molded slugs in Pheasant shells

[jhalcott]

Met a guy at the range yesterday. He was shooting Remington shells that he dumped the shot out ,melted it and cast slugs with the shot. He then cut the shells even with the shot cup petals. He never removed the cups or powder! He seated the slugs in the cups. He was getting some reasonable 75 yard groups, but about 5 of them had a slight bulge about 1/2" from the mouth. The bulge prevented full chambering and gave stiff extraction. He was using a bolt action shotgun. He had some factory slug loads for comparison and his groups were pretty good with both factory and reloads. I was wondering how safe was it to just replace the payload with a slug. would pressure/velocity be that much different? He had at least 2 pierced primers in the reloads out of 20 rounds fired!. He claimed those were shot in an H&R single barrel gun.

[Kskybroom]

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[UNIQUEDOT]

When doing this the pressure will actually be lower with the slug than it was with the birdshot and sometimes considerably lower due to the crimp being removed, but this only applies to rounds that are not bulged and of course those that chamber easily. I would not feel comfortable sitting beside someone that is forcing oversized slug rounds into the chamber of a shotgun and firing them.

[longbow]

I am with UNIQUEDOT here. The general rule of thumb is that for same weight payload slug loads will develop less pressure due to less sidewall friction in the bore. Shot drags all the way.

However, that applies to proper fitting slug loads.

The bulge he was getting may be due to the type of wad. Some shotcups have internal ribs that do not suit slugs well. I used to have a bunch of Remington shotcups that had internal ribs.

Do you know what slug he was using? I was assuming at first the Lee Drive Key Slug but it could be the Lyman sabot slug too.

Not sure what a slightly tight fitting shotcup/slug combo does to pressure but it certainly wouldn't do the shotcup much good. Squished petals usually deform badly and sometimes shear.

The pierced primers sounds a little strange to me anyway. Even high pressure shotshell loads don't normally cause flattened or pierced primers. In my experience, you get sticky extraction before any other obvious signs of pressure.

Need a little more info as is sounds like something else is going on here.

Longbow

[Blammer]

as long as the slug dia he was making is not too big for the choke he should be just fine.

[Firebricker]

I'm all for a little experimentation if it's safe but I don't see what advantage he could be after. The first pierced primer should have been a big old red flag shotguns are low pressure guns. FB

[longbow]

It all depends on what slug he is using. If a Lee or Lyman sabot slug they are designed to swage through a choke. If the slug is solid, very thick skirt or actually bore size and not supposed to be loaded into a shotcup then maybe not. If bore size, I doubt he would get it into a shotcup to begin with then it likely wouldn't chamber anyway. Haven't tried it so I am not positive on that one but I doubt it would chamber.

The choke may not do do the wad or accuracy any good but the slug should not hurt the barrel if it is designed to go through a choke, and most commercial slugs are with few exceptions in my experience. Dixie full bore slugs being one exception there.

It would be interesting to see the pierced primer ~ was it pierced due to pressure or long firing pin?

I have shot some unintentionally hot loads that gave very difficult extraction due to pressure but i have not seen a flattened or pierced primer. That was in my early days before I found out that one should not mix and match shotgun reloading components ~ hulls, wads, and primers are not created equal, seemingly small component changes can have dramatic effects on pressure.

Longbow

[jhalcott]

A casual obsevation of those pierced primers makes ME think it was a firing pin problem. They were NOT flattened but had a hole in the edge of the primer in each case. Like a key hole! ONLY five of the cases were bulged and I did not see the cups before or after he loaded the slugs. He said that he had emptied the pellets , recast them in to slugs then loaded them into the shells with the cups still in them. His groups at 75 yards were about 4 inches in diameter. I only asked about what he was doing when I saw him trying to extract a shell with "some" difficulty. Shortly after this he left the range. He stated that the 5 pierced cases came from an H&R single shot. It did worry me to see him pound on the bolt a few time ,then pound on it to extract the shell.

[longbow]

Okay, if he had to pound the bolt to extract, that implies either high pressure or the "brass" head of the hull was expanded too large for the chamber (whether by pressure or being shot in a larger chamber). If the plastic is bulged by an over size slug/wad combination, that shouldn't cause extraction issues.

Before I got my Mec Sizemaster I had a few issues chambering unsized hulls between guns sometimes simply because one has a larger chamber. If the brass head is swelled, tight in = tight out. If the round chambers easily but has to be pounded out then that is an indication of high pressure.

However, in any case pounding on the bolt to chamber or extract is hard on the gun. I wouldn't make a habit of that.

Just my thoughts.

Longbow