12ga Boolits?

[Bullshop Junior]

This may sound crazy but here it goes. Looking for opinions before I start spending money on this project.

For a long time I have wanted to pick up one of the NEF tracker 12ga rifled slug guns. Finally picked up a rusty old beat up one this summer for 50 bucks with a broken stock, and got it cleaned up and shooting pretty good with factory slugs.

As far as I can tell doing research the gun has a 1/35" twist as does the savage 12ga guns. Most of the others have a 1/26" or a 1/28" twist. Way more then enough for a 1.25oz slug (around 600gn I believe)

Now here comes my thing. Doing some research on boolit leanth and what not I have come to think that the 1/35 twist would support a 1400gn WFN style boolit. Bore on my rifle measures at .717" with the groove .727".

Looking online all I can find are 2.5" brass cases but I already have a few 3" (gun has a three
Inch chamber) so I'm sure if I looked hard enough I could fine more. If not, the inside of a federal roll crimped fired plastic haul is .711" so once sized that should be tight enough to hold a boolit as it would go a ways inside of the haul. I would like to use brass as them it would be more like a standard center fire cartridge.

Thinking I will start out using black powder after I have the mould and reloading tools made. For 2 reasons 1 I like the big cloud of smoke 2 not worried about blowing my gun up as much because something goes wrong.

What do you guys think? Is it something worth trying or am I wasn't brain cells?

[jmort]

Here is brass

http://www.rockymountaincartridge.co...s%20Prices.pdf

I would just go with 3" plastic. As far as boolit, some here are using a 1,043 grain slug (I think that is correct weight), which is this mold from Accurate stretched a bit, to good effect. Some day I'm going to get a 1,000 grain TL version. I would not go beyond the 1,000 grain range, but that's just me.

http://accuratemolds.com/bullet_deta...=73-900F-D.png

[Bullshop Junior]

Yea I'm kinda doubting that a 1400gn boolit would be fun to shoot. But it's not gonna be for fun. I had a run in with a angry 2000 lb moose this summer and then a grizzly soon after and the standard 1.25oz federal loads seemed a little light in the heat of the moment. Luckily I didn't have to shoot either.

[jmort]

There is a couple thread with discussion of the 1043 grain slug and users claim it is not too bad to shoot. Penetration with that slug at around 1,000 fps is serious medicine for anything on earth.

BTW fixed link for the brass.

[Bullshop Junior]

There is a couple thread with discussion of the 1043 grain slug and users claim it is not too bad to shoot. Penetration with that slug at around 1,000 fps is serious medicine for anything on earth.

But is it a typical style slug down inside the haul or is it loaded like you would load a 45/70
Or something of that nature?

[jmort]

It is full bore slug in a hull but not in a wad. you would need a O/P seal and a couple nitro cards to get to right height in hull. I'll see if I can get you a thread link.

Update: Check out this thread by cpileri, he is working with the 1043 grain slug and has posted some data.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...s-and-pictures

His most recent thread has 3.5" data I believe. He would be a good source for inspiration and information.

[Bullshop Junior]

That's interested. Would be interested in reading about that.

[jmort]

I updated post #6 above
Good luck, this is my favorite forum on this site

[longbow]

Greg Sappington had a mould made up for a slug of about 1000 grs. I have photos of it but I can't find the e-mail for details. I am sure he can provide details if you are interested ~ rifling twist, etc. His intent was bear protections as is yours.

Personally I like the old Paradox slugs which ran about 730 grs. One day I may work around to a rifled gun and get a Paradox mould made. James Gates (Dixie Slugs) posted drawings some time ago. I downloaded those for future use.

I have loaded slugs up to 800 grs. bit load data is scarce once you get over about 1 3/8 oz. Ed Hubel can probably help out with heavy weight slugs too as he loads for a lot of non-standard type stuff.

Recoil is a result of acceleration and ultimate velocity in the barrel length. If you load with slow powders and/or moderate velocity then recoil shouldn't be bad.

I have to think that a 730 gr. slug at 1100/1200 FPS is adequate for most things though. I would have to look up the article but Ross Seyfried got an original Paradox gun shooting well with the standard old Kynoch designed boolit and did some hunting with it. Even at moderate veolicity that 12 ga. boolit is impressive.

Longbow

[Bullshop Junior]

The thing I was really hoping to achieve I suppose is to have a 12ga or 72 caliber rifle
Like cartridge that has a typical style boolit that sticks out of the case and engages the rifling. I guess I was kind of hoping to get a more accurate round with a lot more know down power then say a 45/70 that would be good to about 100 yards.

[Bullshop Junior]

I really don't know much about this. I remember when I was a kid (9 or 10) my dad bought me a NEF parser 12ga with the smooth bore modified choke. I remember at one point buying boxes of the cheap $2 or $3 a box 12 bird shot opening up the crimps and dumping the shot out and putting in a roundball. It I was to buy a round ball mould for making 12ga ball loads what diamiter ball would I even want? I was looking at the lee .690" for maybe using with a wad or the Lyman .735" for just using with a little boolit lube and a cardbourd wad.

[bikerbeans]

Bullshop II,

The Tracker II you have is a much slimmer profile barrel than the 12ga H&R Ultra Slug Hunter & Savage bolt gun barrels that folks are using with the slow burn rate rifle powders and the heavy slugs. Just be careful what load data you use for your gun, I would talk to Mr. Hubel and others before loading the really heavy slugs.

