10ga foster slugs

[bikerbeans]

I am posting in this forum because this is where the folks that can load these hangout, but if a MOD wants to move it that is fine by me.

Here's the deal, if you want to try and load your own 10ga foster slugs I will send you some in a SFRB, with gas seals and wads. You are responsible for your own load data, I will not provide any. Also, you must send me a pic of your gun, if you don't have a new manufacture 10ga (last 35 years or so) with a cylinder choke then I will not send you these slugs. These slugs weigh approx 740 grains and measure +.775" so they are full bore and are cast from ww lead with added tin. These slugs have 2 relief grooves and I thumble lube them with 25% lee Alox and 75% JPW. Slugs were towel dropped so not exceptionally hard, but I haven't tested the BHN since I don't have a tester. If you try to shoot them out of grandpa's old full choke double barrel made in 1907 you are not going to like the result. FWIW, I have only fired then out of a H&R Pardner 10ga with 24" barrel and a screw in cylinder choke tube.

In return, I would like you to send me some WW ingots in a SFRB. You can just match weight for weight with the slugs. Please just send me a PM on this, and remember I reserve the right to decide who I send these to. If you don't have posts in this forum then you probably don't need to waste your time with a PM

BB

[pacomdiver]

what size groups you getting with them? me and my son have the New england partner 2's for turkey. hes got the wood one and I have the gaudy goose camo one

[bikerbeans]

4 to 6 inch groups at 100 yards but I was shooting these slugs at over 1500 fps and the recoil was rough. Also I wasn't using a rest, just my elbows on a bench. I am going to do more load workup in the spring at a more sane velocity, less than 1,300 fps.

BB

[longbow]

bikerbeans:

Would you post some photos of those slugs? Also your wad column.

4" to 6" groups at 100 yards is the holy grail I have been searching for with my smoothbore slug shooting but I haven't made it yet with home rolled slugs... at least not with the consistency I want (too many fliers). I am talking 12 ga. here but the principles are the same and if slug design and fit are similar, results should be similar.

Photos of recovered slugs would be good too if you have any.

Thanks.

Longbow

[labradigger1]

"Full bore 10 ga slugs", boy does that ever sound painful.
Sp-10 with cylinder choke here. Sounds interesting and painful.
Have to think about it

[bikerbeans]

longbow,

the wad column is easy, one BPI 10ga gas seal, and (IIRC) 4 .125" 10ga nitro cards. Most of the case is filled with a lot of SR 4759. Roll crimps with BPI crimper and drill press. New Federal primed hulls. Let me see about a pic.

BB

[bikerbeans]

another pic, the recovered slug was shot into a railroad tie at about 60 yards. It is embedded in the tie and then a second slug hit the first one and knocked it out of the tie.

ignore the wad columns in this pic, double gas seals and cut down Rem SP10 wads did work so good.

BB

[pacomdiver]

wow that's hauling ***, my federal high velocity #6 steel turkey is running 1300 and the federal high velocity BBB steel turkey is 1450. I don't know what my steel reloads are running but they are more stout than the factory stuff

I don't have sr4759, but have blue dot. ive never loaded 10ga slugs but just happen to have an old 10ga roll crimp I got with my dads reloading stuff

[longbow]

Bikerbeans,

Thanks for posting that. Is the slug turbo designed? It looks familiar. It is a good looking slug for sure. Who made the mould?

I should make myself a new nose form and hollow base plug for my full bore push out mould and copy that design but for 12 ga. If it is working that well for you in 10 ga. the same design in 12 ga. should also work.

The two biggest problems I have had with hollow base slugs are skirt collapse or deformation if not oven heat treated and wad column issues.

Even after making a form to cast hot melt glue "wad" onto/into the hollow base. Recovered slugs, even thick skirts, were still deformed. At that point I gave up on HB slugs and went Brenneke style but still not the success I was hoping for.

Overall, I still think that consistency is the issue (or more correctly lack of consistency). It is hard to beat a plain old cast slug for consistency if it has a solid launch platform ~ no attached wad column to deform.

Do you fill the hollow base with anything?

Your success with accuracy is making me jealous! I have to try harder. In fact I have got to get out and do more slug shooting, it has been a while now.

