Wads for 12ga slugs

[GBertolet]

I am having problems with wads blowing up into the hollow base of both my 12ga slugs. My slugs are the Lyman Forster and a Rapine 550/730. I've tried nitro cards and even an additional plastic gas seal under the slug, with no success. I often find the wads on the range collapsed, and even sometimes holes blown in the plastic gas seals. Grouping is terrible. But, if I fill the bases with hot melt glue, both slugs group fairly well. This tells me that this area is the fault. I can't procede with any load development until I get this issue resolved. Any suggestions from you slug loaders out there?

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Greetings GBertolet, try just a shot cup with a 16 or 20 gauge nitro card in shot cup below the slug and a .170 thick dark nitro card from BPI in 12 gauge on the OP wad that you cut off of the wad, do not fill the hollow base of slug and try to see three shots this way and report back with pictures of the wad etc after firing!


Polish your forcing cones as they could be having tool marks.





The above set up works very well for polishing the forving cones, try it in a hand drill!
Hope it helps.
Ajay
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[DODGEM250]

I use my Lee 1 oz Key Drive slugs in a VP-5 wad from BPI. I only trim the top 1/16" off of the petals for the proper height and it seats in the cup just fine.

NOTE: the key drive partition in the base of the slug is supposed to make contact with the base of the wad to act as a key lock to make the slug spin properly in the wad, hence the name "Key Drive". Adding overshot cards to the base of the wad defeats the slugs designed purpose. When the key drive partition leaves an impression in the base of the wad, it is supposed to do that, by design.

[GBertolet]

Thanks for your responses. My Lyman slug casts at .708. I'm not sure if I can add another .0035 to 40 of wad petal thickness on top of that. Going through my .725 groove diameter rifled choke tube is going to be a little tight. I have been trying WSF also. I am up to 29 gr in my tests so far. I am attaching two photos. One of some recovered wads and the other is of my two slugs. The wad on the far left is a Ballistic Products GS2, blown out into an off center cone shape. The other two are .135 nitro card wads. I have been paper patching my Lyman slug with self adhesive mailing labels, which adds about .0010 to the diameter. It's a snug, bore riding fit through the rifled tube. For the the Rapine mold, I made a sizer die to bring the size to .728 and am lubing with liquid alox. No leading to this point. This mold seems to be the most promising so far, but I am still trying to keep an open mind on all possibilities.

[eye shot]

I would suggest not to use a forster slug in a wad cup or did you mean a 525 Lyman? I like to see wads look like this after firing 525's. The key for me is a slow burn powder so they don't get all that pressure all at once.

[Greg5278]

You can use a sitable size polyethylene ball in the base. I have gotten them Salem Ball company in the past. They stay in the hollow base, and do not allow the wads to impinge. You can also try hard wool wads if you can find the right size.
Greg

[tommygirlMT]

The Rapine mold --- that be a good one --- I ingerited my mans old one after he traded up to a custom mold to replace it --- he had a second base pin made for it that casts solid with no hollow base for use in rifled barrels --- I mainly use it with that pin but I have also used it as original with the original hollow base pin --- I found best solution was to load powder and wad column inside hull --- then take slug upside down nose down and fill up base to slightly overflowing with cream of wheat cereal --- then hold hull with powder and wads upside down in one hand (use good tight nitro cards so the stuffy dont fall out when it upside down) and load the slug into the hull upside down so it holds the cream of wheat like a cup with the other hand and seat it up against the wad thumb pressure tight and then put it back into the loading machine and apply pressure on the slugs nose with the ram and then crimp it (fold or roll depending on what Im doing)

Yes --- you can hot glue fill the bases as well --- and you could also have a slot cut in the hollow base pin like on the Lee slugs but you will have to have that done professionaly by someone who can do it right --- I tried to do it myself with a Lyman 525 mold with a hacksaw and I didnt get the slot perfectly centered and straight in the pin and it made the accuracy worse not better because the resulting slug was off balance --- so you would need someone with a milling machine to do it right since it has to be cut perfectly on center otherwise it will $crew up the balance of the slug

In addition --- you can also take a penny which is 3/4 diameter and gently hold its middle between your fingers and put its edge up against the edge of a spinning grider wheel so that the contact with the grinding wheel spins the penny as it grinds down its outer edge and thus uniformly reduces its diameter --- with a little practice you can know how long to hold it up against the wheel to take it down to 73 caliber diameter which is just a little bit off its rim and then you can use it under the slug as sort of like a gas check that isnt attached to the slug but just sits under it --- it works good especially for the hollow base full barrel diameter slugs since it caps off the bottom --- but you have to be careful of that penny as it goes down range since it will tend to spin and twist off of the main line of flight and can hit just about anywhere down range and do some considerable damage within about 30 yards or so --- I killed a Chrony with one of them so make sure that when you shoot with a load that uses one of those under the slug that for 30 yards out there isnt anything you dont want hit with a ballistic penny for about ten yards to either side of your shot

[GBertolet]

Thanks for the additional responses. I am going to try a delrin wad under the slug. I am hoping that this will give me the support that I need. I have a short piece of 3/4" delrin rod, which I can make a few wads to try.

