Down'n Dirty 4th {5th?} World Slug Mold.

[EVR]

I've traveled in many 3rd world countries and have always been curious about how the Locals go about speedily pushing pieces of lead thru metal tubes in order to convert animals into supper. So here's a test I put together in the spirit of such endeavors involving some slugs that some might consider crude. Others might not consider them at all!

Point being, if a guy has nothing but a smoothbore {preferably for the course, keeping to the genre, a gaspipe slamfire} and some reloading components...or more likely, actually, as loaded shotshells are about as ubiquitous on earth as dirt, a half box of corroded Swartklip or Armscor or Industrial Cartridge (PTY) Ltd birdshot laying around, and has access to a wheelweight or 10, he's got the making of a Real Deal pig or in a pinch, banteng slayer.

Probably this has been shown here before, but the gist of it is a hole drilled into a piece of wood, said hole filled with lead, alloy not too important.

To be totally straightup, I've never seen this setup in my travels, but was given the idea by a Canadian aficionado of the weird and wonderful as I and likely a few of the membership here am/are.

No sprueplate, just slapdash eyeballing with a 5/8 drill bit as to when to say "When". I'll be honest, I was impressed with how similar the little rascals panned out to be. First attempt was to the left. Too heavy in fact for a Replacement of a light birdshot load so they went back in the pot. With a shallower hole, the little fellows to the right worked out to be a little under 1 ounce, not too bad for eyeballing. I separated the heaviest for a 3-shot group from standing up on my hind legs at 20 paces. Results as follows.

Group is 4 1/2 inches so not great but the barrel was wayward in its younger years and now has no legitimate sights, sporting only a brass screw I threaded into it when I cut it from 30" down to 26. Thus, straight bored with no choke to get in the way. Didn't want to risk a choke on one of these wheelweights going thru at an angle.

Anyway, the shots were not wild as they indicated an actual grouping which I found interesting. And...somehow they appear to have gone thru the paper front end On. I'll take luck over skill any day.

for proper zeroing, I have a setup on one of my anvil stumps I use to zero shotguns, bending the barrels to address POI issues. But the barrel shot pretty much "on" so I didn't monkey with it. If I was going to use these boolits to stock the pantry I'd zero the thing.

I backed up the target with a 5 gallon bucket of water but that didn't stop the slug. Didn't really think it would, but the bucket had a leak in it so I figured it would end its days doing something productive. Sort of.

Now immediately what comes to mind is ways to improve the setup, right? Like maybe deepening the hole and then cutting the slugs with a hacksaw to even them up. Or whatever.

Bottom line, this ad hoc affair resulted in an admittedly ugly slug, but in fact, a boolit that in a pinch could reduce the biggest, meatiest critters to a Sunday barbeque pretty efficiently.

If any of you fellows have any comments, I'd sure be interested in hearing them.

Pix.

The Roster; Overweights cut from the team to the left. Fit and ready for the field to the right:



I didn't swap out a factory load, but rather a Secret Handload tuned to produce peak performance of this highgrade ammoonishun:



The stellar group:



The Gun, during a past range session, demonstrating its fully adjustable sight system:



Custom front sight:




Now, in all seriousness, I cannot recommend the setup, and am only presenting it here to show what I did, not to show what you should do. In fact, don't try it.

[6pt-sika]

Intresting !

[edp2k]

I have seen a 15mm socket used as a mold.

[17nut]

In all fairness if you gut a shot cartridge then why not just remelt the shot?
Made in a factory they will be pretty much the same weight and that will take most guessing out of the equasion, no?

But the bottom line is: Vegetarian is an old indian word for towns fool/poor hunter.

[EVR]

In all fairness if you gut a shot cartridge then why not just remelt the shot?
Made in a factory they will be pretty much the same weight and that will take most guessing out of the equasion, no?

But the bottom line is: Vegetarian is an old indian word for towns fool/poor hunter.

Uff da! Ja! Well by all means you could!!

Sources of lead are sort of myriad and the shot as you say, from a loaded round would work very well.

