Lyman 525, hard vs soft?

[1shot]

Good evening, I have a new mould after much waiting- the Lyman 525 in 12ga. :lovebooli

These will be shot through a factory Remington rifled barrel, and I guess the weakest link regarding repeatable accuracy would be the plastic wad which must somehow grab the rifling yet stay intact while doing so.

So I'd like anyone who has experience with these to chime in- do you cast them hard or soft; and what effect would each have on the wad running down the bore?

Regards,
1Shot

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Hello 1Shot, the Lyman 525 slug is indeed an excellant choice when cast from WW and water quenched and it cuts a clean permanent hole for a cleaner harvest.
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee75/Dantebeowulf/Permanentwoundchannelcopy.jpg
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee75/Dantebeowulf/Lyman525inwads.jpg
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee75/Dantebeowulf/44grBlueDotLyman525.jpg
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee75/Dantebeowulf/Lyman31grWSF-Fed12S4Wad.jpg
Hope the picture help.
Ajay
Video Memories
VdoMemorie's-Blazing Sabots
www.PreciousVideoMemories.com

[phaessler]

I never worried about hardness, always a pass through on deer , but they hit like a frieght train.
Here is the thread I did some work with a while back when I was sorting them out:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=67781

Pete

[TRG3]

The Lyman 525 sabot in a Federal S4 wad accounted for a couple of one-shot whitetail does last fall at less than 50 yards. I used Herco powder in a new Fiocchi hull in my 12 gauge H&R USH. While YYMV, I was satisfied with 3" groups off a bench at 50yards.

[nfg]

I've shot up a bunch of Gardner's Cache... http://gardnerscache.com/index.html... slugs, using his "slug reloading kit", his load data, data out of Lyman Shotshell manual and some I developed. They always collapsed within the "waist" back to about 3/8" of the base and expanded to well over 3/4" depending on the velo and what I was shooting into...they did a good job of splitting lodgepole pine logs into kindling and nice chunks for the woodstove.

They are made from #2 Alloy

http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z395/IM12ALSO/002.jpg

http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z395/IM12ALSO/001-1.jpg

Excellent sage rat eliminator.

[junkbug]

Will the Lymann 525 shoot somewhat accurately out of a Remington 870 rifle sighted smoothbore barrel (IC choke, I think)? Is there any potential? I know nobody can say for sure.

[1shot]

Thank you Ajay, I always enjoy reading your informative posts and will heed the advice given. :) Water quenched WW it is then.
Cheers! 1Shot

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Hello JunkBug, after you harvest a deer with the Lyman 525 from a smooth bore ask the deer how did it feel. Go ahead put the slug in wad and push it through at least 6 inch of the barrel if you can with a 5/8 inch wooden dowel and see which wad gives a snug fit then use that wad for loading your slugs, they should be good to 50 yards.
Hope it helps.
Ajay
Video Memories
VdoMemorie's-Blazing Sabots
www.PreciousVideoMemories.com

[nfg]

The Lyman 525 IS for a smoothbore...I have 3 Mossys and 1 870 with smooth AND rifled barrels of various configurations...I had no trouble keeping inside a pieplate out to ~75 yds with the smoothbore barrels with open sights or just a front bead.

The rifled barrels didn't like the various shotshell/wad packages I tried with that slug...the spin just blew them all over the place.

Slugs with attached, locked on wads or just slugs alone with various PGS, nitro cards and hard filler wads were the most accurate in the rifled barrels...BUT...what shot well in on barrel sometimes didn't do well in another brand barrel...you just need to test out to find what works best in YOUR particular barrel and YOUR level of accuracy...that is ALWAYS the determining factor...what YOU mean by accurate.

Soft felt wad made a mess with the chrono and would cause Error readings some times.

Most of BPI's slug reloading data using the SAME COMPONENTS were plenty accurate in all the rifled barrels no matter which brand. The "Dangerous Game" 500 gr slugs were 2-4" depending on the range, held together without loosing the plastic wad and did a very good job on the lodgepole pine logs also.

