I made my first mold

[stillwell]

Ive been work on some 12ga loads for the last few months with lee key drive, but ive not gotten the results i wanted. Im looking to get 1in to 1.5in groups at 100 yards. This is not that hard with reminton buck hammers. So i thought i would make a full bore mold to see if that was the problem. I now have a rough prototype that casts well. Should be able to get to the range next weekend to test. I thought i would see what the guys here have to add.

[I'll Make Mine]

A 12 ga. hollow base full wadcutter? That should hammer the bucks, and no fooling. Looks like nice machine work, too. You shooting those in a rifled bore? Hollow base or not, I doubt a full flat nose would be stable from a smooth bore...

[stillwell]

yes fully rifled winchester 1300. I've hade good luck with hallow base wad cutters,so why not a a 12ga. They are weighing in at 575gr. when i ran the math on making it a 600gr i forgot that i would not be using pure lead. i may make another as a semi wadcutter

[I'll Make Mine]

You'll probably find a semi-wadcutter will be more accurate at supersonic velocity (as I recall, most 12 ga. loads run right around 1500 ft/s), but within a hundred yards it won't make a huge amount of difference -- SWC can probably be made to group inside 1 1/2", while a full wadcutter might find its limit around 2 to 2 1/2" groups (assuming similar results to revolver rounds when trying to push wadcutters beyond Mach 1).

[zuke]

Try it out and let us know what happened.

[deltaenterprizes]

Looks great! Did you lathe bore it or make a cherry for it?

Also, do you star crimp or roll crimp your shells?

[longbow]

Here is a proven design for you:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?48345-Dixie-Tusker-Spec-Sheet

I was given a few by a friend to try out and shot them out of my smoothbore. They are intended for rifled gun and were slightly undersize in my smoothbore but accuracy was not bad and they hit nose on at 75 yards with no oval holes. Groups at 75 yards were pretty large but the slug was still stable.

In any case, it is a good design for rifled gun and is 600 grs.

Nice work on the mould by the way! I also think you would be better off with an SWC or TC design though... for accuracy anyway. That wadcutter would certainly slap anything it hit though! And loaded hollow base out might be quite devastating!

Longbow

[stillwell]

I bored this on a manual lathe. Im thinking about start crimping. I started work on a swc tonight. Any thoughts on a wad column?

[longbow]

Whatever you use for a wad column will need nitro card wads under the hollow base slug.

If you want bore size slugs then in my experience it is best to use an over powder plastic gas seal, hard card wad column, nitro card wad or two, then the slug.

You might try cutting the petals of some wads if the cushion leg gives you the right column height but add at least one .125" nitro card wad on top otherwise the cushion leg may blow into the hollow base.

I have had best results with bore size slugs using the hard card wad column though. That is for smoothbores, though I have shot some in a rifled gun and they did well.

What are you thinking for hull/primer/powder/charge? That is a fairly heavy slug so load recipes will be few and far between.

Longbow

[melloairman]

If you want to stay with as much MP as you can you might chuck a couple of those bullets up in the lathe and remove the sharp edge . My wtc in .452 at 175 grains 875 fps at 60 yards is stacking bullets with a Gargoyle air rifle . I know about as far away from your power sources as it can get .But the bullet does not know that . I have no dought that accuracy at 100 yards would be a problem . I might have to pick up the speed but I believe it would still be a accurate bullet . Marvin
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn55/melloroadman/IMG_7070-Copy-1.jpg

[Buckshot]

...............Dang! Man that thing looks like it'd sure smart if you got hit with it? It'd have the ballistics of a cinder block, but again connecting with it and the connect-e would sure be hurting! :-)

..............Buckshot

[cuzinbruce]

Nice work on the mold. And good luck with the boolit. Please let us know how it works out.

[**oneshot**]

Really nice! I'd have to just once, flip it over and use it as a hollowpoint for home defense. wow!

[Artful]

Very Nice work - looking forward to seeing you SWC version

[MtGun44]

Nice looking mold! Please report on results.

Bill

[Awsar]

looks good looking forward to results.