Og hilsen fra snøvite nord Idaho!

[Hogtamer]

That group looks better than some I've seen produced with lee 1 oz slugs. No surprise though....figure the length, fill up the bore and give it a kick. Some people are surprised that a reed cane arrow with a stone point is lethal. Now, go forth a kill something. Got Pigs?

PS, I've got a couple of barrels like that, a piece of which would make a fine mold. hmmmm

[longbow]

Lots of ways to make simple moulds. Wood works but not very durable. Soapstone used to be used for moulds and much more durable than wood.

When I was in my early teens (about a century ago) I used to cut CO2 cylinders to use as moulds. I opened a factory birdshot hull, dumped the shot into a ladle, heated over a blow torch then poured into the short CO2 cylinder mould. Once cool they dropped out easily. Slow but it works. These crude slugs were dropped back into the shotcup... which back then was a plastic wrap not an actual cup.

Of course accuracy was iffy past about 15 meters.

A ball... even an imperfect ball... is a better projectile than a cylinder in smoothbore.

Its pretty easy to make a form tool to cut a half ball in brass or aluminum. I used my lathe to make an "insert" by turning a disk, Drilling through the center then hacksawing and filing a piece of round bar at the mid point. Drill and tap then attach the disk. This makes a form tool that will cut a perfect half sphere. A hand drill would work instead of a lathe in a pinch. And if a guy had no power tools a simple spade bit can be forged then turned with a hand auger. That is how the old gunsmiths did it in pretty basic (primitive) conditions. We, and most around the world, have it easier because garbage dumps are full of metal scraps like springs, ball bearings, broken screwdrivers, etc. ~ good steel is available.

Long and short is that a ball will be a better projectile than a cylinder if there is no rifling. If you attach a tail wad to the cylinder then maybe it works but each projectile is more time consuming to make.

In really basic conditions a flat bow is likely a better choice for survival than a gun. A bow and arrows can be made of local woods at no cost but time. Then there are traps and snares. When a guy is hungry he does what works.

Since this is a gun oriented site I guess we stick with guns and home made projectiles though.

Here's another way if you have a long (enough) barreled gun and no other choice, cutting a short piece off the barrel is a simple way of getting a proper fitting slug with little in the way of tools required. Press fit a plug in one end and set a piece of steel with a hole in it on the open end. Now you have a simple mould that will produce a near perfect cylinder for your gun and with both ends flat. Without an attached wad of some sort it will tumble but at close range will do the job.

Lots of ways to put critters in the pot.

Longbow

[EVR]

Longbow;

It's an interesting reality that people dump the bow as soon as they come into contact with guns. Almost always. Bows, especially primitive bows, demand skills not demanded in the use of guns and the materials required to make them are not always available either. And these days, a guy has to go VERY primitive to be in an area where "gun parts" are not at hand or where even factory-made guns are not obtainable. I hunted with an African fellow in the Congo many years ago who used a really fascinating home-made, bolt action muzzle-loader. He stoked it with a couple .45 cal bullets made from a mold a missionary used for his Ruger Old Army. Thing worked and it predated the plethora of in-line muzzle loaders that came out subsequently.

I was curious about the accuracy of these crude slugs as well, and plan to do some more goofing around with them or something a bit similar, as well as with comparably loaded RB's. I steered clear of any relatively sophisticated machining such as what is involved in making a true RB and simply was interested in demonstrating just how crude a setup could be used to make a *useful* "big game" load.

As for snares, yes, of course. I run a snareline for coyotes myself {did my regular ski trek to check them yesterday} and if I really needed to stock the larder I'd raise the snares 10 inches and there wouldn't be a deer left on my ranch in a week!

The barrel idea guys have suggested is interesting as I have a few chunks of barrel laying about and might see if I can plug them somehow and use that. The socket-mold idea seems to be genius, too.