Thanks for posting that.

Longbow

[bikerbeans]

Longbow,

Yes, turbo designed the slug and was very kind to send me a drawing. I sent the drawing to brooks mold and knife and they sent me the mold a couple of weeks later.

I haven't tried filling the hollow base, I try to minimize the components in a slug in the hopes of better consistency.

BB

[longbow]

Yes, I think I recall the posts where that discussion took place.

I would prefer not to fill or use attached wads as well but I found that unless I heat treated slugs even heavy skirted slugs suffered skirt deformation at firing.

So far the best results I have gotten from a hollow base slug is a mould I originally made for Greg Sappington for use in thick petal wads in a rifled gun. He had a solid design and spec he sent me so I made a prototype mould for testing slugs and sent the slugs to him. After he tested the slugs, I converted the mould from solid to hollow base and tried it out in my smoothbores. It took me a while to figure it out but accuracy was inconsistent. Sometimes very good and sometimes not. I tried filling the cavity with hot melt glue but same problem. What clued me in was that I shot a whole whack of these slugs one winter then in spring found a bunch that the snow had stopped so they were undamaged... by impact anyway. Most had varying degrees of belling of the skirt. So, I tried oven heat treating and wound with with very good accuracy. I probably should have stopped there but I really didn't want to heat treat all my slugs so kept searching for a better way. Still haven't found it.

I am thinking I should revisit that slug and also do a little work to my full bore mould which I can convert to use the same cavity proportions as turbo's design. It is a very similar TC design so if I use the same hollow base cavity and skirt proportions as turbo's design it just may work.

Alternately I suppose I could get a custom mould made.

I am with you on the consistency comment and I think that is the biggest hurdle for the home slug caster/loader especially with attached wad slugs.

Thanks,
Longbow

[bikerbeans]

Longbow,

I seem to remember Ed Hubel (sorry Ed if it wasn't you) saying that he used blue styrofoam building insulation to fill the hollow base of a cast lead slug. I think he used some type of punch to cut a round core and then pressed it into the base. This may have been discussed in the 12ga from Heck thread but I am not sure.

I had one idea I haven't tried with hollow base slugs and that is to load them so that the combustion gas is allowed to enter the hollow base so that all the force isn't just on the bottom of the skirt. This method works well in black powder cartridges and muzzleloaders and the pressures are (should be) lower in a shotgun so maybe it will help? If I can find a slow enough powder that will ignite correctly then I would makeup a load without gas seal or wads. May not work so well with a plastic hull and the typically load throat of a shotgun barrel.

BB

[longbow]

I would be very careful of trying to intentionally expand the skirt of a slug especially if you are using 2 3/4" hulls in 3" chamber or 3" hulls in 3 1/2" chamber. There is a possibility of the skirt expanding during the jump to the forcing cone and causing pressure spike.

I mention this because I blew up a single shot shotgun using Lyman Foster slugs in shortened hulls. I wanted a short hull so cut off the cushion leg and just used the plastic gas seal then filled the cavity with cornmeal and loaded in a 2 1/2" hull, IIRC, in a 3" chamber. Blew the top of the chamber off the barrel and launched the barrel about 10' in front of me.

After I regained some composure, I picked up the pieces and went home relatively unscathed. I got a small cut on my forehead and lost some hearing in my right ear.

Examination of the barrel showed lead streaking right from where the hull ended so the slug "obturated" to fill the chamber then ran into the forcing cone, which I am guessing, cause a bit of a rise in pressure.

When I tell people to play safe I am speaking from experience. it doesn't take much to ruin a day at the range and possibly cause yourself or others injury.

The two obvious mistakes I made were removing the cushion leg which I am sure now raises pressures at ignition due to no collapse/increased volume and shortening the hull with a thin walled slug loaded. It may have been a combination of things but remember that the Lyman slug starts out at 0.705" so it went from that to chamber diameter in about a nanosecond then ran into the forcing cone.

Anyway, don't want to get too preachy but I suggest not pursuing the idea of a 12 ga. Minie bullet unless you have a chamber cut like a rifle and little to no jump to the bore.

