Lee 1 oz 12 gauge testing

[rsrocket1]

Finally got around to casting, loading and shooting the Lee 12 gauge 1 oz slugs I got the mold for in December.
After casting another 1000 9mm bullets, at the end of the session I got the slug mold warmed up and made about 100 nice slugs. The mold filled out nicely and I made sure the alloy was nice and hot.

I've loaded 1,000's of 12 gauge skeet and trap loads and a few dozen buckshot loads, but never any slugs but after lots of reading tried my hand at loading slugs.

I looked for wads that I already had and found that the Claybuster CB-4100 Lightning and CB-4118 Windjammer wads as good candidates since their 8 petals are thinner and not tapered like the thicker 4 petal wads. The CB-4100 is tall and would work better with my 18.6g Red Dot test load. The shorter CB-4118 would work with the bulkier 22.8g and 24g Unique loads. I tried the CB-0178 (WAA12L) and CB-1100 (WAA12) and the loaded round would not fit in the chamber of the gun. The petals would have to be cut off and that would make the slugs rattle down the barrel. The petals of the Windjammer/Lightning wads took up enough space for a nice fit in the chamber yet was thin enough to fit in the shotshell without bulging the hull sides.
Attachment 139399Attachment 139400

Since the blue Windjammer wad has a deeper cup, I would need a spacer to hold the slug up higher. I had some Dacron pillow filler left over from testing reduced rifle loads so I rolled and packed it into the cup and the slug sat up high with a card I punched with a 1/2" pipe sharpened up with a grinding wheel.
The slug fit nicely in the CB-4100 without any filler, just the card at the bottom to help release the slug from the wad once the payload exited the barrel. Once everything stacked up in the Remington Gun Club hulls, the crimps looked good. These were loaded one at a time on a Mec 9000GN.



At the range, the loads chronied from the low 1200's to the mid 1300's with the 24g Unique load showing the lowest extreme spread.


I only shot these at 25 yards because I didn't know whether these shots would even hit the paper. They did. I aimed center of target with the first two Red Dot loads and hit very high. All subsequent shots were aimed at the bottom of the oval. My Remington 1100 has a vent rib with only one bead in the front so precision aiming isn't very good.



I tried to aim down the corner of the vent ramp, then center the dot. Looks like the group was somewhat consistent at least. I'd like to try this at 50 and 100 yards, but I don't think I can even aim this gun consistently at that range. My skeet and trap shots are typically only 25 yards and the pattern is close to 3 feet. Oh well, these loads are very mild on the recoil side, not much heavier than my typical 3/4 oz 1300 fps skeet load. This will be a fun plinking load that hits hard when we go out shooting. It was a fun experience.

I could kick myself, I forgot to look for the wads after shooting these loads, I guess I'll have to load up some more and try them out again. Maybe I'll try 50 yards at least to see what the drop would look like. I did see tufts of Dacron floating away at less than 10 yards with the CB-4118 loads so I know the wads released pretty quickly.

[glenr1]

Interesting, Waiting on my 1oz and 7/8 oz molds along with the wads from BPI and Amazon today. http://www.ballisticproducts.com/load14_04_25.htm Is their loads of the week for the Lee drive slugs and assorted powder. Since I havd no supplies it was easy in choice of wad and I sourced the powder from the LGS. They only had the L078's in stock.

[Treeman]

Rsrocket1, Something that you can try with the thick petaled wads is cut half the petal height off. The Lee slugs are tapered toward the heel so cutting the petals so that they hold the base of the slug centered in the bore but are not bulging the hull/bearing on the widest point of the slug works.

[rsrocket1]

Rsrocket1, Something that you can try with the thick petaled wads is cut half the petal height off. The Lee slugs are tapered toward the heel so cutting the petals so that they hold the base of the slug centered in the bore but are not bulging the hull/bearing on the widest point of the slug works.

I will do that. I have several other wads that might make good candidates but I don't want the widest part of the slug to be the widest part of the load. I might need to fiddle around with the cut petal height until it misses the wide part of the slug, but is still wide enough for a snug bore fit once the payload exits the hull. From what I've read, a good bore fit is key to accuracy in a smoothbore shotgun barrel. That would also mean I may need to get something more rigid than Dacron pillow filler to set the slug on so that I can get a definitive stack height.

Then again, the base of the plastic wad may be expanding enough to center the wad down the barrel and I only need to keep the slug centered within the wad. So even if say half of the slug is exposed, so long as it's centered in the wad, it may still be good to go.


Thanks for the suggestion.