[Gewehr-Guy]

I watched a couple of videos of siberian trappers in the tiaga, one was concerned about the bears not in hibernation yet, and him with no slugs for his shotgun, so he carved a hole in a piece of firewood, and melted down a bit of lead he scrounged from a small battery he had, and poured a couple slugs. then he used the poll of his axe to hammer it round enough to slide through the barrel, and then he felt safe from bears ! In another video the guy was reloading brass shotgun hulls and using what appeared to be sawdust and paper as wads, and sealed the overshot wad with candle wax. Not many tools in his loading kit

[JBinMN]

I find subjects like this to be interesting & while I have done some experimenting with less than what some call, "normal" ideas, I have not yet got a "round tuit", to make projectiles out of lead filled holes drilled in wood, sockets, or even anything else like that, perhaps one of these days I will...

Until then, I will keep reading about others adventures & ponder on my future ones.

Thanks to the OP for posting the topic!


P.S. - Gewehr-Guy, I think I watched that video of the Russian fella with brass hulls as well. Very interesting how he did things.

[longbow]

While I won't argue the point that people tend to use guns as soon as they are available your statement "Bows, especially primitive bows, demand skills not demanded in the use of guns and the materials required to make them are not always available either." is inaccurate.

I've been an archer for 55 years and most of that a traditional archer. For the last 15 years or so I have made and shot my own wood bows. While it takes a well developed skill set to make a high performance efficient wood bow it only takes a bit of patience to make a serviceable bow of 40 lbs. or so. Even to make a primitive gun takes more materials, skills and tools than to make a wood bow. If trees or large bushes grow you can make a bow from them. Also, the tooling required is very minimal, bows and arrows can be made entirely with stone tools and they don't have to be fancy knapped stone tools either.

I'll also note that using modern shotguns with some of these crude homemade slugs (like in CO2 cylinder moulds) I have experience groups at 25 yards that can be bettered by someone with moderate archery skills shooting a wood bow.

So, overall, bows and arrows are easier to build with locally available materials and primitive tools, and someone with moderate skill can shoot as accurately or better to at least 25 yards than someone using poorly made slugs from a crude smoothbore.

Certainly if a modern shotgun shell is used is used in a smoothbore, even a poorly made, poorly fitting projectile that hits the target is going to cause more damage than an arrow from a lightweight bow. No argument there. It is the hitting the target bit that matters. Better to hit a rabbit or squirrel and eat than to miss a deer.

However, I digress. This thread is about making slugs with simple tools. I'll defer to my previous post that there are far better ways of making slugs than holes drilled in wood. Yes it works but you will never get consistency from a mould or slug like that. Would I do it if I had nothing else? Yes, if there was a need for temporary survival/defense. However, if I was living in a situation that required me to make do with what I had then I'd e looking for the best accuracy and consistency I could produce which means making a mould that is better than a hole drilled in a piece of wood. You want to hit what you are shooting at otherwise you are wasting ammunition which would be fairly precious... and not eating or killing those who might kill you.

My opinion anyway.

Longbow

[Petander]

Terminals from old car batteries have been used for poaching here. I think that is the main reason for moose still being rifle only game. Moose is quite probably becoming bow legal soon,though. But still no shotgun slug.

My compound bow accuracy is better than most of my slug/gun combinations after 30-40 yards.

[EVR]

longbow, with a handle like that, I don't think you are giving yourself enough credit!

But have to say that I've spent quite a bit of time kicking around in remote and backward places and I've yet to find a spot where your proposals have been adopted by the locals. I merely report what I've seen.

This little exercise was for me simply a "proof of concept". My expectations were pretty low, and overall, the actual result panned out to work better than anticipated. I made these with a chunk of firewood, not machined off to provide a level top surface and the holes were drilled by hand simply running the drill bit in to "about there". The slugs were extracted by splitting the wood!

To be sure, there are sort of endless ways to produce a better product, but given the results here, I'd not hesitate to take a deer, bear, cougar, wolf or elk with them, or to carry for SD against anything we have here, expanding grizzly populations included.

What you describe is the never-ending search for improvement which is my normal state of affairs around here as well. This little attempt was sort of an abrupt about-face going in the opposite direction!