Play but pay safe!

Longbow

[bikerbeans]

Longbow,

Thanks for your input on the HB slugs. I have just been turning this over in my mind and haven't started a load workup. I have an ingot of cerrosafe so am going to do a throat cast and see what I have. I am also using heavy bull barreled single shot, not a thin wall pump or autoloader. I also start very low with pressure/velocity as I find it easier to drive a squibbed chunk of lead that to wonder around my gun club looking for the pieces of my longgun. Probably will cast some more slugs from pure lead with a couple of percent tin so i have a nice soft alloy.

BB

[longbow]

I think as long as you have a hull that fills the chamber the chances of repeating my mistake is slim to maybe none. My suspicion is that the combination of short hull, long chamber and soft slug filled with cornmeal made for a slug that swole up to fill the chamber as it exited the hull then was unable to squeeze done through the forcing cone fast enough.

Made me rethink hollow base slugs and their design especially for shirt hulls.

As mentioned, I have even made extremely thick skirted slugs with small cavities to cast hot melt glue skirts on them using the small cavity to lock it in place and those went bell shaped at firing and clipped off petals on shotcups. That surprised me. That was when I decided to go with solids and attached wads just to avoid the hollow base issues. However, I am still struggling with consistency and accuracy at anything much over 50 to 60 yards. Round balls tend to do better.

Now you go and tell me that you are getting good groups at 100 yards with the turbo design slug so I have to try again!

Oh, I just re-read and see you are casting soft slugs? I have had better results using ACWW to oven heat treated slugs than with soft lead. As I mentioned, I found most of my slugs were distorting due to skirt collapse. If they are full bore and contained and all collapse the same it shouldn't matter but fit has to be real good for that to work and wads have to be kept out of the cavity. Oven heat treating seems to solve the skirt collapse.

Now, who am I telling what? You are doing better than I am so I should follow your lead.

And so I will be resurrecting my almost turbo design mould and making it more turbo design except it will not have grooves.

If that doesn't work I think I will stick to round balls!

Longbow

[bikerbeans]

Longbow,

The slugs I have been shooting are fairly hard. I was thinking of casting some soft 10ga HB slugs to try when/if I decide to shoot HB slugs without a gas seal, wads or filler.

FWIW, I have shot Turbo's heat treated 12ga HB slugs (600g) with good accuracy and killed one deer with them. However, I was shooting them out of a H&R rifled slug gun, not a smoothbore. I also have a friend who bought a 12ga slug mold from Accurate that has a HB pin. IIRC, his slugs are a bit heavier than Turbo's. If you want to try some of these 12ga HB slugs, send me a PM with your address, well that is if it is legal for me to mail them to Canada.

BB

[bikerbeans]

LB,

I was just thinking that the few factory foster slugs I have dissected have all had undersized, very soft lead slugs. The wad columns have also been fairly rigid, usually plastic and fiber hardcards and a gas seal, without filler in the HB cavity. Do you think (know) if the factory foster slug skirts are collapsing when fired? I haven't shot factory foster slugs while deer hunting in over 20 years but I do remember I could get minute of pie plate out to 100 yards using a scoped smoothbore.

BB

[longbow]

BB:

Yes, I have recovered not only many of the slugs I shoot but also many slugs others shoot. I was surprised the first spring that I scoured the range for slugs after the snow melt that I found so many of mine and others. However, we do get police training on our range so I guess they do some slug shooting. These are almost all Foster slugs and most are badly deformed at the base where wads have pressed into them... on several leaving a paper thin "flange", "rifling" ribs flattened, etc.

My own Lyman Foster slug mould casts at 0.705" but in soft lead, they slug right up to bore size and when recovered from snow they do not look very good ~ short, fat and with noses skewed one way or the other depending on how much the slug was tipped or maybe which side of the bore it was on when it slugged up. Nonetheless, they come of at bore size so are swelling up by 0.025".

I posted photos of a bunch of recovered slugs maybe a year ago. If you want I will try to find the post or repost a photo or two of several badly deformed Foster slugs. Most are significantly shorter than before firing.

