in search of knowledge

[Ajax]

There is a lot of knowledge in this forum. I am in need of some. I have a old Remington Sportsman 48. I am looking at shooting slugs in. I already have a 7/8 lee key slug mould.
My question is will this mould work out of a smooth bore with Minute Of Deer accuracy. If not what mould should i be looking for. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Andy

[turbo1889]

There is a lot of knowledge in this forum. I am in need of some. I have a old Remington Sportsman 48. I am looking at shooting slugs in. I already have a 7/8 lee key slug mould.
My question is will this mould work out of a smooth bore with Minute Of Deer accuracy. If not what mould should I be looking for. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Andy

The mold you have (Lee 7/8oz Wad-Slug) isn't the most highly recommended for hunting purposes, but with a little work you should be able to get it to shoot to minute of deer at 50-yards or less from a smoothie. At ranges beyond that - absolutely no guarantees and your probably going to start wanting to look in the direction of the Lyman 525gr. Wad-Slug mold. You should be able to do 75-yards minute of deer from a smoothie with that one no sweat and some guys with some load development work have been able to push that out the 100 yard mark with some dedication and persistence.

Basically with shotgun slugs groups do not increase in size linearly with range. It's more like to the square (^2). Double the range and your group increases to four times its size. Triple the range and the group increases to nine times its size. Quadruple the range and the group increases to sixteen times its size. A mere increase in range of 41% will double the size of your group. At least that's the rule of thumb I use which I have found to be the case with all my work with casting, loading, shooting, and developing custom slug molds.

[jbunny]

how far will a round ball shoot acurately in a shotgun compared to the slugs???
jb

[tommygirlMT]

how far will a round ball shoot acurately in a shotgun compared to the slugs???
jb

Depends on how exactly they are loaded of course --- but usually RB make excellent slugs with as good or better accuracy them regular slugs similarly loaded with the exception of choked guns which chokes tighter then IC. Round balls suck in tight choked guns.

Terminal performance is also an issue --- hard cast RB tend to just blow clean through stuff instead of creating large permananet wound cavities. Soft casting can help improve this but still a RB will penetrate more and create a smaller permanent wound cavity then a comperable weight, velocity, and caliber conventional foster style slug will. This can be compensated for by aiming "high in the withers" and placing ones shot into the tough bone and gristle of the target animals front shoulder joints.

[diehard]

bigthicketthunter,

First of all, thank you for your service. As a veteran I sincerely mean that.

Secondly, I have nowhere near the knowledge base that the previous posters have, but I shoot a fair amount of Lee slugs from smoothbores and from a rifled choke tube (best results). I've tried dozens of recipes, and a lot of different components. Experimenting is all the fun.

Expect your better 50 yard groups to be in the 3"-5" range, which isn't stellar but compares admirably to many commerical foster slugs. With a smoothbore I use a hard card under the slug to keep it from digging into the wad (which is what you want it to do if you are using a rifled barrel--hence the term "drive key"). Makes them into a sabot "Foster" slug. This practice seems to work best for me, but as they say "your mileage may vary."

If the faster loads are all over the place, try some shotload recipes using 7625 or Unique. Faster doesn't always mean better accuracy with these things.

Happy sluggin"

LAH

[RaymondMillbrae]

DieHard,

what do you mean by "hard card"?

Can you give a specific name brand, or post a link to a dealer who sells these "hard cards".

Secondly, I have heard that some folks use a hot glue gun to fill the cavity on the Lyman sabot slugs. What have you heard in regards to that?

And lastly, what about the accuracy between a round ball verses a Lyman sabot slug at approximately 50-yards? Which is more consistantly accurate?

Sorry for goat-trailing from the OP's question.

In Christ: Raymond

[diehard]

I'm referring to a nitro card wad:
http://www.ballisticproducts.com/products.asp?dept=118
http://www.circlefly.com/html/products.html
In today's world they are used mostly as fillers and spacers to raise the height of your shot column. Before plastic wads they served as overpowder gas seals.

For a 12 ga plastic wad, you'd need a 20 ga nitro card to go inside it. I make my own by punching out various grades of cardboard with a homemade wad punch, but it really is hardly worth the effort. Still, if you have nothing but time on your hands and are cheap like me, you can glue 4 layers of cereal box cardboard together (I use spray on adhesive), weight it down to compress it flat while it dries, and punch out "hard cards" that are every bit as good as the store bought ones for fillers...just more colorful .

As for hot glue...never tried it, so I can't comment. Others here have a lot of experience with it though.

Round balls can be just as accurate as the Lyman slugs at that range, but I've never loaded .735's, only .690s ...that were really more like .680. I loaded them into wads like a sabot. For the .690's powder selection made a big diference for me. SR7625 did quite well. I once put 50 such roundballs into a single 7.5" target at 25 yards (fired rapid fire), with no strays. Surprised me too. However, there are many folks here with a whole lot more roundball experience than I have. I defer, in hopes you can get better advice, and a more thorough answer.

[RaymondMillbrae]

Cool.

Thanks for the info.

I take it these "nitro card wads" are pretty stiff, and will not bend and fill the hollow of the Lyman sabot slug, right?

In Christ: Raymond

[sargenv]

RMB: Nope, they are not used as filler (at least in the context that I think you are thinking about) in the Lyman style slug. It could be used underneath the slug to bring it up to height though. I have an ample supply of various wads and gas seals that I've been using to develop an accurate slug load. Now that Duck season is over, I'm going to continue with my load development.

[RaymondMillbrae]

Vince (SargenV),

you got me hooked brother.

I am starting to purchase all my casting equipment as we speak.

I also have another thread going with a few other questions.

By the way, did you ever get to shoot those Lyman slugs I gave you.

In Christ: Raymond