Considering loading up some round ball loads for my rifled slug barrel

[rickt300]

Mostly interested in a good round ball load. Thought I would empty some hulls for the project and started with some Winchester rifled slugs I had laying around. This barrel is a 12 gauge. Shooting offhand to make it more fun I put three touching at 40 yards, all 6 inches low as the barrel is sighted in for a discontinued Lightfield loading. I had never shot rifled slugs other than Brennekes in a rifled barrel and was very surprised to see my bore had picked up zero leading, in fact looks spotless, the point I had cleaned it to before shooting the ten total slugs. Now I am rethinking doing any loading until my stash of factory loaded slugs is shot up and this could be never because generally I use a slug gun just a couple of times a year. The gun is a Remington 870 and the barrel is a Mossberg made barrel. On the other hand I do a lot of loading and shooting just for the fun of it and would still like to play with a milder loading using a round ball, say pushed to 12-1300fps. Not sure but I would like to be able to use already loaded shot shells, pouring the shot out, setting the ball to the right height and roll crimping it into place. Since I am cheap and I have a case of Remington heavy dove loads I would like to start there. They are loaded with 1 1/8ths of 7 1/2 shot. After reading all the round ball threads, great reading I figure I have two choices. The .662 or the .690 round ball. It would seem using paper or plumbers tape to wrap the .662 ball would certainly work and the .690 ball might work if the shot cups were not too thick. If I had my druthers I would rather just drop a .690 on top of a hard card wad or two in the shot cup, a measure of COW and roll crimp but that would depend on the petal thickness of the shot cup. .735 - .690 would be .045 so the thickness I would be looking for would be near .0225 or so right? Am I guestimating the wrong total diameter of the OD of the shot cup?

[G W Wade]

Funny how thoughts go around. Couple weeks ago I was trying to clean so can find more floor in my reloading room. Found some empty Mini Shells ( Aquilla) and laid on the bench. Later saw a can with some 69 cal muzzle loader balls. Still bothering me, might have to try. GW

[longbow]

I had a reply ready to write then realized you are talking a rifled barrel. That is a somewhat different ball game for round ball in shotcup.

I have had excellent results using 0.662" RB cloth patched into a hull with shocup seated like for loading a muzzleloader. It actually goes quite quickly and works well but that is for smoothbore shotgun. The cloth thickness can be varied to suit the shotcup petal thickness which varies from wad to wad... as in manuafacturer and wad style.

For a rifled gun you will need a tight fit to force the plastic wad petals into the rifling and the cloth patch may be too springy for that to happen. Better would be a tight fitting round ball. The trick is to get the round ball/wad petal to bore fit right for a rifled barrel. Too tight and the wad petals will shear and too loose you won't get the spin transferred to the RB.

A paper tube might work but it would be pretty thick for a 0.662" RB.

0.678" RB's area good fit in some plastic wads but loose in others plus 0.678" RB moulds are no long made by Lyman. That size was dropped recently. Not sure about other manufacturers.

Many have had suyccess with 0.690" RB's in shotcups I am not one of them! Again, my experience is with smoothbores but I have found few wads with correct petal thickness to suit 0.690" RB and even then petals sheared. A tough wad may work but since you are using factory rounds you have no control there.

I would not suggest wrapping the RB because then the wrapping material will stay with the ball and will likely affect flight by causing uneven drag.

The 0.662" RB may work if you use a hard paper tube to fill the shotcups, Teflon wrap or maybe mylar wrap. Again, you need a tight fit to force the plastic into the rifling.

A better solution might be a Lee Drive Key slug of 7/8 oz. or 1 oz. They should be a pretty decent fit in most plastic wads and if slightly loose, a wrap or two of paper patch, like for a paper patched rifle bullet, should snug them up. A bonus is that the Lee moulds are quite inexpensive so you can try it out without spending a bunch of money.

Since you plan on using factory rounds of 1 1/8 oz. the Lee 1 oz. slug would be a pretty good replacement payload. I suppose a caveat here is that you mentiopn Remington dove loads... I am not sure but if the wads are like the Remington RXP wads the wad petals have an internal rib that may thwart your plans. A Lee slug will be too large if the wads have ribs and a 0.690" RB will be way too large. A 0.662" RB may fit okay but there will be little contact for rifling spin to be transferred to the ball.