Basically a crapshoot.

http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z395/IM12ALSO/004.jpg

http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z395/IM12ALSO/003.jpg

[UNIQUEDOT]

The Lyman 525 IS for a smoothbore

The Lyman 525 is a sabot slug for rifled bores. The Lyman foster is for smoothbores.

[nfg]

OK...That's what Gardners states on his website, but not what happened with my shooters...ALL of them...

Those saboted slugs shot more accurate in my smoothbores... and opened up the groups in the rifled barrels...that was using HIS recommended powder loads and HIS components with MY powders. The difference became more appearant as I changed to 3" cases and increased the velos...this happened using 4 different brands of cases and two different wads...I'm just saying what happened in my case...your case will be different.

I bought the small Win kit plus 200 extra slugs. The cases are still going stong but I need to order more slugs.

Maybe it was my shotguns, or me, or the conditions, or who knows...what I said is my findings for MY shotguns at the time I was doing the testing. I live way the heck out in the boonies with both two and 4 legged preditors living and roaming around most of the year and all my smoothbore shotguns are kept loaded with several specific loads, including the Lyman 525 slug in a 3" case and "tuned-up" substantially, in a specific arrangement and the rifled shotguns the same but with different specific loads(no Lymans) and I pretty much have some kind of heavy firearm close at hand all the time. I develope ACCURATE loads in ALL my shooters especially one I might depend on for personal protection.

I'm doing some kind of testing in some kind of shooter pretty much every day of the year. I have a 125 yd range 80 yds from my reloading shack and garage full of metal working tools so I make many of my reloading tools, build my own rifles, and generally futz around checking out interesting things I read online or in the gunrags...I NEVER take anything at face value...I'm the original "man from Missouri"...you have to "PROVE IT TO ME" and then I only believe if I can replicate the results.

I DIDN'T try the 20 ga slugs so I can't comment on those and I haven't tried any reloaded Foster slugs, but I have taken 3 deer with factory 12 Rem loads, 30odd years ago, and they worked fine. It's hard to order things from Gardner as he is a one man shop and I keep missing his open order times...so I might have to buy a 20 ga Lyman mold and make my own slugs.

I've alsways wondered how heavy the 12 ga slug would weigh if the base was filled with lead or just how the slug would work if turned around hollow base forward...just another project to test someday.

As I said...It's a crapshoot...you have to test YOUR shotgun to see which works best for YOUR application.

There are lots of reasons, all individual to the shooter, the gun, the load, etc. WHY there are differences in groups. I've been at this game a very long time working with just about anything that burns powder and so far I haven't found ONE THING that was cast in stone. Loads that would bughole in one rifle MIGHT do the same in another but might just produce a pattern instead of a group, and the only way to know for sure it to TEST IT OUT.

[longbow]

No personal experience with the Lyman sabot slug but enough to recommend staying away from their Foster slug. The Foster slug is for smoothbore and is grossly undersize for the bore. Mine cast at 0.705" and I have read of some people saying theirs cast as small as 0.680".

At 0.705" they are too big to fit shotcups and too small to fit the bore so accuracy in my experience is very poor.

Many have said they get quite good accuracy with the sabot slug in smoothbore so I am not surprised you do nfg. As you say, it may be gun/load specific but several people have reported quite good accuracy to 50 yards or so. Now what I understand is that if they start out supersonic they can become unstable as they go transonic if shot from smoothbore. If that is true then around 50 to 60 yards is likely where that will happen.

Not sure what your experience is with them in that regard but would like to know. The stability issue is not supposed to be a problem if they are shot from a rifled gun. Again. no personal experience.

Personally, I have had generally poor results from hollow base slugs so have gone to round ball loads and attached wad slug loads. Both of which give far better accuracy than most home cast/loaded HB slugs (not all but most I have tried). I can count on 3" to 4" groups at 50 yards with good RB loads. That is way better than I ever got with the Lyman Foster using Lyman load data.

