HB skirt failure - how do you know?

[bikerbeans]

I have seen posts regarding failures of the skirt on a HB slug. How does one go about determining this, short of a super slow motion camera aimed at about 3 inches in front of the muzzle?

BB

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Hello Brother BikerBeans, I would be sure to incorporate a 1/4 inch nitro card right below the slug in my load to give it a solid firm base and then put a board at 5, 10 & 15 yards and shoot through and see for yourself!

Once you put the .250 nitro card you should be fine and smiling after your test for the bad news is you owe me a coffee!
I don't mind if you offer me a donut with the coffee, do you, I'm your Elite Musketeer Brother.

Come on over to my chicken camp post, I'll post some treats for you for your 450 gr slug in 20 gauge that I have been working on for you in the next few hours:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?150140-VdoMemorie-Blazing-Sabot!/page26

Best regards,
Ajay Madan
Super Blazing Sabots
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We all, who take slug loading seriously are a dedicated family, who have taken it upon ourselves to perfect our tech. We experiment to find better techniques and share our knowledge.

[GBertolet]

I can tell when my slug skirts fail, because when I recover them, and see that the base of the skirt is rolled inwards considerably. Casting of a harder alloy than pure lead will help somewhat. I had been experimenting with placing a 1/2" acetal ball inside the slug, to support it better when being fired.

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Hello Brother BikerBeans, shoot the slug in a swiming pool and recover the slug and see.

I think Brother BB is using full bore 450 gr slug in 20 ga and not a slug in wad design.

See we are all working for you, just keep the coffee pot hot!

Best regards,
Ajay Madan
Super Blazing Sabots
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http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/view...f=118&t=196961[/url]
http://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/fo...p?f=43&t=39246[/url]
http://www.go2gbo.com/forums/slug-gu...old-is-gold-!/[/url]
-Elite Group of Slug Shooter's
We all, who take slug loading seriously are a dedicated family, who have taken it upon ourselves to perfect our tech. We experiment to find better techniques and share our knowledge.
Location: New Jersey. USA / Frankfort, W.Germany / London, UK
-Elite Group of Slug Shooter's
We all, who take slug loading seriously are a dedicated family, who have taken it upon ourselves to perfect our tech. We experiment to find better techniques and share our knowledge.

[220]

Have seen a few skirt come off when driven to hard. Extra holes in the target is usually a give away, have even seen the skirts imbedded in the target.

[curator]

I fill the skirts with a mixture of cream of wheat cereal and paraffin wax. I use a butter knife to spread the melted mix nto the hollow bases prior to loading the Minnie" slugs into a shot sleeve. I also incorporate a 28 gauge .125 card wad at the base of the shot sleeve prior to seating the minnie ball. For 20 gauge rifled bores this works fine.

[bikerbeans]

I have seen a number of flatten skirts on factory foster slugs, but this is after impacting an earthen berm. It seems to me the deformation could be caused by the sudden deceleration with the hard clay. I guess what I am really asking if you have a deformed skirt on a HB slug is how do you know it didn't happen on impact?

thanks for the replys guy. Us old, retired guys have too much time to think of stuff.

BB

[bikerbeans]

Ajay,


if you are ever in my neck of the woods I would gladly buy you coffee, but sharing donuts would be hard for me.;)

I use nitro cards under all my fullbore slugs and I don't use any cushioning wads. So far I have found uncompressible wad columns to give better accuracy in my SGs.


BB

[longbow]

I have recovered many slugs with distorted skirts. Even when shot into sand at 100 yards you can see where wads crush thin skirts or ribs are flattened in the bore unevenly but best of all is when I shoot into deep snow then recover slugs ~ very educational that!

I've recovered slugs with nitro card wads jammed inside, plastic wads jammed inside, skirts belled, uneven lower edge of skirts, cocked noses, etc.

I posted photos of a bunch of recovered slugs that I and also many that others have shot and much of the slug/skirt distortion is very obvious but recovery from snow is best.

A good solid wad column is required to keep wads behind and supporting the slug's skirt. Heat treating alloy slugs also helps avoid distortion.

Personally I prefer Brenneke style slugs so no hollow base.

That's what I have found anyway.

Longbow

[Doc Highwall]

The size of the base plug has a influence on the thickness of the skirt at the base of the bullet. If the skirt thickness is too thick it will be no good for light target loads and if it is too thin it will be no good for full power loads. You can make a new plug that is smaller that will give you a thicker base.