I'd empty the shot out of a Remington round and check the wad before buying a mould. If the wad petals have ribs I doubt theiy are suitable for loading round balls or slugs for a rifled barrel. The 0.662" RB may work in those wads for a smoothbore barrel but you will be buying a $100.00 mould to find out.

If you are going to load your own from scratch then I'd say to use standard wads without ribs and go with the Lee mould either 7/8 oz. or 1 oz. depending on your preferences. You could buy both Lee moulds for less than the price of one Lyman mould if price is a concern.

Longbow

[missionary5155]

Another option is a full groove RB. Your barrel groove + .006+ to get a good grip. Have read +.010 over groove as soft RB swages easily... Our mold
drops rage scrap at .006 over groove. WW Would be fatter. But we launch at 1050 fps. Longest shot RB was 32 yards in the river area we hunt.

[ihunts2much]

I have had descent accuracy in a rifled barrel loading .678 ball in AA wads. Keep the velocity relatively low and you will get accuracy. 1200 fps or less. The .690 ball is a good fit in the 12s3 wad. I have been getting fliers but the only powder I have on hand is longshot, I suspect it would be very accurate if I could get the velocity down, but longshot starts its 1 1/8 oz data over 1400fps.

[rickt300]

Well heck never an easy button. I will break down one of the dove loads and check out the shotcup.

[longbow]

The old 12 ga. Remington RXP wads had ribs and it appears that all the 12 ga. Remington wads BPI has have ribs:

https://www.ballisticproducts.com/Re.../products/286/

So I am guessing that's what you will find in those dove loads. A 0.662" RB might fit okay and shoot okay in smoothbore but I doubt it would in a rifled barrel.

No, it is a safe bet to say "Nothing is ever easy!"

Longbow

[centershot]

Rick,
Those Remington dove loads will probably have ribbed wad petals, forget trying to use them as any kind of "sabot', been there, done that, still got the T-shirt! Here's what worked for me:

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...tershot+sabots

[barkerwc4362]

To have success with a rifled barrel, the projectile, whether it is a round ball or conical needs to be spun by the rifling. For that to happen the diameter of the projectile or the wad and projectile need to be large enough to be fully engaged by the rifling. Now what is the groove diameter of your barrel? Most of us don't have a clue what it is. Trial and error finding the right diameter can be arduous and painful. For my 20 gauge it required using a Lee REAL 58-440 in a Win AA-20 wad to develop a combination that would be reliably spun. Using the BPI RSS 12 gauge was another challenge. To get a combination that would be reliably stabilized and not destroy the RSS in the process meant going down in the powder charge and apply paper wraps to the Lee 501-440 bullet. It of course is a tight fit in the hull, but everything works and the 870 Remington easily extracts the shell.

[FullTang]

If you're talking about getting a mold, the Lee Drive Key slugs are basically made for this application. That would be the simplest and cheapest solution, but accuracy will be nothing like factory slugs (not without a lot of fiddling, anyway) The 1 oz Lee slug is probably a little easier to adapt to factory shot shells, where the 7/8 oz may be too light for swapping into some existing loaded shells. Many folks find the 7/8 oz to be more accurate (I do, too.)
Lee makes a .690 round ball mold (actually .685 most of the time for me) which is also cheap and easy to use; since there's no core pin, you can cast a lot faster. It's also 1-1/8 oz, so would be the same weight as a typical shot load. It can be quite accurate out of a rifled barrel, but it all depends on the measurements.
The Lyman .735 round ball is the most accurate choice of the ones I've used through a rifled barrel. However, it's heavier, so you can't just drop it into a loaded shell (unless you have 1-3/8 oz loads.)

[Blood Trail]

Full bore round balls. 100 yard groups.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rickt300]

Rick,
Those Remington dove loads will probably have ribbed wad petals, forget trying to use them as any kind of "sabot', been there, done that, still got the T-shirt! Here's what worked for me:

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...tershot+sabots

Nice thread. I looked for the 12S3 wads and it appears to have been replaced with a slightly different one. One guy says they don't work with his cast slugs in a Midsouth shooter supply review post.

