Update on my slug gun keyhole/tumbling problem......softer bullets?

[oldracer]

Well I guess the answer for the tumbling problem was a case of bullet shrinkage as I mentioned in an earlier post. The "old Schuetzen experts" at the range I shoot at all agreed that the BHN of 14 was too hard for my 45 caliber slug guns and that probably caused the shrinkage. I did run the 0.449 bullets through a sizer that is 0.449 and that was to check for roundness and the original bullets showed very little marking where they had rubbed.

So a couple weeks ago I cast two batches of bullets, one with the 0.449 BACO 540 grain Creedmoor mold and another with the 0.448 Pedersoli flat nose 520 grain mold with pure lead from roof repair sheets and a slight amount of linotype. The BHN came out at 8.0 with my Lee tester so they were a lot softer. Yesterday I went to the range to try the new bullets with the same powder load, wad, etc as before. It was cold, for San Diego anyways at 50 degrees and the 1st shot at 100 yards (BACO mold) was 2 inches right and 2 inches low so I fired off 4 more with no changes to the 6x scope on my home made slug gun and they all were touching, in the same area! Yeah, so I tried 5 of the Pedersoli bullets and they were even with the bulls eye and still 2 inches right and again all were touching! Double yeah!

I think the alloy was too hard since that was the only thing I had changed and plan to recast the last few remaining hard bullets I have by adding them to the pure lead a few at a time and next will be going out to longer distances.......if it ever warms up here?!

[fouronesix]

I think the alloy was too hard since that was the only thing I had changed and plan to recast the last few remaining hard bullets I have by adding them to the pure lead a few at a time and next will be going out to longer distances.......if it ever warms up here?!

Yah I'd guess so. 14 BHN is approaching the hardness of Lyman #2! I don't know of any (serious) BPCR or muzzleloader shooters using that hard of alloy for conicals. The alloys I use for those purposes range between pure lead (about 5-6 BHN) and 20:1 lead to tin (about 10 BHN).

[Whitesmoke]

Also my friend who shoots conicals ( albeit intermittently) found that the slugs he cast and had set aside had age hardened. When first cast they shot well and he won a national Championship with them.

There had been 15 years since they were used last.

In the last few weeks he found the batch and was perplexed as every one of thee B@$+@%ds key holed.

He has some sort of gunsmith tool that measures lead hardness.The tool told him that the lead had hardened.

On casting fresh slugs the new ones performed as they should and he 10x d on the first and successive shots next time at he range.

[451 Pete]

oldracer ,

Although I have never got into the slug guns at Friendship ( I shoot the long range English target rifles similar to the Gibbs and a bit with the schuetzen rifle in my avatar here ) I do know a few of the shooters that play the slug gun game. Some of them use a two piece bullet that they swage together with a hardened nose or front section and the rear portion being made of pure lead. If I remember correctly that front section was of about the hardness of Lyman #2 but the rear section was made from pure to better take to the rifling. Wish I had more information for you on this but the long range guns I shoot just use a one piece soft bullet that most of the shooters paper patch.

Pete

[oldracer]

Thanks for the info and I guess I am lumping the English Gibbs type of muzzle loader with the unlimited slug guns since in Southern CA we are sort of short on numbers of shooters that do this sort of thing. I read about the two piece bullets in Major Roberts' book and so far I have not wanted to get that hard into the bullet creation area. I think the softer lead has cured my problem and as I found out yesterday I can go from 100 yards to 200 yards with just my estimation of the hold over and it was right on! The guy shooting next to me had gone to one of the pistol ranges for a while so I borrowed one of his Shoot-N-See targets and as far as I could tell he never noticed the big hole in one of them? He was shooting an AR-15 and they make little holes!