FWIW, I have an HR 12ga USH LITE, which is the same barrel you have except it has a scope rail and no sights. I am shooting a 600g fullbore slug at about 1500 fps from this gun with good accuracy to about 100 yards. The slugs I have are water quenched WW that is heat treated so might be something you could use. I also have this same slug w/o the hollow base and it weighs 750 grains, but I have not worked up a load for them in this gun. Send me a PM if you are interested and I will mail you some of each to try. I will also include the load data provided with the slugs & some nitro cards and gas seals.


BB

[Greg5278]

The Slug I cast is roughly 1043Gr in WW with 2% Tin. It was tested at the Linbaugh Seminar, you can google the results. It will handle Bears or Moose as is. They can be HT and will not deform. Recoil at the 1080FPS level isn't bad, but is rough when you go much higher. I would doubt you want to go with a 1400Gr Slug. The heaviest Slug I could find for an older 12 Bore Rifle was 1200 Grains. I don't think you could push it fast enough to be any better than the 1043 one.
Greg
AKA 12 Bore

[cpileri]

I have shot greg's 880's and 1043's out of both 7-LB and 12-LB guns, its not at all bad out of the 12-pounder; definitely gets your attention (i.e. not recommended) out of the 7! The details of my gun and recoil pad, etc are in the thread thet jmortimer linked to.

Here are the results of Greg's loads at the Linebaugh seminar:

"The test gun was a stock Savage 210 bolt action fully rifled slug gun. (24 inch barrel) This gun with scope tips the scales at 8.2 pounds.
The loads were as follows;
880 grain slug at 1048 fps
880 grain slug at 1441 fps
1043 grain slug at 1080 fps

One test in water soaked newspaper, and the second test is water soaked newspaper with a full size beef femur placed approx 4" into the stack. Distances are fired are around 15 feet

The 880 grainers at 1048 penetrated 36" average in plain paper and went 4"paper+bone+ 18" average with the bone emplaced. Our bones were the beef femurs and were better than the size of a fist. The bullets recovered in paper were undamaged and the ones thru bone lost a nose portion if the first driving band and at times sheared to the second driving band. Those that were to the second band weighed 550 grains on average and those that were less damaged I couldnt weigh on a 750 grain scale.

The 880's at 1441 fps penetrated 45" thru paper and 4paper+bone+26" additional paper. Bullets recovered in plain paper were undamaged and thou bone lost the nose portion to the middle driving band, weight was 540 grains average.

The 1043 grainers went thre 48" paper on average and 4"paper+bone+ an additional 36 inches of paper. Plain paper bullets were undamaged and the ones thru bone showed only peened nose portions back to the start of the truncacted cone. I took them to a friend that had a 1000 grain scale and he couldn't weigh them on it. They survived well"

I personally founf that the 880's loaded w 60gr IMR SR-4759 for ~1440fps/14.5kpsi were the most accurate. But in general, i absolutely LOVE these slugs!

And it does look like a giant centerfire rifle cartridge. Not as cool as a 700 Nitro Express, but still cool.

C-

[cpileri]

Here is a close-up of the slugs:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?214287-Range-update-with-750-grain-69-conical-musket-boolit&p=2423921&viewfull=1#post2423921

[cpileri]

Here is how pretty the copper slug looks in a brass case:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?207869-Test-of-Hubel-Sabot-and-other-ammo-with-pics&p=2330214&viewfull=1#post2330214

[Bullshop Junior]

Why copper slug? Why not just standard lead alloy?

In a side note, I killed two grouse with my gun today using some old reloaded buckshot I made abou 5 years ago for my last gun.

[Garyshome]

I don't want to shoot anything that big! Sounds like it might hurt.

[Bullshop Junior]

I don't want to shoot anything that big! Sounds like it might hurt.

I would rather have a hurting shoulder and a dead bear.

My gun is pretty light. Especially now that I added the light weight synthetic stock...but it shoot pretty good and I'd like to see how much I can throw out of it and still have good accuracy and range to at least 100 yards. Kinda planning on using this gun on moose next year if I get a good boolit I think will work.

[Greg5278]

You can always add weight to your Gun to make Recoil a bit more tolerable. If the Stock Hole is large enough, you can pour a 3/4" piece of copper Pipe full of Lead to place inside. What I do is: put the pipe in a heat resistant Container full of sand, with an old penny in the bottom of the Pipe. That will add about 1# of lead for each 3-4" section.

Ithaca gunner, I have several Ithacas that I fire these Loads in. One is about 9#, and the other is 11.5#. They aren't to bad in a heavy gun. The heavy gun is used to fire test loads, and the really heavy recoil stuff. You should cast the slugs from your Mold with WW and a little Tin, that will harden them up, and make them a little lighter. The Mold you mention is a copy of my 770Gr slug, someone had Tom at Accurate copy mine. It shoots well in most guns, as long as you use the right length Hull. If the gun takes 3" hulls, then use them. The recoil isn't to bad for loads under 1200FPS, about like a Turkey load. I hunt with the 770 at 1390FPS. I sight in and practice with them at the lower velocity, and then hunt with the other. The zero won't change, only drop about 3/4" less at 100 yards. You won't even notice the difference in impact. The longest shot for me was 85 yards, and the result was one Buck DRT.

I use my Sabots and brass bullet for longer shots. The copper slug Carl mentions was made, just because I wanted a non Lead slug to shoot.
The outfit owed me for a machining Job that they couldn't complete. I've machined them from Brass and copper, including ones with holes all the way through them. They needed a machined .200" pusher to support them in the barrel. They cut like a hole punch through things, leaving 7/16" diameter discs donwrange.
Greg
AKA 12 Bore