[EVR]

Terminals from old car batteries have been used for poaching here. I think that is the main reason for moose still being rifle only game. Moose is quite probably becoming bow legal soon,though. But still no shotgun slug.

My compound bow accuracy is better than most of my slug/gun combinations after 40 yards.

That's just it. Accuracy from a well-trained bowman was long ago, as in even the middle ages noted as superior to many crude smoothbore gun/bullet combinations. Yet under almost all conditions, the gun has immediately given the bow the boot. Overall, people all over the world have decided the gun has advantages...even poor guns, over bows. Reason is LOTS of people just plain can't shoot a bow at all and yet even if they are lousy shots with a gun, prefer it. This is odd, isn't it, given that the bow can be shot faster, too!

[T_McD]

No personal experience, but plenty of documentary watching...

I think type of game matters significantly. Small game, I would imagine a bow would be better. Large, the shotgun wins.

I would also add that primitive bows are relatively easy to make and use as long as distance is kept reasonable.

[EVR]

No personal experience, but plenty of documentary watching...

I think type of game matters significantly. Small game, I would imagine a bow would be better. Large, the shotgun wins.

I would also add that primitive bows are relatively easy to make and use as long as distance is kept reasonable.

Regarding shotgun shot, sources for that can be varied as well.

Here's an experiment I did with some copper grounding wire I cut off an old power pole we replaced on the ranch. I use this wire for making rivets for the handles on the knives I forge, but decided to use some to make some shot. Obviously, any lead wire could be used as well as sheet lead cut into strips and then "chips".







Target with description:



In a pinch, one can cobble just about everything except a primer, tho even those have been known to be fashioned.

[longbow]

I am with you on shot!

A crude (or any) smoothbore with large shot is likely a better choice for medium to moderately large game than a poorly formed slug. Again, my opinion only.

As you say, shot can be made from many things though probably lead, copper and brass would be best choices if available... or zinc. Lead can quite easily be made into swan shot by melting and dripping into water. It makes imperfectly formed shot but can be quite large like small buckshot so pretty effective at "bow" ranges. Cut lead wire would indeed make a good facsimile to 00 buck. It wouldn't group as well but we are talking making do here so it would be one of the best for that if available. If not then I'd agree that holes drilled in wood to cast long "rod" that would then be cut to short cylinders would make quite satisfactory buckshot. A guy could probably take that to an extreme and make Tri-Ball loads though again groups with crude "balls" would be large. However, at moderate range of 20 to 30 yards likely good enough for large game.

While the bow is still in use in many primitive cultures you are right that people tend to favour the gun. Terminal ballistics tend to be pretty impressive so I think that is what wins people over. IF you hit what you are shooting at, somewhere in center of mass, it is likely dead. Large bore guns also have a more lethal effect at longer range, again IF you hit what you are shooting at. A guy can shoot at a deer at 75 yards with a bow but he is unlikely to hit it and if he does there isn't a lot of energy left for penetration where with the gun while he may not be any more likely to hit, if he does there is a good chance he will mortally wound the animal.

In our modern world if things went bad (read zombie apocalypse) there is so much scrap metal around that it would be fairly easy for anyone with a bit of mechanical aptitude and a few hand tools to make a simple gun like a slam fire shotgun assuming ammunition was available or empty hulls to reload. It is the powder and primers that would be the difficult part. If strike anywhere matches are available they can be used for both in a pinch. Been there, done that reloading .22 rimfire. Would work for centerfire too.

Probably as easy or easier is to make a simple matchlock gun. By that time though I would defer to the bow... or simple crossbow. But that's just me.

Longbow

[centershot]

EVR, do a search for some of Y-man's posts. He's pretty innovative when it comes to cobbling up munitions!

[EVR]

EVR, do a search for some of Y-man's posts. He's pretty innovative when it comes to cobbling up munitions!

Thanks I will!!

[CLAYPOOL]

That "EVR" is a luck man , GETTING to "Water Ski" this early in the year. LOL