I have wanted a Lyman sabot slug but have heard mixed reports. I am shooting smoothbore. If I had a rifled gun I would probably have a sabot slug mould now. Having said that, I have recovered other peoples sabot slugs and they like my HB slugs get shorter and fatter so unless that is consistent it will affect accuracy. A good wad column would certainly help there.

Sorry, I guess this is getting off topic from the OP's question but I am curious about results using the Lyman sabot slug in smoothbore barrels.

Longbow

[1shot]

Sorry, I guess this is getting off topic from the OP's question but I am curious about results using the Lyman sabot slug in smoothbore barrels.

Longbow

Off topic but Ajay already answered my question.

I have only recently aquired a fully rifled barrel for my 870, but have been casting/shooting with the Lee 7/8oz slug from its smoothbore for a number of years using 1oz loading data and up.
I see no reason not to shoot the Lyman 525 from a smoothbore. I imagine you'll be into pieplate groups at 50 yards using the factory bead.
Have fun.

1Shot

[turbo1889]

I personally prefer to cast them of hard clip on WW alloy plus just a touch of tin. Loading them in 12S4 Federal wads with a single 18ga. (not a typo) 1/8" thick nitro card under the slug in the bottom of the shot cup on the wad has given me the best results.

I have pushed them up to 1,800-fps in 3-1/2" super magnum loads out of a smooth bore goose gun with a 32" barrel with a fixed steel shot choke tube that way with pie plate accuracy up to 80-yrd using the fiber-optic ghost ring type sights that are on that gun (which also work very well for high flying geese with hevi-shot loads that print an incredibly tight pattern that has to be precisely placed on the flight line of an individual goose).

I have also loaded them cast hard that way in the same wad set-up in light 2-3/4" loads that develop about 1,350-fps out of my smooth bore riot gun that has an 18.5" barrel that with the right load will print fist sized groups with just the front bead at 20-30 yards tactical range distances.

I have also loaded them cast hard that way in the same wad set-up in 3" serious hunting loads that develop 1,500-1,600 fps out of my 24" fully rifled slug barrel and print groups as tight as 4-6 inches at the 100-yrd line.

I have only found a few 12ga. load combinations where casting them out of soft lead produces better accuracy results. Such combinations do exist with some component combinations in some guns but I have found I can make the hard ones do just about anything I want them to do so I hardly mess with casting them soft anymore. That is unless I want to use them as 16ga. full bore size slugs without a wad around them (tumble lubed of course) in which case they need to be dead soft pure lead to squeeze down just a hundredth of an inch or so in the my 16ga. SxS double guns forcing cones and then another hundredth of an inch again in the fixed chokes. Load and carry them so loaded for that gun as a protection load when I take that gun out into the field after game birds just in-case I run into two or four legged trouble that bird shot isn't going to be effective against.

I will agree that you can run into wad failure problems with this or any "wad-slug" that uses a shot wad as a make-shift sabot especially in rifled slug barrels or rifled choke tubes, but it is possible to develop loads for them using tougher wadding set-ups combined with slower burning powders that will work for many guns without pushing the wad to failure and ruining the accuracy. Smooth barrel guns are less finicky and you can use faster burning powders and/or flimsier wads successfully and produce loading combinations that are effective in smooth bore guns but result in wad failure in rifled barrel or rifled choke guns. Guns equipped with rifled chokes and not a full length rifled barrel are especially tough on wads and difficult to successfully load wad-slugs for.

[TRG3]

While there is lots of excellent advice on this topic, I'd suggest that you cast a few from soft lead (I used sewer pipe) and harder lead (I used wheel weights) to see what your shotgun likes. While YMMV, my 12 gauge H&R USH (rifled barrel) preferred the soft lead for both the Lyman 525 and Lee Key Drive slug utilizing the Federal S4 wad.

