Homerolled 45 Cal. 20 Gauge Slugs

[turbo1889]

I have no use for a shot maker since I rarely load lead shot loads and am mainly a slug, buck, & ball guy and when I do load shot loads it's usually non-toxic shot. Thus I hardly know what a shot maker looks like.

On the sabot and bullet size thing; some people size down jacketed bullets with the Lee push through sizer dies so if you end up needing to make 0.445" diameter bullets or something like that a push through sizing die on a sturdy reloading press would be the way to go. I've heard that case sizing lube should be used on the outside of the bullets when doing something like this and probably should be cleaned back off before being loaded in the sabot. I might even be tempted to look at making a sizing die out of a length of 45-cal barrel liner from Track of the Wolf which would leave the main diameter of the bullet the same but the bullet would come out the top of the die with rifling grooves swaged into the side of it which would do double duty to both decrease the average diameter of the bullet and give it a spline like outer surface to tightly grab and engage the sabot. Wouldn't hurt anything as far as accuracy since when fired from a normal gun a bullet comes out the end of the barrel with such rifling grooves in it. It just all depends on how far one wants to take this.

[Matt3357]

I am hoping to get into trap shooting but can't afford it at current prices and I needed a project for my class. Just so happened to be a great excuse to build one. So, do you have any new projects you are working on?

Matt

[scrapcan]

Matt,

if you can play a bit, you might try a compressor to create ultra cold air to drop the shot into instead of coolant. that would be a major improvement as then you don't have to wash and dry the shot. I have had this thought for many moons (about 7 years now).

If you cannot see it in my writing I hate washing shot , and I hate to dry it also.

Maybe a flash cooled tube that the shot drops through. I am not sure of the free fall length you would need to get the temps to set up the lead.

But again a major improvement would be to not have to wash and dry. Move right on to adding graphite and load those pellets.

[turbo1889]

Liquid nitrogen . . . yah, I know way too high tech for this kind of application but that would definently give you nice round very, very hard chryo treated shot and drying wouldn't take long at all.



As far as current projects I've got on the burner:

1. ~ Continue development, testing, and refinement of my "hybrid" design boolit molds for regular firearms (pistols and rifles not shotguns).

2. ~ Getting my smaller diameter 20ga. hammer head slug mold spun out to 0.625" to match the larger one and hollow pointed by Eric so that I don't have two solid molds at different diameters but rather a solid and a hollow point at the larger diameter.

3. ~ Finishing my pressure traced universal slug loading charts for RB Slugs, Full Bore Slugs, and Wad-Slugs. Still a lot of pressure trace reads to do on those.

4. ~ Develop, pressure trace, and terminal performance test slug loads using the unique straight walled LBC-30mm steal shot wad as a 12/20 sabot (a full bore 0.625" 20ga. slug fits very tightly inside with a resulting outside diameter on the wad of about 0.735") of both the discarding and non-discarding variety. To my knowledge this is the only steel shot wad with the unique characteristics of having a short sabot like length combined with very thick non-tapered walls of just the right internal and external diameter to make it a perfect fit to be used as a 12/20 sabot.

5. ~ Finish pressure traced load charts for use of the Lyman #575494 mold as a wad-slug in the 20ga.

6. ~ Rear driving band expansion modification to Lyman 525 wad-slug mold combined with knurling with the Corbin tool project.

7. ~ Third custom base plug for my 12ga. full bore diameter, hammer head nose, hollow base mold from Brooks. Namely a positive screw action extraction drive key slot plug.

8. ~ Matching set of 5 single cavity extra wide width machine casting blocks set up for hand casting with 5 interchangeable base plugs each with two different length spacers to produce a total of 50 different possible variations of 68-cal hollow base, smooth sided projectiles (can be knurled with Corbin tool) to be used as wad-slugs for the 12ga. of varying weights, lengths, nose shapes, and hollow base styles and dimensions.

And I just filled up all four burners on both stove tops so the rest just got shoved into the ovens underneath to stay warm. Long story short I’ve got more projects then I will probably ever have time and money to complete.

[Matt3357]

Turbo,
Wow sounds like you have your plate full to say the least. Well just so you know, I really appreciate your feed back on my ideas and always look forward to your posts no matter the subject.

manley,
That sounds like a great idea, but one of the constraints we put on the project was that it had to be affordable and feasible. Neither of which a refrigeration system would be. I have seen way too many projects that bit off way more than they could chew and did not want to fall into that mold. There was massive amounts of analysis done on this and I know I can build it to make it work, I just hope that the operating conditions are close to what we modeled.

Matt

[Knotthed]

Matt3357,

How are the home rolled 45cal 20ga slugs coming along?

[BobBill]

I lurk and "watch this thread," without comment. Please continue, very interesting thread.

[hubel458]

Check 12ga FH thread- where we use CSD 20 wads from bpi. IT has its own seal,

uses larger 54cal minies that guys sell on Gunbroker or you cast... Easiest to do. Use slugs

measuring .550-.560" usually more accurate than foster slugs, when used

with larger loads slower powder loads, like 4759 and RE17.Then wad and

powder length fit case....Ed

[BobBill]

Well, I put this in another thread, but might as well put up here too...what about using muzzle loader sabot/bullet combos for 50 cal muzzle guns in 20 gauge rifled long gun...seeing the 20 has a 58 cal bore? Like Barnes and Alliante make and/or sell?

Note: I only no nothing about slug stuff, and much more, for that matter.

[appleseedgunsmith]

Been there, done that. 20 ga highwall with .58 minies loaded into sabot made from bpi wads & 90 gr black powder. 1160 fps. accuracy a work in progress, but hovering around 3"

[keepshooting20]

Hello Matt, where did you end up with your home rolled 20 ga. sabot loads? Just stumbled onto this thread and getting into my own loading. Wondering what combo's you ended up using if willing to share them? Right now I'm only experimenting with folded crimps, CCS collet cup, 1/8" nitro card, BP Trophy Copper Sabot, 28 gr Blue Dot in Federal hull with W209 primer.Their shooting not bad, actually killed a nice 8 pt with 1 this fall. Would like to hop them up a little more though? Don't have nearly the kick that an Accutip has out of my SX3

[725]

I was confronted with this same desire to save money and produce reliable and efficient shotgun slugs some time ago in antiquity. I posted a detailed story of my process and success with a 12 ga roundball. Search the way back machine (cast boolit archive) to 12-6-2016. "12 ga. roundball success" was the thread title. The end of the story, as turbo 1889 alluded to, is a tight fit between projectile and barrel. The details of my effort are in the thread. My last deer with this set up was a one shot~flop at 85 yards. It is very accurate, deadly, & cheap. I have used it in a Hastings barreled 870 and my go-to hunting shotgun which is a H&R rifled 12 ga. on a 10 ga. frame. All you have to cast are roundballs of the right size! The thread has all the details.