[stillwell]

I have the drawing made for the swc. and got a few hbwc loaded up heading out tomorrow to try out. I'm starting with 37gr blue dot one Obturator gas seal and one half in hard wad.

[krems]

Sounds interesting. Looking forward to the report.

Krems

[stillwell]

I had good results today at the range. We set up at 25 yard fired 2 (left on 4 shot group) that were tuching. then moved back to 40yds (right side of 4 shot group) with ok results. When we switch to 3in (other pic) group opened up quite a lot and was high and right.The roll crimp also tore on the 3in as well. so far so good.

[stillwell]

I did get 2 back from the berm this on wieghs in at 561 and expanded well. Dirt isnt the same but still it looks good.

[Michael J. Spangler]

wow thats pretty sweet.

can't wait to see updates

[Castaholic]

That is awesome, definitely excited to see some updates!

[bootsnthejeep]

I'm with Buckshot. As long as it gets there, should hit like the flat side of an axe!

[iomskp]

Great work I like the wad cutter, I have two 12 gauge molds one is a hollow base round nose its either 730 or 800 gr depending what base you put in, the other is a Fosbury 750gr both are made by CBE and they are hell on pigs.

[stillwell]

I prototyped my second revision in 360 brass. Wondering if i could make a 2 part mold out of plaster or silicone to test before i make a final mold. Any help would be appreciated.79387

[Beagle333]

Holy smokes, that is an impressive mushroom! :shock: You guys must have some really mean deer up there!:-D Congrats on the mold... great work!

[grubbylabs]

I bet that would do a number on a bear.

[longbow]

Now that looks good!

Personally I would go with a little more TC nose and smaller meplat but that's just a personal preference, that looks like it should shoot well.

Not sure if you have checked out Accurate Molds slug designs:

http://www.accuratemolds.com/catalog.php?page=14

Your slug is a lot like the Accurate 73-775S:

http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=73-775S-D.png

I am thinking you will have a winner there.

Longbow

[Changeling]

I really apploud your efforts, but it's just a wadcutter and accuracy will start to suck past 60 yards or so. Unlike some other opinions I have this habit of telling the truth. That will help you in your design, by not patronizeing a wad cutter, that is what it is!

[stillwell]

I'm open for suggestions if you have any. Buck hammers look a lot like semi wad cutters, but the wad stays attached during flight to stabilize it or so they say. Besides I have to start somewhere.

[youngda9]

Love the flying trashcan. I agree that a SWC is not going to give you the accuracy you desire at 100yds. And there is no need for such a metplat when punching a 12ga hole through a deer. 12ga is .729" in diameter...that is a HUUUGE hole. Deer are easy to kill with little holes. It looks cool and all but you are sacrificing accuracy and getting nothing in return. 1500fps will mushroom a lead bullet just fine. Put more of a nose on it if you want accuracy at longer distances (>50yds)...the deer won't know the difference. My $0.02.

Great work. Keep us updated.

[stillwell]

metplat is at .550 now. that's just over 75%.

[youngda9]

A longer nose will help with accuracy and aerodynamics as well. '

Let us know how this one shoots at 100yds !!

[stillwell]

problem is that this one is brass. I think it would be to hard for the barrel. also the weight is 1.09 oz in brass it should be 1.4 give or take in lead.

[stillwell]

I decided to go another direction with this project. My thought was to start with what I’m trying to emulate, so this is what the first attempts look like for the buck hammer. Wads are made of low density polyethylene (LDPE). Which might I add is a bear to machine, think hot glue stick. Slugs are ounce and a quarter. This looks like a fairly easy mold to make if all goes well at the range. Also I was thinking of moving this to casting for shotguns but cant seam to figure that out if any one could give me a hand with that it would be great.

Randy

[Skunkworks]

This might be the bees knees for you:

81744

http://slugsrus.com/store/product75.html

[Echo]

...............Dang! Man that thing looks like it'd sure smart if you got hit with it? It'd have the ballistics of a cinder block, but again connecting with it and the connect-e would sure be hurting! :-)

..............Buckshot
I'll bet that it would at least leave a mark!