[UNIQUEDOT]

Many have said they get quite good accuracy with the sabot slug in smoothbore so I am not surprised you do nfg. As you say, it may be gun/load specific but several people have reported quite good accuracy to 50 yards or so. Now what I understand is that if they start out supersonic they can become unstable as they go transonic if shot from smoothbore. If that is true then around 50 to 60 yards is likely where that will happen.


I use them in smoothbores as well as rifled and you are correct as they do well only out to about fifty yards. I know one guy did some testing and was able to get very good groups out to and just beyond fifty in the smoothbores, but at 75 yards and beyond accuracy was very poor. He also tested the same load in rifled barrels and achieved 4 to 6 inch groups at 125 yards. He also tested extended rifled choke tubes and while they performed better than they did in smoothbores at extended ranges they didn't compete at all with the rifled barrels, but that would be expected since the slug is already at full throttle when it contacts the rifling.

[nfg]

This variation in results is the good/bad, part and parcel of reloading. A certain set of components, in a specificly configured rifl/shotgun, under specific conditions produces ONE set of results and may/maynot be repeatable or reproducable in another gun.

Again, what works for you may/maynot work for someone else.

Once a persons results gets posted on some forum it becomes "the law of the land" so to speak, and everyone expects the same results and everyone wants to make a comment on it pro or con.

I would go into the math concerning the number of tests required do the the various combinations of wads, powders, primers, hulls, lead mixes, velocity and guns, for just ONE SLUG TYPE...BUT...that would only serve to confuse an already confused issue. Combinitorials, n! or n taken k times, can really mess up your reality.

Suffice to say that if you find one good set of parameters that shoots to your expectations without spending a fortune and several lifetimes, be VERY HAPPY...and stick with it, because more often than not, just the opposite happens.

People come to the net for a panacea to their problem/desires and for other reasons....many times all they get is more problems. In some ways, "the bad old days", pre-net, were much simpler. You only had contact with a few reloaders and the expectations were much lower.

[turbo1889]

I cannot be 100% sure because I don't have the kind of equipment I need to truely test the theory ($,$$$,$$$.00) but I am pretty well convencied that the reason that the Lyman 525 wad-slug is accurate only so far out and then becomes un-stable when fired from a smooth bore is because the design is naturally stable in super-sonic flight but is not naturally stable in trans-sonic or sub-sonic flight. Thus, once the slug flies far enough down range that it is starting to slow down and drop into the trans-sonic flight range it becomes un-stable in flight if it doesn't have a gryo spin from a rifled barrel.

I base that theory on the fact that the faster I push them out of a smooth bore the farther down range they are accurate and when I make very low velocity loads where they are doing less then 1,350-fps out of the muzzle they won't even hold pattern out to 50 yards even though they will print tight clover leaf groups at 25 yards at 50 yards they are all over a 4' x 4' target board (and the 1,350 to 1,400 fps muzzle velocity ones just barely hold pattern at 50 yards). Something is happening once that slug drops below a certain velocity and it seems to be velocity not distance since I can extend the accurate range out of a smooth bore by increasing the initual muzzle velocity.

I think there is a certain velocity threshold that is something a little more then the speed of sound that once they drop below that velocity the proverbial turd hits the proverbial fan as far as accuracy goes beyond that point. Assuming of course the load is a proven good accurate load in the gun in question to begin with.

I can't prove it at this point but it is the theory I have come up with based on my experience so far.

[UNIQUEDOT]

Once a persons results gets posted on some forum it becomes "the law of the land" so to speak, and everyone expects the same results and everyone wants to make a comment on it pro or con.

The guy i referred to in post #16 did not post results on an internet forum. It was an article in a reloading manual i had and the gentleman had been handloading/reloading and testing slugs since the mid sixties as i recall and hunted exclusively with shotguns and slugs. So i would hope a few decades later he had some knowledge of the subject.