[centershot]

Downrange and another company I can't remember are making copies oh the Federal 12S3 wads. Ballistic Products (BPI) and probably Precision Reloading usually have them. I can't speak to effectiveness with cast slugs but, in a a rifled bore, they have worked great with round balls for me.

[rickt300]

Downrange and another company I can't remember are making copies oh the Federal 12S3 wads. Ballistic Products (BPI) and probably Precision Reloading usually have them. I can't speak to effectiveness with cast slugs but, in a a rifled bore, they have worked great with round balls for me.

Found some made by Downrange at Graf's. First move.

[Cap'n Morgan]

Rick,
Those Remington dove loads will probably have ribbed wad petals, forget trying to use them as any kind of "sabot', been there, done that, still got the T-shirt! Here's what worked for me:

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...tershot+sabots

I noticed you used a "paper patch" for that particular load. I wonder if you could skip the 12S-3 wad altogether, and just use a cross shaped, rather thick paper patch, combined with with a X12X seal and maybe a felt wad for support? Perhaps with a larger ball in the .69 range?

[centershot]

I noticed you used a "paper patch" for that particular load. I wonder if you could skip the 12S-3 wad altogether, and just use a cross shaped, rather thick paper patch, combined with with a X12X seal and maybe a felt wad for support? Perhaps with a larger ball in the .69 range?

Well, working up those loads with the 0.662" balls was fun and informative, I learned a lot! Recently, while sitting in my deer blind letting my mind roam, I started running some numbers. As it turns out, the 0.690" ball is the same OD naked as the 0.662" ball is with the paper shim added. I loaded some of those rounds when I got home that night but testing will have to wait until deer season ends on January 1. The 0.690" ball would be about 0.040" undersize without the wad. That would require some type of "patching" to bring it up to diameter. That could be done, of course, but I'm thinking that would limit it to use in a smoothbore only. I really don't think it would be practical to use the 0.690" ball without a wad in a rifled bore. If you wanted to go without the wad, the best choice, IMO, is to go with a bore-size ball.

[Cap'n Morgan]

My idea was, instead of wrapping a strip of patch around the ball, you would use a cross shaped patch to keep it in place during launch.
Maybe soak the patch before applying it for a better fit to the ball. After it has dried it would (probably) hold the shape, making it easy to load into the hull.

It would probably work equally well in both smooth bore and rifled barrels - unless the patch will just shred itself when meeting the forcing cone.
In that case I disclaim any responsibility for the idea.

[centershot]

Ah, yes Cap'n, now I understand what you meant, that would certainly work! What I did was draw the paper strip over the edge of my loading bench to put a little curl in it, then wrap it around a pencil. Put the end of the pencil to the hull opening and flick the paper into the wad which is already seated into the hull. Next, drop the ball in and crimp shut. You might think the paper would crumple when loading the ball in, but it doesn't, the ball is snug going in but forces the paper out to the sides. It worked out easier than I feared it would!

[longbow]

I have cloth patched 0.662" RB's into standard trap wads using what I muc'd as 0.011" cotton. I dropped the powder charge then seated a trap wad, dropped a 16 ga. 1/8" nitro card wad into the shotcup, added a small scoop of COW then cloth patched the ball into the hull same as for loading a muzzleloader but not as tight a fit into the hull obviously.

That worked very well for a smoothbore.

A naked 0.735" RB over hard card wad column also gave excellent results in both smoothbore and rifled gun.

A bit of trivia... a 0.715" RB patched with the same cloth is a perfect fit in my shotgun bore and a 0.690" RB patched with 2 layers of that cloth is also a good fit.

I have read that cloth patched balls and no shotcup shoot well from smoothbore though I have not tried it.

Not sure if the patch would stay in place for rifled bore though since they apparently make it through the forcing cone of a smoothbore then maybe. Whether the fit would be good enough to pick up spin from rifling...? Easy enough to try though.

Longbow