Full bore 12 ga. "slugs"

[Ithaca Gunner]

I consider myself pretty much a novice at shot gun reloading, I have a MEC 600Jr. and load a few hundred shells a year for upland game hunting and recreational clay target shooting. Without boring you all with details, earlier this year I ran into a deal on two Ithaca '37 Deer Slayer barrels for my Magnum Model, both 20" with rifle sights, one rifled, one smoothbore. Now I have the urge to toss large solid chunks of lead downrange. I started out with a LEE Drive Key mold and have since chucked it over my shoulder hoping never to see it again. Next was a LEE .690 round ball mold, fantastic mold and it's fairly accurate out of the smoothie giving about 2.5" groups at 30yds. with three buckshot nested under it, (I'll post pictures of that in another thread).

Now I've gotten one of Accurate Mold's 770gr. .732" full bore molds for even more fun punching big holes in things. Okay, I've got a bunch cast, and realize they will need to be roll crimped. No problem, I have a BPI roll crimper and hull vice, new primed Federal 3" shells, and new primed Fiocchi 2.75" Tundra hulls. My concern is gas seal, wads, and powder. There's no published recipes that I can find for these knock-em down chunks of lead. I figure I may start with 30gr. of Blue Dot and adjust from there? BPI gas seal, felt wad, and a card wad under my boolit with a roll crimp holding everything together?

I'm pretty much in the dark here and don't want to approach this hap-hazardly. I appreciate any help from those who have experience with this mold.

[turbo1889]

. . . Accurate Mold's 770gr. .732" full bore molds . . . I figure I may start with 30gr. of Blue Dot and adjust from there? BPI gas seal, felt wad, and a card wad under my boolit with a roll crimp holding everything together . . .

That load shouldn't be a problem. One thing I might suggest you try that will work out a little easier and a little cheaper then building your wad column with the BPI gas seals and felt wad would be to pick yourself up a bag of Federal 12S4 wads. With their shot petals cut off they make an excellent over powder gas seal and cushion section for your wad column in place of the separate gas seal and felt wad and you just use cheap nitro cards on top of that under the slug to adjust the height of the slug to get the right height for crimping. Thats what I do unless I'm trying to build a load with completely bio-degradable wadding.

As to your 30 grain charge of Blue Dot. That's a good starting point, I've gone a bit higher then that with that weight of full bore slug so you should be good to go.

[turbo1889]

I both roll crimp and fold crimp depending on the load.

I load 2-3/4", 3", & 3-1/2" shell length loads for the 12ga.

I don't have that exact mold but I have several others both slightly heavier and slightly lighter including the AM#73-775S which is almost the same weight, only five grains heavier.