Hammerhead slug from slugs 'r us

In another thread Hatcreek mentioned the SPW sabots from Slugs 'R Us. From what I can read it seems like a drop kick to buy the mold, cast some up from COWW, load 'em in their custom sabots and shoot cloverleafs! Not much input on this site so thought I'd bring it up and see what the downside is from some of you who have actually loaded these things. Seems like nothing works in the sabot like the hammerhead (from what I can glean from other sites) although they say almost any 50 cal (in the 12 ga) will work. Who's gonna enlighten me?

A few years ago Hastings made a sabot slug called lazer accurate, it was the spw wad with the hammer head slug, it was crazy dead on, I have loaded the spw with a 320 .50 cal R.E.A.L on top of WSF they to shot great but the hammer head by far was more accurate, I see they make the hammer head mold now, I'm leaning on purchasing one and see if I can dubb the Hasting round, I have fired a lot of slugs of different brands both homemade and taylor mades, by far the Hastings was the best. Regards HC

They are soft lead and do shoot well from reports I have read. I think part of the accuracy is due to the unitized non-discarding wad. The wads are expensive, but for hunting not too expensive.

Orange wad is the hammer head taken from a hasting shell, next is a 320gr Lee R.E.A.L in a SPW wad and next is a 20ga SPW with a .44 cal 240gr pistol cast bullet. HC

I'll take your word for the accuracy, as for the soft lead, I can fix that if I buy the mold. You are right looking at their expansion test, just complete flattening. Coww would be about right if they cast to size. I sent them an email asking the inside diameter and depth of the sabot but haven't heard back. Hatcreek, you can prolly answer that. I imagine a good tight fit in the sabot is key to accuracy.

Two things:

- good tight fit in sabot
- cushion leg doesn't distort badly at firing

I recovered some Gualandi DGS slugs and was surprised at the distortion of both wad and slug. They shot quite well to 50 yards (one keyholed) but the recovered slugs and wads really didn't look to good.

I tried some heavy steel shot wads that looked like they had the same or at least very similar cushion leg to the DGS slugs but they collapsed even worse and accuracy was not very good. These were loaded with tight fitting slug in unslit wads ~ Hammerhead like.

I should see if the Hammerheads are available in Canada. I would like to see the wads close up and personal. That has been my biggest issue with consistent slug accuracy ~ wads.

Is Slug 'R Us selling moulds directly? I guess I'll check their website to see what's going on.

Please post if you get a mould then cast and load your own Hogtamer. It'll be interesting.

Longbow

I just got an email back from them with the dimensions as follows:


SPW 12ga length: 1.550 inches
SPW 12ga cavity depth: 0.620 inches
SPW 12ga cavity diameter: 0.50 inches

And their web site has pretty good pics of the wads. Says the OD is .727 and their slug weighs 420 with pure lead. The mold looks like a lee type.
http://www.slugsrus.com
The wads are $.40 each.

It is probably cut from a Lee blank

It does look like a Lee mould alright.

Hmmm, just looked through the site and note that they say "For Rifled Barrel Shotguns Only". I would have figured that the weight forward design would work reasonably well in smoothbores too. Maybe not weight forward enough. Oh well.

Maybe one day I will go rifled but not yet.

Longbow

They look very similar to Remington Buckhammers.

FWIW, you can still buy the Hasting's Laser Accurate slugs. The original hasting's slugs were produced by Breneke and about a 2 years ago Brenneke staring making these slug and selling them under their brand. My son has a Rossi single shot rifled 12ga that loved the Hasting's slugs and he get the same accuracy with the Brenneke slug.

BB

I've been looking at that mold....sabots are 40 cents....mold 70.00 I've been trying to think how many sabots would I buy to make sure I had them if something happened to slugrus and they closed down. I spent 120.00 buying lightfields commanders to reload this year 100 rounds.....same price maybe I should have bought the mold and 100 sabots.....but I'd hate to have a mold and not be able to get the sabots....I was thinking I'd want 500 sabots before I got the mold

What happens when you shoot these slugs through a smooth bore.

The are, as you probably know, "for rifled slugs only." You can get 20 wad/slugs readY to load for $15 and see how it goes. No reason you can't try. Would be interesting and potentially fun.

I inquired but they offer no discount on quantity of sabots. I thought maybe there might be a breakpoint at say, 300 sabots only. I may order a few complete ones to try. Thinking about this mold as they say virtually any 50 bullet will work....
http://leeprecision.com/mold-500-354-m.html
The sabot weighs 70 grns plus this minie would give you about a 1 oz. load, so lots of possibilities as to charge/recoil.

I am real interested in there sabots as I have a savage 220 and Rem Accutips are hard to find and when I do there very expensive. I need to call and ask some questions I have about there product.

We have got to come up with a Sabot/Wad assembly that is "Fin Stabilized" for smoothbores.

The big Lyman 525 slugs are like big airgun pellets and as such are weight forward. Figuring out a way to attach the wad to the slug semi permanently seems like it would add the accuracy most are looking for.

Maybe a cross between those BPI Rubber Boolits with a lead nose section would be the thicket?

Maybe something that worked like a Badminton Bird?

Randy

Quote:

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We have got to come up with a Sabot/Wad assembly that is "Fin Stabilized" for smoothbores.

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I've been thinking along the same line for some time now...

My boss has ventured into the injection molding business and I now has access to machinery and material necessary to produce wads.
Once my Brenneke slug project is finally finished (could be any year now [smilie=1:) I'll make a test mold for a polypropylene wad with fins and a "snap-in" internal solid lead slug (the slug mold allowing for adjustable weight). If things pan out right and the interest is there, perhaps it could lead to a "do-it-yourself" group buy project where we ship wads and slug molds to a Cast Boolit member "honcho". That scenario should prevent any legal hassle over exporting/importing ammunition parts.

In the mean time, a merry Christmas to you all.

Cap'n Morgan:

Take a look at the old BPI AQ slugs. The were essentially a 12 ga. round ball with a cavity if about 3/8" (10mm) and a flat bottom. They had a plastic wad with a stem that pushed into the cavity and helical ribs. BPI sold them but I believe they were made somewhere in Europe so may still be available there.

I got very good accuracy from them so tried to copy them using round balls and hot melt glue wads cast onto the balls in a jig. I used both cavities and wood screws to anchor the wads to the balls in various experiments but found that running a #10 flat head wood screw into the ball worked best. Some shot very well giving impressive accuracy but getting the wad consistency is difficult using hot melt glue.

Now, injection moulding would take care of that!

Anyway, I may have a jpeg of an AQ slug if you can't find one but I am hesitant to post right now because twice I have tried to post photos recently and then everything crashes and I cannot get back into the site. Not sure what is going wrong as I have never had problems before.

Hmmm, might be best if you PM me your e-mail then I can e-mail the photo.

I have also made TC solids with hot melt glue wads and again, some have given pretty spectacular accuracy but too many fliers due to wad inconsistencies. For those I used a screw in the base.

A nice consistent wad would solve it I am sure but hot melt glue in jigs/forms just isn't good enough.

And yes, Merry Christmas to all!

Longbow

Hah! Just had a thought so went and looked. Here is a link to a Midway page with the AQ slug:

http://www.midwayusa.com/Product/557...-1oz-bag-of-25

Last time I checked BPI quit stocking them but here they are anyway. These were extremely accurate in my Browning BPS with smoothbore slug barrel.

Longbow