I made a new mold today and last week.

[MBTcustom]

I am having fun loading slugs and RB in 12 gauge shotgun and I had an idea for a large 1.5oz slug and a 1oz boolit that is a realy large version of an air rifle pellet. I figure that the air rifle pellet design was expected to provide optimum accuracy at subsonic levels so I figured it might work well as a shotgun slug.
The mold ended up being the best one I have made to date and it works pretty well too. The only problem is the bases have trouble filling out.
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2130.jpg
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2131.jpg
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2132.jpg
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2133.jpg
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2134.jpg
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2135.jpg
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2136.jpg

[stubshaft]

First off they look great. I'd like to shoot some of those wasp waisted pellets out of my Pedersoli. I think you may have better luck if you base pin was made of steel. I think the aluminum is dissipating the heat to rapidly and not allowing the base to fill out properly.

Just sayin...

[tomme boy]

I would try for a rear driving band. It will help keep the pellet stable and straight in the bore. The way it is now, it might want to tip.

[plmitch]

That Sir is some good looking work done there.

[Lefty SRH]

Hahahah, very nice Tim. They look great! How did you bore the cavity?

[MBTcustom]

I made a jig to hold the mold in the lathe and I used a boring bar. Worked like a charm. I loaded up 20 of these so maybe I can test them out tomorrow. I am realy curious how they will work.

[Jal5]

Nice job Tim, have fun trying them out!
Joe

[Hamish]

Dud's out'ta control guy's, what's next, a 6 cavity?

(Well done Brother!)

[longbow]

Nice work goodsteel.

Is that one full bore or sized to fit into a shotcup?

Either way, I suggest casting out of wheelweights and oven heat treating. I have had poor results with almost all hollow base slug designs due to the skirt distorting if they weren't heat treated.

Are you shooting out of smoothbore or rifled gun?

I will be interested to see how that one does for you. The skirt looks pretty beefy so may hold up.

Keep us posted.

Longbow

[MBTcustom]

It will be shot out of a smoothbore. I designed it to work with the clear WW shotcups that did so very well for me with the RB load, so it's .687 in diameter. It weighs exactly 1oz. The alloy is 96/2/2 and was dropped on a wet towel, so these are pretty hard/tough little numbers.
It may be that it sucks rocks but if so, it was still worth a try and somebody might want that mold when I'm done with it for use in a rifled barrel. I am convinced that the concept is very sound.

[badgeredd]

Nice looking mold there Mister! I hope it does well for you. In my mind, your concept is valid so it only remains to be seen if it indeed does as you intend in the practical world. The hollow base boolit shaped slug looks a lot like some slugs I recovered from some junk shotgun shells.

[MBTcustom]

Are you sayin' my slugs look junky!!! How big a boy are you?:kidding:
Idont know about the one on the left. It weighs 1 1/2oz so its going to be a heavy hitter.

[longbow]

Sounds like you got it about perfect for diameter and it is a nice looking slug and mould.

While the skirt does look pretty thick, I have made some very thick skirted slugs cast of ACWW and the skirts still deformed if not heat treated. Water dropping might be enough but I oven heat treated to solve skirt problems. If they shoot well, obviously you don't need to worry about it but if they don't, try shooting some through water jugs or whatever won't damage them so you can recover some and check the skirts.

That big flat nose will sure slap whatever it hits!

When does it get a test drive?

Keep us posted.

Longbow

[MBTcustom]

Hopefully today. that would be a heck of a pop when it hits wouldnt it? I figured this would be perfect for the small deer we have here in Arkansas.

[longbow]

If your deer are small that slug may be a bit much! I bet you will see daylight through the hole!

[Catshooter]

Very wow! Please do keep us posted.

I have a little brother who would about kill for one of your pellet moulds. He'd need it in .646 but I'd buy him one if it's not too much $.


Cat

[Blammer]

Wow! That's cool! Let us know how it does!

[MBTcustom]

I made it out to the range yesterday and tried out those pellets.
Test gun was a S&W 916 with a 21" cylinder barrel.
Results were amazing at short range (50 yards and closer). They went right where I shot them and they flew strait.
I tested them at 150yards and got a bunch of fliers. I theorize that the base imperfections might have had a lot to do with the fliers but there's no way to tell for real. I would say that about 25% of them went right where I was shooting @ 150yrds with a trashcan lid sized group, so they might have potential. At 50 yards, it was a no brainer. POA every time about a CD sized group.
Impact tests were the real eye-openers though.
Check 'er out:

Lineup
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2148.jpg

Front:
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2149.jpg

Profile:
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2151.jpg

Base:
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/goodsteel/IMG_2150.jpg
As you can see, they look like crushed pop-cans.
The one on the left in the last photo, penetrated about three inches of semi-wet phone books before stopping.
I believe the carnage that these would inflict on a deer would be massive.