[UNIQUEDOT]

I cannot be 100% sure because I don't have the kind of equipment I need to truely test the theory ($,$$$,$$$.00) but I am pretty well convencied that the reason that the Lyman 525 wad-slug is accurate only so far out and then becomes un-stable when fired from a smooth bore is because the design is naturally stable in super-sonic flight but is not naturally stable in trans-sonic or sub-sonic flight. Thus, once the slug flies far enough down range that it is starting to slow down and drop into the trans-sonic flight range it becomes un-stable in flight if it doesn't have a gryo spin from a rifled barrel.

Sounds reasonable to me, but have you done considerable testing with different wads to see how your results changed? I tend to have better results with Federal wads, but have done well with the old AA12f114 wads as well.

[nfg]

It would be fairly easy to test that point/theory.

Shotguns being low velo to begin with, easy to adjust the velo and the distances fairly short...just load up a few, move to a distance where the velo is above the speed of sound and note the groups, then move back to a point where the slug drops through the S.O.S., measure the groups, then back a few more yards to where the velo is below and measure. Rough calculations show that anyone interested can do this test from 50 to 100 yds depending on the initial velo.

Most of the velos I'm producing are well above S.O.S. WELL past the 100-150 yds I expect to hunt at with this application. By that distance the trajectory starts becoming a rainbow. Even with a BC of .1 with an initial velo of 2000 fs is still above S.O.S. out to 160 yds. You should have no trouble hitting 2000fs initially with a 525 gr slug, SAFELY...so any transmigration through the S.O.S. may/maynot be an issue.

It is easy enough to tailor make your ammo so this is more of a moot argument of little value except for esoteric enumeration.

Empirical evidence trumps guesses/theories/maybes every time if the accuracy and precision is known beforehand.

It is something to think about AND test if you think it might be an issue for your type of hunting...or just something esoteric to talk about.

[UNIQUEDOT]

nfg, if you couldn't obtain decent results with the 525 in your rifled barrel it's bore is probably over size. I know Ajay has posted about the problem with at least one of his guns. I would personally not have the patience to fool around with such a gun as i would imagine it would take alot of work to find a satisfactory load.

[nfg]

I don't have any problems with the 525, rifled or smoothbore....I worked out loads for that slug that provided enough accuracy for basically close in loads...they will do center mass on anything within 25-30 yds and DO produce plenty of energy, have a large flat nose etc., but I also have several other slugs from 500 to 1200 gr weights that have a full 0.730" OD for my rifled shotguns. 525 gr is too light for my taste in a 73 cal platform...I have 45 and 50 cal rifles that I use for slugs that light. 700 to 850 gr is a good weight for the 12 ga and 550- 675 gr for the 20 ga for my interest anyway.

I slugged all the various rifled shotgun bores prior to getting started with the reloading process and they were within plus or minus a couple thou of 0.730". My favorite factory load is the old 730 gr Dixie slugs Terminator or that slug in my reloaded cases...backed up with the Tri-ball load, then the 1040 gr "BearBusters". I haven't tried the newer 870 IXL DGS Dixie slugs yet, but I probably will someday, that looks like a REAL SLUGGER.

Mucking about working out good loads is what reloading is all about. Knowing HOW to make the best use of time and components is the other side of reloading. That knowing comes with time and doing a lot of thinking, studying ballistics, powder burn rates, measuring EVERYTHING that isn't moving too fast to measure and just plain crunching numbers, doesn't matter what the shooting platform is.

Most of this stuff has been worked out already and all that data is available on forums somewhere...

[turbo1889]

Yes, I have tried other wads besides the Federal wads. The short crush section red Winchester wads that Winchester quite making but you can still get clones through Claybusters work pretty well as do a few European wads.

1,800-fps is the fastest I have been able to push them so far without getting wad-failure issues that at the very least resulted in fliers if not blew the whole group. I have tried even slower burning powders (as in slower burning then anything normally used in a shotgun) but couldn't get the velocity string deviation to tighten up even though they did present the possibility of being able to push the muzzle velocity higher without wad-failure.

