Hammerhead slug testing

[Blood Trail]

This was my first outing with my test SPW wads. Experimenting with a new material for the wads. Test groups with the 12 ga consisted of using 800X and Blue Dot. For the 20ga, powder used was ProReach and Herco.

Both SPW sabot wads are 5-7 thousandths smaller on the OD than the originals. I was thinking this may be a problem.

For the 12 ga 800X load, groupings at 50 yards was acceptable:



The Blue Dot load was “ok”. Noticed I had a high flyover where the slug cup detached from the crush section (bottom group. Keyhole shot is located at 1:00).



The 20ga groups were “eh”, but to be fair, my 20ga USH never shot the hammerheads as well as my USH 12 ga. I’ll shoot them through my Mossberg and 220 with the Tarhunt barrel to see if that will change.:

20ga ProReach:



20ga Herco:




However, I did like the even compression of the crush section of the 20 ga sabots:




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[Blood Trail]

The recovered 12 ga wads told a different story:




Mushrooming of the 20 ga slugs showed awesome mushrooming:




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[W.R.Buchanan]

Leon: What is the OD of the 12 ga. Sabots with the inserts installed? (Lee Mold that SRU Sold) They really need to be about .732 with the insert installed to pick up the rifling really well. That's what mine measure.

Some guns just shoot them better than others. My A5 with the Hastings barrel is excellent. My Mossberg's with fully rifled barrels are pretty good too, as are the one with the Carlson's Rifled Choke Tube. But none of the Mossberg's are as good as the Hastings barrel on the A5.

You've seen the group from the A5 with SRU Sabots and turned Brass Inserts, the first three shots were the Clover Leaf in the center and then I added to two others after looking thru the spotting scope. After looking in the barrel I found some plastic fouling and figured that the accuracy was deteriorating due to that.. So subsequent loads with those slugs all had Mica on the sabots which cut down on the fouling dramatically. I don't see any need to run these slugs over 1300 fps. My load which came with the SRU Sabots I bought back when, was 23 gr of Unique, and I used new RIO Primed Hulls.

Randy

[Blood Trail]

Leon: What is the OD of the 12 ga. Sabots with the inserts installed? (Lee Mold that SRU Sold) They really need to be about .732 with the insert installed to pick up the rifling really well. That's what mine measure.

Some guns just shoot them better than others. My A5 with the Hastings barrel is excellent. My Mossberg's with fully rifled barrels are pretty good too, as are the one with the Carlson's Rifled Choke Tube. But none of the Mossberg's are as good as the Hastings barrel on the A5.

You've seen the group from the A5 with SRU Sabots and turned Brass Inserts, the first three shots were the Clover Leaf in the center and then I added to two others after looking thru the spotting scope. After looking in the barrel I found some plastic fouling and figured that the accuracy was deteriorating due to that.. So subsequent loads with those slugs all had Mica on the sabots which cut down on the fouling dramatically. I don't see any need to run these slugs over 1300 fps. My load which came with the SRU Sabots I bought back when, was 23 gr of Unique, and I used new RIO Primed Hulls.

Randy

Randy,

Way back when I started playing around with Hammerheads, I loaded every load they posted except the Green Dot load. They didn’t have longshot listed, so I added that and sent them the results.

Back then, I only had two 12 ga slug guns: 835 and USH.

All loads shot really good from my testing:











With Longshot and 800X, I got the highest velocities. 1650 fps with 800X and the most accurate too.


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[W.R.Buchanan]

So you didn't have any problems with the Inserts separating from the sabots? I thought that was weird that the "Bat People" were having that problem. But their high speed camera showed them coming apart. I suspect that they were doing something wrong. I questioned them on it but never got a response.

All your groups were shot at 100 yards too! Mine was just 50 yards but with Open Sights. The Open Sights on Browning Barrels are kind of weird but they are fairly easy to get a Proper Sight Picture with, then it's just a matter of indexing on the target at the same place every time.

If you can duplicate those groups with your new Sabots I'd say you are good to go!

Randy

[Blood Trail]

So you didn't have any problems with the Inserts separating from the sabots? I thought that was weird that the "Bat People" were having that problem. But their high speed camera showed them coming apart. I suspect that they were doing something wrong. I questioned them on it but never got a response.

All your groups were shot at 100 yards too! Mine was just 50 yards but with Open Sights. The Open Sights on Browning Barrels are kind of weird but they are fairly easy to get a Proper Sight Picture with, then it's just a matter of indexing on the target at the same place every time.

If you can duplicate those groups with your new Sabots I'd say you are good to go!

Randy

I talked to Jeff from the bat channel. Lol. He’s a good dude and he’s in my slug Facebook group. He did two videos I believe. The first one he was having bloopers. And I believe he was using a smoothbore. I’ll have to go back and check but I believe in the other video, he was using e3 or some other fast powder.

For poops and giggles, I’ll load a few up and run them at 100 yards. I’ll use the old load data.

In the meantime, I’ll discuss other material options with the molding folks.


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[W.R.Buchanan]

In the meantime, I’ll discuss other material options with the molding folks.

Colors would be cool ?

Randy

[pipehand]

Lol. The Bat People. Didn't know what that was about and then I remembered a Strauss opera. Thanks for the giggles.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Fledermaus is German for Flying Mouse. Hence "Bat People." I don't know what the Tao part is about?

Watch "What we do in the Shadows" on FX on Thursday Nights. It's about Vampires in New York who are absolutely nuts. Half Hour show and Believe me 30 minutes is all anyone can take.

Nobody could survive an hour of these people!

It would drive you Bat Pooh Crazy!

Best Show on TV!

Randy
,

[Cap'n Morgan]

Both SPW sabot wads are 5-7 thousandths smaller on the OD than the originals. I was thinking this may be a problem.

I guess the material was PP? You can add a foaming agent to the material prior to molding. This will reduce shrinking to almost zero, and reduce weight as well, saving money.

https://www.bergeninternational.com/...ing-guide.html

[phaessler]

Looking forward to this for sure.

[Blood Trail]

I guess the material was PP? You can add a foaming agent to the material prior to molding. This will reduce shrinking to almost zero, and reduce weight as well, saving money.

https://www.bergeninternational.com/...ing-guide.html

I forget the name of it, but I bet it’s similar.


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