[Grandpas50AE]

Really great job on that GoodSteel. I would suspect any of the deer I've seen in central Arkansas won't know what hit them using that - the carnage should indeed be substantial. Enjoy those come deer season!

[Echo]

Beautiful work, GS, and looks like bad medicine for the Arky deer.

[Fishman]

That's pretty darned cool. Did you make the mould totally from scratch?

The problem I could see with a rifled bore is that there wouldn't be much bearing surface touching the wad so the wad may spin and not the slug. As it is it will fly like a badminton shuttlecock out of a smoothbore.

Of course it is all theory until somebody tries it. I had terrible luck with the lee drivekey in a rifled bore and eventually had to use factory slugs because I couldn't get it done in time. And it should have worked.

[MBTcustom]

I did make it from scratch. Everything except the screws and the handles.
Like I said, these babies flew quite well to about fifty yards and made beautiful holes when they got there. I'm going to try some different loads and perhaps fill the bases with HM glue, but I was pretty impressed with the performance. I wouldn't have been surprised in the least if they tumbled all the way to the target, but that wasn't the case at all.

[Blammer]

great job!

It looks to me like the fired projectiles you recovered, the very bottom pictures, are how they were when they left the barrel. The pressure obturated the base to fill the chamber and shortened the projectile.

I wonder how they'd do in a rilfed choke or a rifled barrel.

[rintinglen]

Don't your arms get tired from pumping that air gun that many times?:kidding:

That mold has a cool factor measured in the thousands, makes me wish I was a shell stuffer and not a brass refiller.

[MBTcustom]

It looks to me like the fired projectiles you recovered, the very bottom pictures, are how they were when they left the barrel. The pressure obturated the base to fill the chamber and shortened the projectile.

I wonder how they'd do in a rilfed choke or a rifled barrel.
That could be, I dont ever plan on using a rifled barrel but it would be interesting to try.

makes me wish I was a shell stuffer and not a brass refiller.
Too bad you dont live here in Ar. I have a Texan press I would just give you.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Wow,
I'm not sure how I missed this thread.
the mold looks awesome.
I do like the venting, looks more than adequite.
Jon

[MT Gianni]

I would try them @ 75-100 yards and see how stable they are. It would be interesting to see when they fall out of orbit.

[MikeS]

That mould looks really nice! I like how you attached the HB spud. One suggestion that might help with base fillout (or may not!) would be to make another spud, but make it out of brass, so once up to temp it will stay there longer than an aluminum spud will.

I have a Mossberg 590, and I would love to find a rifled barrel for it. If I can find one that I can afford, I want to cast a boolit either similar to the large pellet mould you made, or one closer to the old paradox boolit. I would then want to load them into the brass magtech cases, with the boolits crimped on more like a rifle cartridge, rather than a shotgun shell. Maybe this idea is crazy, but I think it would make a good looking cartridge that more importantly should shoot well too.

[MBTcustom]

I tried these out to 130 yards. They did well up to about 75 yards, then they got squirrely. Lots of fliers.
I'm going to remake the HB spud out of steel and see how it does on getting good base fillout.

[GL49]

Wouldn't one of those be fun in a 28 gauge?

[Chamfered]

Very Nice Work. It looks like you got the skirt plenty thick enough because your recovered slugs look like the base stayed intact. The skirts in your picture look like they bore filled a third of the way up the pellet. Your probably right about the imperfections on the base causing the fliers. They are fearsome looking chunks of lead. How about trying to square the bases up on the lathe and try them.

[brotherdarrell]

Just looked at the pics for the umpteenth time and all I have to say is #$@^%&$#@&^*@# dude!!!! And I am way too old to say 'dude'.

Makes me want to commission a 225462 copy. Too bad I am broke.

Words escape me.

brotherdarrell

[tomme boy]

The skirt is doing that on impact. The Lymans do the same thing.

[longbow]

tomme boy:

I think you will find that the skirt distortion is due to barrel pressure/acceleration causing the slug to swell, not from impact.

I have shot Lyman Foster slugs into soft wet snow then recovered them. They start out at 0.705" before shooting but after recovery they are bore dimension all the way to the nose. No other distortion.

With the pressure and acceleration in the barrel, the base is trying to catch up to the nose and soft lead yields... even ACWW slugs up with some of my loads using HB slugs.

Goodsteel:

Have you done anymore testing with this slug?

Longbow

[PanaDP]

Wonder what those would do shot backwards with the base full of shot for a HD load. A tumbling slug isn't a big deal at 10 yards.