Marking & Loading a Rifled Lyman Slug

[dsh1106]

I might be over using the term but again, I'll say interesting!

Live and learn.

Well, Lyman hasn't done much learning it seems but I'm referring more to me. I am always learning something new on this site. I almost bought Lyman swaging kit from a poster here about 5 years ago. Since I really don't like the mould I decided I wouldn't bother but am glad I didn't after reading your post. From a collector standpoint it is all quite interesting (again!) but I do really have to wonder where Lyman's head was when they decided on diameters! At the time I was assuming that the swaging kit might raise lands so increasing the cast slug diameter. Wrong!

It has been said that slug manufacturers were concerned about slugs being shot through full chokes so made them under size. I'll assume Lyman used the same logic for their slug mould? A fine thought... except that the soft slugs obturate to fill the bore anyway so what is the point!?! Allowing that much slop is just plain silly and really an abuse of customers who trust a company to put out a quality and well designed product.

Surely if that is true these manufacturers do a lot of testing so they could easily have pressure tested the undersize slugs against bore diameter slugs couldn't they? From what I have read the undersize Foster slugs were the norm. Weird!

Longbow

LB

My pursuit of this swage kit was based on the same assumption that you had. I read a few posts and saw pictures of the swag kit and the slugs, but never saw anything about the accuracy or lack of, so I had to find out for myself.

I'm not going to say it was a waste of time, because I learned quite a bit through this process, but I will say what I found has lead me to believe Lyman could have put a little more thought into the product before releasing it.

All I have left to do now is, get to the range and see if these perform better than any of the others I've shot. If they don't, my plan is to modify the mold core plug to make the nose and the skirting thicker on the slug.

Scott

[longbow]

Those slugs are so close to wad size you should see if you can find wads they fit, and there should be some because BPI lists wads for 0.690" RB's. The petals must be pretty thin but its worth a try.

Alternately I made two "hammer sizers" for 12 ga. slugs. One to size knurled slug back to 0.733" to suit my single shot and one to size Lee Drive key slugs to remove the taper. Both work well. I drop the slug in the top then use a close fitting rod to drive the slug through the sizer with a hammer/mallet. I cut off pieces of my old truck axle then bored and honed to size.

I tried sizing the Lee slugs to 0.662" (16 ga.) for paper patching to suit wads from CSD steel thick petal wads to regular lead shot wads when paper patched. That didn't go so well for wheelweight slugs, they'd broke up. I had to bore the sizer out to 0.672" which just removes the taper from my 1 oz. slugs and leaves just a bit on the 7/8 oz. slugs. In the end I found no advantage to removing the taper except I can paper patch to suit whatever shotcups I have.

Point being that if I can size wheelweight slugs back by 0.013" (0.685" to 0.672") you should be able to size those rifled slugs down by 0.005" or so to fit shotcups. They should behave like Lee slugs then and may work pretty well. I agree that a new core pin with thicker skirt and nose would be a good thing too. Filled they shouldn't suffer from collapsed skirts.

Another option might be Mylar or Teflon wrap ~ once around. I wouldn't have thought that would work but Greg Sappington has done it and I am sure I have load recipes that use Mylar and Teflon wrap on slugs. I have seen single wrap plastic on shot loads back in the late 60's or early 70's too, before full plastic wads were universally used. So that is worth a try too. Even paper patching is worth a try. With thin paper you may get a double wrap. If it survives opening the crimp it should work. I paper patch some of my home made and sized Lee slugs but they are in shotcups so the paper isn't exposed to the rough hull or crimp.

Had my Lyman Foster mould cast decently I might have followed the same path as you and bought that rifling swage kit a few years ago just to try. However, I despise my Lyman Foster slug moul dso elected not to pursue improvements. Small minded I know... what can I say?

Longbow

[W.R.Buchanan]

Randy

The raw casting is:
.690 diameter
.695 long
433 grains

The size after swagging is:
.685 diameter
.697 long
382 grains

This die is more of a cutting die than swagging die.

At the end of the process there is a small lead ring that is sheared of the slug.

Got it,,, That's what I expected.

Randy