Rifled Pump Shotgun... Advice?

[Mr_Sheesh]

W.R.Buchanan - Look up "the 12ga from Hell" thread, IIRC it's maybe started on the AR site but it is ALL over the web - Those are just about what you are thinking of maybe? It's even on the Zombie Squad forums. That could do you nicely here; I'm not sure I want one (well, of COURSE I want one, but more "if I dare get one and mess my shoulder up" probably!) - Could load it gentle though if needed, and maybe make it to use cut down 50BMG brass so you'd have to do some extractor work or ?? For sure could use brass 12 Ga shells.

https://thefiringline.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=197214

[longbow]

While I am impressed with what Ed is doing and it still makes me laugh when I read the size and velocity of his projectiles, or maybe giggle is a more correct yet less manly term. However, I am more interested in using shotgun hulls or brass shotgun shells and more or less "normal" slugs.

At one time long ago I had the vision of a side by 12 ga. with rifle sights being loaded with brass shotgun shells filled with powder and nice slugs (think Paradox/Kynoch slugs) and getting 4" to maybe 6" groups at 100 yards using both barrels. More like a fantasy! Okay in a smoothbore, Brenneke Classic slugs. Either way, still fantasy!

I have an article by Ross Seyfried on how long and hard he tried to get an old double barrel Paradox gun to shoot to factory specs, which he did in the end... 5" groups at 100 yards using both barrels.

I have to think that to achieve that with a side by shotgun in my price range shooting slugs from smoothbore barrels would be nothing short of miraculous at this point. Getting smoothbore slug accuracy that good from a single barrel gun is not easy if even truly possible then to try to do it from a double barreled gun that will not be properly regulated, well... not likely!

On the .73 cal. rifle issue, one of our biggest hurdles I think is the forcing cone. A big difference between rifles and shotguns are in cartridge to chamber fit and the leade... shotgun forcing cones are not the best for accuracy and my understanding is that even rifled shotguns have a long "forcing cone".

Gregg Sappington got a reamer made to cut a chamber like a rifle chamber. A chamber cut like that and using brass shotgun shells would likely improve things considerably. Ed Hubel is effectively doing that on steroids and using large thick walled brass cartridges to do it.

Ed's results should answer Randy's question about just what the accuracy potential of a true .73 cal. rifle can be.

One other issue regarding accuracy is (I think anyway) that we are shooting short fat slugs of large diameter. They are ballistically inefficient and with large diameter so any irregularities, voids, etc. can be on a much larger radius than "normal" rifle calibers so more easily causing wobbles or irregularities in flight.

Me, I'll be happy if I can shoot groove diameter slugs or round balls into 6" at 100 yards consistently. Not looking for elusive 1 hole groups, just consistent decent 100 yard accuracy from shotgun slugs.

Not sure how Hogtamer figures I'm going to get you guys to pay me to post free advice but I like the way he thinks! What about it? Maybe he didn't mean it quite that way but...

Longbow

[W.R.Buchanan]

I will shoot my 20" Mossberg at 100 yards with Federal Low Recoil Slugs off the bench and see what it does.

I got 2.5" at 50 yards offhand so maybe there's more there that I just don't know about?

Really the good thing about these shotguns is that anything you hit with one is pretty much toast, which leaves some room for less accuracy.

But like anything else we need to find out what it will do if pushed. Should be a fun day.

Randy

[gpidaho]

Randy's quote at the bottom of his posts is what keeps us all going. I moved from bench shooting jacketed bullets to cast for the sole purpose of adding a few more Jokers to the deck. For now at least, my interest has moved to the shotguns. Why, well it's hard to do in a consistent way. In retirement it's nice to have a project that makes you scratch your head a bit and I really appreciate the helpful way many of you have jumped in to answer the questions of a NewBee slug shooter. Booliteers are a pretty generous group in general but the guys I've met here in this subforum are some of the best. Thanks to all. Now I just have to wrap my head around the idea that a six inch group at 100yrds. just isn't THAT bad. Gp

[longbow]

I have to get out and do some more shooting myself. We've had one of the worst fire seasons ever this year and not only was the local range closed due to fire but I was reluctant to go into the bush as was so dry. Not sure why the forest wasn't closed this year but the government didn't totally ban forest use even though the whole province was on fire. The bush has been closed in the past when conditions were bad. The local fires were all caused by lightning not people though.

Anyway, we are into fall weather now. We had a wet spring, scorching summer and now looking like cool wet fall. Safe to go into the bush and shoot in the wet and cool though.

gp, if you've been following my posts at all you have likely seen that I have been "struggling" with slug accuracy for years. Like I said, I read a lot of what I think are optimistic posts about accuracy using smoothbores. I had too high an expectation of potential accuracy from reading "optimistic" information.