[longbow]

I am shooting in smoothbore but had similar problems with hollow base slugs. I wound up filling as tommygirl says using cornmeal then hot melt glue. The hot melt glue is much easier and works fairly well.

My Lyman Foster slug casts at 0.705" so is much undersize for the bore but too big to fit in any shotcup I have found. If cast of soft lead they do slug up to fill the bore but in my experience they often tilt and I could not get decent accuracy even using Lyman recipes. I tried paper patching to bring the slug to bore size and that worked pretty well but I still got fliers. Paper patching might help with rifled choke tube and size can be made exact to bore by choosing paper thickness.

I wouldn't use adhesive labels though as if they shred but remain attached they will affect accuracy. As with PP boolits, you want the patch to shed from the slug completely.

I think you will be better off using the Rapine slug if it is groove diameter or larger. Personally I think it is a better design than the Lyman and I got some good results from Rapine slugs in my smoothbore ~ much better than I ever got from the Lyman.

I have given up on hollow base slugs for my smoothbores though and am now making Brenneke type slugs or shooting round balls.

Just a thought to save some work. I have used polyethylene sheet to make under slug disks and they work well. I use kids "Magic Carpet" snow sliders as they are cheap and available where I am (at least in winter). It is easy to punch out disks using a 3/4" hole punch. I would have to mic it (never checked thickness) but one or two under a slug and over a nitro card wad help.

For ease of loading (I am lazy) I like to use slugs or balls that fit into shotcups ~ no fuss, no muss, no punching, no cutting, load 'em like shot loads with maybe an under slug card wad depending on slug. The Lee Drive Key slug fits into a standard shotcup so meets that criteria.

Not sure how they work in rifled choke tube but most reports I have read are that they work well to excellent in rifled barrels and do well from smoothbore barrels. After years of loading various slugs, I have never tried the Lee but picked up my new mould yesterday so will find out how they work in my smoothbores soon. I also plan to use it as a basis for an attached wad slug too.

You might give the Lee or a round ball a try. If you get hooked on slug shooting you will probably try a whole bunch of things!

Longbow

[GBertolet]

Thanks Longbow, I learned much the same things you did with the Lyman forster. I have a lathe, and am half tempted to use a boring bar to attempt to open up the mold, or at least put two driving bands on the slug body. I miked a current Remington forster slug, and it was .727 diameter. Years ago they were about .710 diameter. I seems Remington learned too. I made up a few dozen 1/4" delrin under the slug wads today. If it ever stops raining here, I will load up some with the Rapine mold, and try them. Blue Dot and WSF seem to be promising powders for this slug.

[longbow]

I have had pretty good results with Blue Dot though it doesn't seem to be popular with many. I have used it with slugs as light as 437 grs. and as heavy as 800 grs.

Mostly I used it because I had a published load for a 610 gr. solid slug so knew it was safe for the 0.735" RB. It worked well and I had lots so I kept using Blue Dot.

In the past I have used many reloading manual recipes and have tried a variety of powders but most being significantly faster than Blue Dot as seems typical with many slug recipes.

I have had IMR4756 recommended to me so have some of that to try now as well.

From what I have seen, I think slower powders are easier on wads/gas seals than the faster powders. Not to mention that you can likely get higher velocity at lower pressure but burn more powder.

Yeah, I am not sure what the companies making Foster slugs were thinking when they made them so much undersize. They slug up to fill the bore anyway so if there is a choke they have to squeeze back down. Might as well start them out bore size.

SluggerDoug posted a good article on how he knurled Lyman Foster slugs to make them bore size and how much it improved accuracy. You should be able to find the post using search.

Also, Buckshot modified a Lyman mould by doing just what you are talking about ~ added three bore diameter driving bands if memory serves. Again, search should get you there.

Longbow

[Greg5278]

Delrin, will probably shatter on you, depending on the thickness. I have tried it before, the discs should be .200" or thicker to avoid problems, the hollow base may cause issues. I used the .200" ones under other slugs, but cannot remember if I had success with hollow bases ones.\
Greg

[shotman]

get the buffer filler and fill the slug base it will be gone before the slug gets to target.
tommygirl--- that penny could be another bullet that you dont know where it will go

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Hello Tommy Girl, tell us your place where you shoot with penny loads, because we will all be there to collect pennies and to admire this Russian beauty shooting penny loads!
All these years Turbo has been collecting pennies, now the secret is out and we will join in the fun!
You have a great day!
Ajay
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[DODGEM250]

Just for fun / future reference. I use a BPI Commander (020TC20) with my 20 gauge slug setup, which is actually my Lee Mold #575-452M .58 Minie, I use one 1/4" BPI fiber wad (14C20) under the Commander. This is my "cheaper" answer to the Remington BuckHammers I have been using in the past few years. The .58 in the second picture is a different grain than the .58 in the first photo, this is why I added the 1/4" fiber wad to take up the space from the old component version I had.