Lee Minie Bullets as 20 gauge slugs

[Harmon_Greer]

Hello,

I have been experimenting with lee minie bullets in .575 diameter with my 20 gauge shotgun and using them as wad/sabot slus.

the best load i have came across as far as accuracy goes is 22.0 grains blue dot, waa20 wad, win 209 and a federal paper basewad plastic hull that comes in the value pack ammo.


i need to order a bag of the BPI trap commander wads. the few i tried looked really good and fit the slugs the best.


BTW, the gun is a mossberg 500 with a 26 inch barrel, cyl bore choke. at 40 yards the slugs are still point first but are starting to yaw. a rifled choke tube is on its way.

[DODGEM250]

Keep me posted on your testing.

[Harmon_Greer]

did you ever shoot the ones i sent you?

[Harmon_Greer]

i cast a few more of these out of wheelweight alloy. getting the hollow base to completely fill out meant running the mould hot enough that the sprue would tear out leaving a divot in the bullet nose. its not going to matter much for shotgun use, but i would like to have perfect bullets.

perhaps i need to add a bit of tin to the mix. the void in the base of the bullet was at the deepest point in the hollow.

[Harmon_Greer]

i am getting some wad failures with the Waa20 wads and 22 grains of blue dot.

some of them will fly straight and true but occasionally ill get one that tumbles. and you can see the wad petals land really close to the muzzle, 10 or 15 yards and the rest of the wad will be 20 yards or so down range. I think the trap commander wad fits the slugs better and will be less prone to shear off.

i might be asking too much of this to shoot out of a rifled choke tube. to hit the rifling at 1300 fps may be too much .

[Harmon_Greer]

here is what im loading.

federal top gun paper basewad hull
win 209
yellow pc wad
22.0 grains of blue dot.

lee minie ball, both styles.

lyman 350 grain sabot.


after i ditched the winchester wad, the gun really started to group good. the rifled choke tube leaves deep marks in the recovered wads and at 25 yards( all the range i have at home) they shoot into one hole with the wadcutter type lee minie ball,

the longer more bullet like minie ball still tries to tumble. its base is sharper than the other and i suspect its cutting the petals off the wad as well.
22. grains of blue dot is not enough for the lyman slug, it occasionally gets a blooper and a barrel full of unburned powder.

more pics to follow

[Harmon_Greer]

the wads:

yellow pc wad with evidence of rifling and bullet impressions. BLOWN WAA20.

[Harmon_Greer]

more blown winchester wads along with the PC yellow.

i am going to order a bag of BPI trap commander wads to test. i have some remington RXP 20 wads to try, they however dont work well with the lee minie bullets. they appear to be better suited to the Lyman 350.

as of now i am out of blue dot, switching back the 4756 for testing.

[DODGEM250]

I'm curious why you spend so much time worried about the end result of the wad. It does its purpose to the end of the barrel, once the wad exits the muzzle, who cares what condition the wad is in. its only purpose is to get the payload to the end of the barrel.

That rifled choke is ok if you have a smoothbore using rifled slugs, but, your failures are due to the choke catching the wad at the end of the run. a rifled choke will offer some last minute drop kick spin, but, I'd never depend on a rifled choke for accuracy at a distance.

This is why I only use the .58/wad combo in a fully rifled barrel. I sling them out to 75+ yards at 3" or less groups. Drive tacks most of the time.

[DODGEM250]

did you ever shoot the ones i sent you?

Not yet, still waiting for a break in the weather and work bench action to get out and do some shooting. The weather has been less than desirable on most free days here.

[Harmon_Greer]

the wad failures ended up with a tumbling bullet.

the gun is shooting the lyman sabots good with remington RXP20 wads and 25.0 grains of imr 4756