It took me a while to get there but I found that out to 50 yards or maybe stretched to 65/70 yards with smoothbore the plain old round ball is a good performer, easy to cast and easy to load. HB slugs are generally harder to cast (my Lyman Foster is a royal pain!) and in my experience do not generally do any better than round ball loads and mostly worse. I have in the past produced consistent round ball groups at 50 yards of 4" or under. Few home leaded HB slugs or Brenneke clones have been any better. However, at somewhere past 50 yards (maybe 60 to 70 yards) round balls tend to drift due to random spin (picked up by air drag due to imperfections on the surface in my opinion). Sometimes they can do quite well all the way to 100 yards but mostly not so good and unpredictable much past about 60 yards.

I was expecting better accuracy from HB slugs especially at longer ranges but so far they really haven't been that good. I've watched many youtube videos and read whatever I could find and it seems that keeping full bore slug groups under 6" at 100 yards is not that easy. I've watched videos by bubbroundtreeoutdoors, TAOFLAEDERMAUS, Shoot To Kill, and others and I am beginning to think that the elusive 4" group at 100 yards from smoothbore is largely a myth for the home reloader.

I read articles like:

"Slugs are better now. To 75 yards they have become extremely accurate. My current favorite is Brenneke's K.O. , which has an attached plastic wad that works like the tail of a badminton bird to keep the the slug flying straight. Stores around here stock huge piles of K.O.s prior to deer season and sell them for very little. At 75 yards they will shoot 1 ½" to 2" groups all day, which was unheard of when I started deer hunting. At 100 yards they usually print 3"-4" groups but the K.O., like any smoothbore slug, often loses stability somewhere between 75 and 100 yards and one may tumble far off target. Federal's TruBall is another smoothbore slug I have had very good results with but it, too, goes subsonic somewhere past 75 yards and destabilizes."

from PHIL BOURJAILY

and:

"We fired the TruBall ammo from an off-the-shelf Remington 870 (Cylinder Bore, 20-inch barrel) with 1.5-5X Leupold scope to verify the Federal fixed mount results. Ten 5-shot, 50-yard groups were fired using the full-power, 12 gauge TruBall load. The average of all ten, 5-shot groups was 2.3-inches."

from Tom Burczynski

And when I see Brenneke posting groups of 2 1/2" to 3" at 100 yards as their best groups and using sabot slugs and mostly that at 50 yards with the Brenneke Classic coming in at 1.8" at 50 yards (rifled or smoothbore? They don't say.) so that translates to no tighter than 4" at 100 yards and most likely larger groups than that. Kinda puts it in perspective as to what you can expect. Bearing in mind that most Brenneke slugs can be shot through smoothbore or rifled barrels and they would have used the best accuracy available to post group sizes:

https://www.brennekeusa.com/fileadmi...talog_2014.pdf

If the factories can't produce better accuracy than that I doubt home reloaders can. There are many more variables in slug reloading than metallic cartridge reloading. Not saying that 2 1/2" to 3" slug groups are not good, just saying that if that's the best Brenneke can do with rifled barrel and sabot slug and the 4" to 6" groups they post for drag stabilized slugs then I have some work to do to match that much less exceed it with home cast slugs and home assembled ammunition even using a rifled barrel.

So this is why I have resisted buying a rifled gun (that and I'm cheap)... I'm not sure I am going to see enough long range accuracy improvement to bother with. I had a goal of 4" groups at 100 yards from smoothbore. I have not gotten there and am not likely to with home cast and loaded slugs.

As my old boss used to say "When all else fails... lower your expectations." Not sure if that was in reference to my work...?

Longbow

[Mr_Sheesh]

Sample pic from the "12 Ga from Hell" folks; They're using a 50BMG cartridge, straightening it out, then removing the semi rim and threading on a larger rim, to make a LONG huge 12 Ga shell that's maybe 3-3/4" long. 770Gr projectiles sent at 2300-2500FPS easily; 2700 doable but your shoulder won't like it!

[W.R.Buchanan]

Have you seen the "Ravin Crossbow?" They advertise 3" groups at 100 yards! which for a Crossbow is unheard of.

I'm pretty sure we can get that good with our Smooth Bore Shotguns, we just have to find the right projectile.

The problem with most slugs is that they are short and fat. In order to keep them going strait they either have to be spinning or be dragging a parachute behind.

Spinning obviously requires rifling, so the obvious choice is a drag stabilized boolit.

The best looking ones of those that I saw were the Russian ones, so maybe the guys who bought those moulds and wads could shed some light on what they have gotten out of those slugs.

I saw those wads with the hose barbs on the end that fit in the base of the slug at BPI so maybe they are a decent source for those. I think they would be a good way to go.

on another note,,, I really like those little "Less than Lethal" bomb lookin' things" they sell,,,

but they haven't had them in stock lately.

