Help me pick a slug design for a custom mold!

[Blood Trail]

Ok fellers, I fixin to order a custom mold for sabots 12 ga. The sabots I use are .50 cal so the design has to be the same. I'm thinking 2 maybe 3 different design in the same mold. I know for certain I want a slug design in the 350 gr range and one in the 500+ grain range. Which would u pick and why?

Help me out!

http://www.accuratemolds.com/catalog.php?page=13

[OnHoPr]

What sabots are you using? BPI Blue RS12s, What are your ideas, a nose pour with adjustable base core pin? Straight wall design with no lube grooves. Might help with the length to find what your twist and speeds your gun might like.

[Blood Trail]

What sabots are you using? BPI Blue RS12s, What are your ideas, a nose pour with adjustable base core pin? Straight wall design with no lube grooves. Might help with the length to find what your twist and speeds your gun might like.

I'm using both RS12 and the SlugsRus one piece sabots. Not sure what an adjustable base core pin is or does. I only have two mold: 1 oz Lee Key slug and a double 60 cal round ball mold for making triball loads.

Quick question: would u still need lube for grooves if they're fitting down in a sabot?

[Blood Trail]

BTW, my slug gun is an 835. I believe the twist rate is 1:35

[jcren]

Adjustable base pins are like hollow-point molds turned upside down. The sprue is on the nose of the bullet and the "bottom" or base of the mold is a full diameter plug. You can move the plug further into the mold to make lighter bullets and vice versa.

[Blood Trail]

Adjustable base pins are like hollow-point molds turned upside down. The sprue is on the nose of the bullet and the "bottom" or base of the mold is a full diameter plug. You can move the plug further into the mold to make lighter bullets and vice versa.

Ok, no adjustable base pins. If u look on the website, those have to be outsourced.

Was looking for some slugs to fit in a .50 cal sabot

[OnHoPr]

I have an 835 with cantilever barrel as well. I have shot the RS12s, but needed to do more testing on them before a herniated a disc turned a little intrusive. I was testing the Lee 501 440 gr, but it needs a GC or the GC shank milled off before loading in the sabot. I don't think the RS12s will take a real heavy load unless tweaked somehow. I was thinking about adding a IIRC 11/16 fender washer to the bottom of the sabot for support. Then Ed Hubel came out with his sabots which really looked good for the 58 cal, but I haven't been able to get around to those. I will give a guessing opinion that the straight walled slug might give more consistent pressure to the WHOLE sabot insides to give more pressure to the outside of the sabot which is engaging the rifling. With the RS12, look and see the length of the inside of the sabot to see how long a boolit slug will fit. From what I hear the shorter slug may be more appropriate for the twist, but it may be also determined with the speed they will be coming out the barrel as well. Whether you fold or roll crimp might be another factor. The PP slugs on that page you linked can be PPed to the correct dia.

[bikerbeans]

This might help.

BB

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-sabots-anyone

[Blood Trail]

I have an 835 with cantilever barrel as well. I have shot the RS12s, but needed to do more testing on them before a herniated a disc turned a little intrusive. I was testing the Lee 501 440 gr, but it needs a GC or the GC shank milled off before loading in the sabot. I don't think the RS12s will take a real heavy load unless tweaked somehow. I was thinking about adding a IIRC 11/16 fender washer to the bottom of the sabot for support. Then Ed Hubel came out with his sabots which really looked good for the 58 cal, but I haven't been able to get around to those. I will give a guessing opinion that the straight walled slug might give more consistent pressure to the WHOLE sabot insides to give more pressure to the outside of the sabot which is engaging the rifling. With the RS12, look and see the length of the inside of the sabot to see how long a boolit slug will fit. From what I hear the shorter slug may be more appropriate for the twist, but it may be also determined with the speed they will be coming out the barrel as well. Whether you fold or roll crimp might be another factor. The PP slugs on that page you linked can be PPed to the correct dia.

I've been experimenting with RS12 sabots and 350 XTP. I've got some promising loads that needs slight tweaking. I put a felt wad under the slug to help with the blowback.

[Blood Trail]

How does this sound for a .50 cal boolit for sabots?

http://leeprecision.com/mold-dc-c501-440-rf.html

[OnHoPr]

As mentioned above that is the one I was using, just never got around to because I didn't acquire checks or get a end mill. I did get an end mill because then I could cut off all kinds of GC shanks and round or pointed noses of other boolits. One of the major reasons that I chose that boolit is for having such a LARGE metplat it has a BC of .296 which is phenomenal for that style of boolit. If you could get that boolit at 2 MOA you could shoot a looooong way with that slug and have thumpum at any range even @ 1500 to 1700 fps. It will also fit in the muzzleloader. I tried pure Pb, 55/50, and WQWW. With even a medium load, all of what the naked RS12 will handle and pure Pb the slugs will turn pentagon sided out of the berm, but mushroom, still kinda flew somewhat straight or at least after trying to factor in all the details. The 50/50 faired a little better in holding its shape round wise, but started ripping the bottoms apart. The WQWW really tore up the bottoms of the sabot. This with trying to push them from about 1400 to 2000 fps. I never did try and real low powered loads like 1000 to 1250 fps, though the boolit would still put a thumpum on a deer pass a 100 yds with one of these boolits at that speed. A few of the loads were good enough to hunt in the thick stuff with the longest range about 50 or 60 yds which I did with them, but that's about all. Like I said a lot more developing and tweaking was needed for a real good load, under 3 or 4 MOA. The 350 XTP might fair a little better being lighter with less stress on the base of the sabot. I seen a few of the targets on the BPI website. It also seems they somewhat make the jump through the 3.5" chamber.

[Blood Trail]

I've been hit or miss with the blue sabots and XTP boolits. I think the problem is my crimps. Too inconsistent. I had developed data that had these shooting 5 inches (minute of deer) at 100 yards moving around 1400 fps. I lost all my data when I left my range book in the bed of my truck and it rained. So now I'm back to square one.