This is my first post here, and I can tell I like it already. I have been a reloader for close to 10 years, however, I have only really started casting recently. I have been shooting a lot of rifles recently, but at heart, I'm a shotgunner. I've been playing with slugs for years in smooth bore and rifled barrels. One I had real good luck with was a Shotgun Bullet Company "buckbuster" slug. I eventually ran out, as the company disappeared around the year 2000. Recently I have been shooting ballistic products LBC sabot slug, and with my ultra slug hunter, I am getting 2-3" groups at 100 yards, and a muzzle velocity of 1950 fps. I shot a couple deer with them, and they do the job, but what is really disappointing is the drop of these slugs at long range. Zeroed 2" high at 50 yards, I am getting 6-8" groups at 200 yards, but impact is about 30" low. I calculate a ballistic coefficient of 0.055. It doesn't get much worse than that. Its a slug that is pretty well topped out at 125 yards, which I am ok with. 75 yards is about all the range I need for deer. The only reason I wanted a good 200 yard load is because any inline muzzleloader is easily a 200 yard gun, so why not hunt with the muzzleloader? This year I wanted to try Ballistic Products sabot for .50 bullets, and found it to be discontinued. The only sabot I was able to find is from Slugs R Us. While it is meant to stay attached to the slug in the same way as the BPI LBC slug (killing the BC), I found if I slit them, the petals seem to open up pretty well. I have loaded up a few with 40 grains Longshot, and .50 Lee REAL bullets. I found with the .50 320 gr (casted 305 grain) Lee REAL bullets, they push rather easily through my ultra slug hunter, but fit very snug in my benelli nova rifled barrel. If results are promising, I may try a .510 bullet.
At the same time I'm thinking that I don't need all that range, so why not shoot a big hunk of lead? I am really intrigued by Accurate Molds 73-770S, which is a .730 slug that weighs 770 grains. 1200-1300 fps would still be point blank shooting to 125 yards, and would put a big hit on anything. I have always loved big slugs. I may have to slug my barrel, and get a mold.
On a separate, but related project, I am looking to get a .735 round ball mold to try in smooth bores. For this I am only looking for minute of pie plate at 50 yards, however, from what I have seen, these larger than bore slugs shoot much better than that. I would also try them in my rifled barrels to see how they do.