My GF has a 525 mold that she had the wasp-waist machined out of so it is flat sided and thus casts slightly heavier and fully supports and engages the wad petals along its full length instead of just a small band at the top and bottom and she has had excellent results with that mold so modified in rifled barreled guns and has successfully pushed them to velocities that I don't think are completely within the realm of sanity unless you are a recoil addict like she is but that is a modified mold that as a result really isn't the same design as the original Ly-525 which is what is under discussion in this thread.

As to the insanely expensive equipment to absolutely prove my theory I was referring to a complete photo capture ballistic test tunnel. Basically, that is a long tunnel lined with fast action single frame capture cameras down its sides that are computer sensor controlled so that as the bullet passes each camera it takes a high speed freeze action photo of the boolit in flight usually in the infra-red spectrum so as to show the air flow patterns around the projectile (which show up as heat patterns from the compression waves which are hotter then the rest of the air). So basically you end up with a system that is taking a freeze action photo of the projectile in flight every couple feet or so of its flight path that when combined together provide a photographic record of its entire flight usually with the additional data points of velocity and flight time at each capture point. Such a record would actually show what exactly happens when the projectile becomes unstable and when exactly happens and absolutely and conclusively prove whether or not it is a matter of trans-sonic destabilization or not. I have already loaded them up and down across the velocity spectrum and tested them for at what distance down range the pattern opens up which leads me to believe it is not the actual speed of sound itself but something slightly above it but not by much but that is circumstantial evidence not direct evidence and is not sufficient to prove the theory in and of itself. It is my understanding that the military and their contractors use such facilities to study certain aerodynamically stabilized ordinances designs for large caliber smooth bore cannons (as in used on some battle tanks and artillery pieces).

[nfg]

What you are thinking/talking about, Turbo, would be a neat piece of equipment for certain. I suspect if a person had the coin, something very similar could be readily made...or maybe a small wind tunnel would work just as well.

I suspect there are MANY things going on at that transmigration point, WHERE EVER it happens to be as the S.O.S. CHANGES due to many environmental conditions AND over time and other dymanics are certainly happening that can only be shown through empirical activities. You can control most of the conditions in a lab but that has only limited use in the field.

For those doing long range target/hunting small things, all this conjecture might have actual application but for the game size and other parameters as far as actual deer/bear/??? shotgun hunting, the size of the kill zone, etc...it has very little use or meaning, not to throw water on the idea...there is the real world and the theoretical world and the wish world and they are NOT mutually exclusive by any stretch of the imagination.

I like the K.I.S.S. principle for the most part...makes it much easier to get'r'done. Hahahahahaha...besides when I get to thinking too much, I get headaches, loose my concentration and usually mess up a run of reloads or something in the lathe/mill.

I set my 700 gr mold up in the lathe and drilled out the nose which brought the weight up from 665 gr as cast to ~753 gr in a not quite filled out perfectly WW mix. I think a Lyman "525" with a slightly longer, rounded nose, to keep more of the weight out front, similar to some of my RN might be neat. There are also several pellets with pointy noses that look like they would be excellent for ANY gauge shotgun and they actually shoot very accurate in my RWS 48 .177...but the Beeman Crow-Magnum 8.8 and RWS Meisterkugeln 8.3 shoot so well that I don't use any others.

I think a bore sized, ~0.730", "525" might be interesting, something like BPI's Shuttlecock, but when I get to thinking along those lines I ask "WHY"...there are so many slug designs already available and constantly coming down that pike, those thoughts fall into that "Jezzzz...not another slug" catagory.

This thread has REALLY GONE OT.

I say...The 525 will work very well as is, loaded following already established guidelines and take all the game anyone wants...let the hunters use them and not get confused by all the rhetoric, and let the experimenters do their thing and stay "confused", and continue their rhetoric...all they want. Hahahahahaha