said easy, he asked if I was using new hulls or old ones. I said well I started out with new ones, then everything went south. He said yup. He said new hulls are smooth inside. Once they've been fired two-three times they get real rough inside and grab the wad very very tight and the pedals get destroyed. He said he preached this and preached this to skeet shooter, but they didn't want to believe it. He said for a test cut the top off a new shell, you can pull the wad out with a pair of needle nosed pliers real easy. Then he said tried that with a reload shell that had it's hull shot two-three times, you can't pull the wad out without tearing a piece out of it. He's right and I knew that part, but didn't put two and two together. I went back to new hulls and once fired hulls. My accuracy came back and was consistant and I didn't find torn up wads on the ground either.


Hoe that helps.

Joe

[Scrounger]

Joe, I want to try that game,too. I was thinking about using once-fired paper hulls and not reloading them again. You think that would work?

[swheeler]

Joe is correct, he gave me this same info some time back, and once I got rid of my 2-3 fired hulls things went back to normal. I use the Lee 1 oz slug in 12 ga, AA wad & hull, WW 209 and 34.0 grs Herco( data shows 36 grs but it is too hot in my mossbooger) does about 1450 fps. I also tried moly coated wads, put them in a container and tuble w/ 1/2 teas of moly powder, helps slick em up, but good hulls is the real trick, after 2-3 firings the inside of that hull is like alligator skin. I don't remember accuracy right off hand, but have some 100 yd targets here somewhere, minute of deer for sure. The Lee drive key slug has a nasty habit of "capturing" the wad and dragging it along to the target, then groups really suck, I believe it was Sundog using a card wad under the slug to prevent this, haven't tried it yet- heck don't think I've taken the gun out of the safe fior a year or two.

[StarMetal]

Art,

I think paper would be smoother, plastic get's pretty rough inside after a few firings.

Joe

[44man]

Sounds good to me. I did have some once fired shells and some that were fired twice. I dusted the insides of the shells and wads with motor mica but maybe it didn't help. I will make a test by picking out some once fired ones and some that are rough inside. I will pick up the wad after every shot to compare them.
I will keep you all posted.