[turbo1889]

Firing into a nice deep snow drift is the very best way I have found of obtaining a projectile that is nearly identical to how it comes out the end of the guns muzzle right down the very finest details. Better then even a water tank which still causes some distortion due to the impact. Even all but the most fragile hollow point rounds can be studied this way without the hollow point opening due to the impact. Be warned find a good deep drift or better yet multiple ones in a row and fire the shot line so that if it goes all the way through the first snow drift the line of shot take it through the next and the next and the next. Takes a lot of snow to stop a bullet which is way it does such a good job of stopping them without distorting them.

If your in an area where you don't get snow (or not enough of it), well sorry to say your SOL for that trick.

[bikerbeans]

I have lived in NW Ohio for about 25 years and don't think I have seen a snow drift large enough to try this. Not really an issue for me, I was curious about how folks determined slug deformation. The 10ga & 12ga HB slugs I am shooting right now both fly just fine and make round holes in a piece of OSB so I don't think I am collapsing the skirts.


BB

[Hogtamer]

BB, the lee 7/8 slugs i've been working leave a perfect round hole as well. I do get an occasional flyer though and distorted skirts could be the explanation. Perhaps if i examined each slug carefully for any casting imperfection in the skirt or drive key....hmmmmm

[longbow]

Hah! Took me a while to find it but...

Here are some photos of recovered slugs:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?199096-Photos-of-Recovered-Slugs&highlight=photo

There are some bad skirts in the photo "recovered Fosters ~ other peoples"

Also look at the recovered Lyman sabot slugs ~ those skirts do not start out short, fat and straight, those bumped up in the bore. Now if they bump the same each time they should be okay but my experience with Lyman Fosters (not sabot slugs) is that they are so sloppy in the bore they do not bump up the same ever time and accuracy shows it.

I didn't include it here but I also have a photo of some of my home made Foster wad slugs recovered from snow and all have obviously bell shaped skirts. I have to guess the the wad tried to push up into the base and they were not a tight enough fit to the bore so "belled". That is skirt failure.

Oh and one of the more obvious skirt failures is in the very first photo of "miscellaneous recovered slugs ~ mine". Most of those are Rapine wad slugs and the 5th from the left is unfired while all those to the right of it are recovered and all have collapsed due to skirt failure. Best example in those photos.

Most of these slugs were recovered from snow. Not all but most.

Longbow

[bikerbeans]

I have only recovered one of my 10ga slugs and this was after it went most of the way through a railroad tie and then was knocked through the tie by another of my 10ga slugs (second slug only impact about 3/8" of the mushroom nose of the first slug, completely missing the base). The nose was mushroomed but the bottom 1/2 of the slug was still round and pretty much bore diameter. Maybe if mother nature helps out I can shoot some of them into the snow and recover them. One thing that may be different with the HB slugs I am shooting in the 10g and 12g is that they are overbore size by a few thousands. The 10ga HB slugs I am shooting are BHN 8.5, towel dropped, air cooled, smelted range lead from an indoor pistol range.


BB

[longbow]

If they are overbore then the skirts are probably in pretty good shape especially if they are fairly thick. The barrel keeps them from expanding so they can only get shorter than thicker if they distort at all.

My negative experiences mostly come from undersize hollowbase slugs that distort badly at bump up because they are so sloppy they are unconstrained. That is a recipe for poor accuracy... at least in my opinion. The Lyman Foster is a classic example as it casts at 0.705" so has to swell up by 0.024" to fill the bore. If cast of hard alloy, it might not distort but then it is a rattle fit so still no accuracy.

Your turbo based design should be pretty good I think. Far better design than typical "thimble" Fosters.

You might try setting up 5 or 6 gallon jugs of water then a soft sand backstop or bucket full of rags behind to catch the slug. That might get you recovered slugs in reasonable shape.

If you do manage to recover some slugs and they show skirt distortion resulting in poor accuracy then you might also try oven heat treating to harden them up. That worked for me on some slugs that were collapsing. If your accuracy is good, I wouldn't worry about it.

Just re-read a bit too and saw your comment about hard card wad columns ~ me too! I find a solid wad column does a better job for me with the full bore slugs than any kind of cushion leg, fiber wads or whatever that is soft.

Longbow