Randy

[longbow]

I have some of those Russian slugs on hand now. KrakenFan69 sent me 50 which was very nice of him. I tested some last spring but have not been to the range for some time due to very dry (and on fire) forest surrounding us. So far accuracy has not been bad but nothing to write home about. Part of that may be because they cast at 0.727" and my bore is 0.733". I have knurled some up then sized them back to 0.733". They are waiting to be tested.

I am not real happy with the wads either. They are very much like (if not the same as) Gualandi DGS wads which in my opinion are too long. I think they distort so affecting accuracy. I tried some DGS slugs but accuracy at 50 yards was no better than my round ball loads and one slug keyholed. I only had a few to test so not a comprehensive test but...

We'll see how the knurled and sized to bore Russian slugs do.

I still like Brenneke Classic.

I am sure a sabot slug for smoothbore like the Balle Flèche Sauvestre could be made that will provide better accuracy than what we get now but at what cost?

http://americangg.net/tb-abrams-sabot-slug/

And for the home tinkerer like me... can we make them at home? Not likely. Load at home yes but not make. Maybe we just have to accept our limitations or lower our expectations.

I'll take a look for Ravin Crossbows in just a minute. Have not heard of that one.

Longbow

[W.R.Buchanan]

LB: I've been curious about those DGS slugs. I was given 5 of them by the outfit that originally made them from Italy at the SHOT Show a few years ago. They are identical to the DGS Slugs that BPI sells now but the wads are Red.

AT Front Sight we saw many wads stuck in targets.(15-50 yards) If you look closely at the pic I posted of my 3 shot in the head box group the center hole is ragged because the wad went thru it too.They all were collapsed totally. I saw none that were distorted beyond that. However when collapsing there is no way to predict if the wad will end up completely symmetrical, which would affect flight or some other shape.

Just have to shoot some and see what happens. or "We'll see what happens!"

I know this can be conquered.

Randy

[longbow]

Randy the reason I like the Brenneke Classic is because of the wad stack ~ hard felt like material with plastic washers on either side. Nothing there to distort. I've seen the Gualandi wads crush somewhat off center which I think is due to the long cushion leg. Not sure why they don't make the attached wad more rigid.

I have posted this before, but many years ago I bought some AQ slugs which had a near solid plastic wad with "rifling" ribs in them and smallish center hole. They didn't crush like a cushion leg and accuracy was very good. I have tried semi successfully to reproduce AQ type slugs using hot melt glue. When they come out good... as in no air pockets/bubbles they shoot very well. It is difficult without a pressure injection system to avoid bubbles and inconsistencies though. A hot melt glue gun is hardly injection moulding! But, like I said when I get a good run they do shoot very well. These are wad slugs. No glue against the bore!

What I should do is buy some 3/4" nylon or polyethylene rod and machine wads to attach to slugs. I think a flat based slug with consistent solid attached wad is about the best we can expect. My opinion anyway. A few years ago I made a mould to cast 6 finned slugs and while they flew nose on they were no more accurate then HB slugs and not as accurate as good attached wad slugs. I don't think fins on a full bore slug that isn't streamlined do much good because they are traveling in a partial vacuum due to the shock wave. An HB skirt or attached wad slug has more drag area exposed when it wobbles a bit so should self correct faster. Full bore finned slugs are not like artillery smoothbore sabot rounds. Again, my opinion.

I'll consider that I have conquered this when I can get consistent 6" or smaller groups at 100 yards from smoothbore or consistent 3" or under groups with rifled gun. I'm not there yet.

Longbow

[W.R.Buchanan]

I think you're on the right track on the attached plastic wad idea.

Maybe even making it hollow base so it will expand to fill the bore for a better gas seal.

I think old man Brenneke was way ahead of his time. He even gives out key chains.

Randy

[Lonegun1894]

Excellent thread and thank you all for all the great information. I don't have anything to add, but do have a question that I think might help some. With the many variations in chamber and bore measurements in shotguns, I don't think we have much hope of working up one or two loads that will work in every shotgun, which is what the factories have to try and do. Where I think we as hand loaders have an advantage over factories is that they have to make something that will work ok in every gun out there, while we have the luxury or being able to concentrate on just one shotgun, and tailor the load to it and only it. As has been said, the components still leave a lot to be desired, but we still have the advantage because we can concentrate on one gun. The problem I see is the time and money involved to make this one gun work to our satisfaction. Personally, I mostly use RBs, using a lot of the advice I got from many of you here in this subforum, but I have the luxury of usually not having to shoot past 50 yds, so I have it easy.

[longbow]

Randy... I have the same keychain! 16 ga. I think but the slug is made out of zinc (I think). Pretty sure it isn't lead.

My belief is that slugs should be sized to about 0.735" so they fit pretty much any normal factory gun but of course they need ribs or a collapsible skirt or rings to keep the slug centered but allow it to be swaged to bore diameter. I think that is where then new Russian slugs are in error. They seem to cast undersize at around 0.727".

My heavy skirt TC home made mould is about 0.003" to 0.004" undersize for my 0.733" bore and accuracy reflected that. It is a drop through fit, close but no cigar. After knurling up over bore diameter then sizing to exactly 0.733" accuracy was improved. I think I will find the same for the knurled Russian slugs I have for testing. They are "Paradox" slugs (sort of) but with Gualandi DGS style attached wads. The Gualandi clones and Tusker clones use the same attached wads. I better get those knurled slugs loaded up and tested now the local forest fires are out.

Lonegun1894... Round balls are a good choice certainly to 50 yards or a bit further and I don't think any of us really need to shoot past 50 yards but some of us are driven to shoot to 100 yards. I didn't say I was smart!

In fact round balls are my favourite for shotgun and if I get the rifled "shooting" gun I will be casting a bunch of 0.735" RB's. They did well for me to 50 yards out of a borrowed rifled gun giving about 2" groups which if consistent should be 4" or maybe a bit bigger at 100 yards. And that in a light gun with open sights after I'd been slapped silly (sillier?) by about 35 smoothbore rounds off the bench. I wasn't flinching... not me! I didn't say I was smart!

4" to 6" at 100 yards... predictably and consistently... will do me. Tighter is better but that'll do me!

I'll try 0.678" RB's in shotcups too as they are easier to load. They work well in smoothbore but not sure if the small bearing area will pick up the rifling twist well. Hogtamer had some decent results with them and I think others have. Decent but not spectacular.

Longbow

[Hogtamer]

Attachment 227675Attachment 227673
Attachment 227674 don't know where the buckshot picture came from but can't get rid of it! Notice a couple of the wads I was able to find are nice and clean. The rest are smutty as are the hulls. Soooo, some unburned powder going down the pipe, not an efficient load. A faster powder prolly in order.

[megasupermagnum]

Another off topic comment, but I'm sure many will be happy to hear. AQ slugs are back!

[longbow]

Where did you see them? I was under the impression that the Thug Slug was the improved version. I have not tried Thug Slugs but have been meaning to order some. I do like the AQ wad though ~ no cushion leg to distort... like Brenneke Classic.

Much as I like the AQ from my limited experience with them, they are too expensive to "plink" with. If I can't make it at home it is ultimately a no go for any kind of volume shooting. That would apply to Thug Slugs, Brenneke Classic, etc.

However, if they are back I think it is a good thing and I may even order some more to re-test. Got to be sure and know what I have to meet or beat with home brewed slugs!

Longbow

[Tripplebeards]

I tried 6 different loads in my savage 220 after I bedded it and floated the barrel. Only one load grouped over 2" at a 100 yards. All the others were 3/4" to 1.7" depending on the brand. All were saboted ballistic tip type slugs I tried. This of course was done with a Nikon monarch 2.5x10 on a lead sled. Contrary to what some posters have stated it is possible to have a sub MOA slug gun you just have to put the time in and be lucky enough to find the right load. Same as my 77/44. Most claim sub MOA isn't possible. I found two loads with cast that will shoot sub MOA. I've also put tons of bench time in (instead of Internet browsing,lol) along a lot of load work and accurizing the rifle. The biggest thing is you need to have the skill to shoot sub MOA to begin with.

[Tripplebeards]

I think you're on the right track on the attached plastic wad idea.

Maybe even making it hollow base so it will expand to fill the bore for a better gas seal.

I think old man Brenneke was way ahead of his time. He even gives out key chains.

Randy

I need one of those!

[EMC45]

Here is a 3 round group I shot at 50 yds (off a bag) in a 20 ga Remington Express (wife's). They were Remington Slugger slugs in bulk pack from WalMart a buddy had given me. Smooth bore barrel with Carlson $12 IC screw in choke.

[bikerbeans]

I tried 6 different loads in my savage 220 after I bedded it and floated the barrel. Only one load grouped over 2" at a 100 yards. All the others were 3/4" to 1.7" depending on the brand. All were saboted ballistic tip type slugs I tried. This of course was done with a Nikon monarch 2.5x10 on a lead sled. Contrary to what some posters have stated it is possible to have a sub MOA slug gun you just have to put the time in and be lucky enough to find the right load. Same as my 77/44. Most claim sub MOA isn't possible. I found two loads with cast that will shoot sub MOA. I've also put tons of bench time in (instead of Internet browsing,lol) along a lot of load work and accurizing the rifle. The biggest thing is you need to have the skill to shoot sub MOA to begin with.

Target pics?

BB