Now, having said that, I have gotten some pretty fine accuracy from factory Foster slugs... much better in general than most of my home loaded slugs. I have a few exceptions but very few. Again I cite consistency and solid wad columns. I would say that some have done considerably better than minute of pie plate at 100 yards and repeatable groups at that, not just a few random good ones.

The fired factory Fosters remind me of Nessler bullets that were designed for muzzleloading smoothbores in the 1800's just prior to militarys adopting rifled guns. Same ~ short and fat but they had a reputation for accuracy, makes one wonder.

I even recovered a Lyman sabot slug that has shortened up considerably.

Nothing wrong with a slug getting shorter and fatter as long as they do it concentrically and consistently. That seems to be the problem for the home caster/loader ~ repeatability... at least with smoothbores. A solid in a rifled bore is a whole different animal.

Let me see what photos I can find and I'll post a couple for you to see.

My biggest lessons learned on slugs have come from recovered wads and slugs. They all tell a story. Mostly sad stories in my experience (for my slugs anyway).

Longbow

[Ballistics in Scotland]

124625124625


Your account of the accident is very interesting, and I think it happened for just the reason you describe. The above table is much edited by me from Sir Gerald Burrard's "The Modern Shotgun", and it shows what would happen if you totally sealed the bore at a stated distance from the breech face. It is practically impossible to do it beyond the chamber, and almost all down-bore explosions are caused by faults in the barrel (either built in during manufacture or created later), or by the projectile striking an obstructions. Obstruction bursts are the more violent of the two.

The weak point caused by the front of the chamber in a tapering barrel exterior is by far the most likely place for an overpressure burst to happen, and in your case it did. I am not surprised you walked away almost uninjured. Most people do. But of course "most people" is not good enough to risk it, especially when the danger to people standing beside you is probably greater.

Did you recover the bit of the wad you used? One layer of plastic isn't nearly as strong as two plus the folded up springy bit between them. It seems very possible that it ruptured where it was backed up only by thin air in the hollow of the slug, and admitted the pressure (very high at that point) to expand it harder against the metal than Forster type slugs were ever meant to be expanded.

As to what you might fill the cavity with, if you used such a wad again (or even a nude slug), it would have to be something that didn't convert forward pressure into outward pressure. Grease or soft wax surely would, and I have my doubts about hot melt glue, which in the sticks I have seen appears quite flexible.

It would also have to be something that either all stays where it is, or all falls out on exiting the muzzle, for the sake of symmetrical weight distribution. I think that is another reason for grease or wax to be out. This would go double (or a lot more than double) for a rifled shotgun bore. The .577 Snider bullet base (I've dismantled one) used to be filled with a mixture of clay powder and the minimum of beeswax that would bind it together. Maybe this didn't transmit pressure sideways in the bullet skirt (while it was still in that exceptionally weak rolled foil case_, and yet fell out as dust at the muzzle.

I agree with your blaming the case length, and I would even mistrust the currently fashionable long forcing cone. (I am dubious of the benefits of this even with shot.) If I still had a use for a smoothbore slug gun, I would consider brass cases, and ream the bore to match their interior.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

You can do surprisingly well with round balls which are a good fit in a shot sleeve wad, if the shot sleeve wad is a close fit in both case and bore.

I agree about not deliberately expanding the skirt of a Forster slug before loading. But I can see no reason not to make up a die to reduce the rear of the skirt, to fit inside such a wad.

Ironically the condition of the skirt isn't nearly so critical in a muzzle loader, since there is no chamber for it to be expanded in the chamber, and have to force its way out of it. Even if the occasional skirt detaches, all that happens is that one shot is inaccurate, and peculiar things happen to the loading density until you do a tricky ramrod-attachment job. There is no chance of the skirt ever being ahead of a round, and causing that obstruction burst.

[longbow]

Round balls absolutely do a great job!

So far, I have found few home cast and loaded slugs that will beat a round ball to at least 50 yards. My good round ball loads produce 3" to 4" groups very consistently where my Lyman Foster slug has been a problem to get groups of under 8" or so at 50 yards.

I did make a TC mould for a wad slug that shot about the same groups as round balls in the 4" range +/- but I had to heat treat to avoid skirt deformation and that was with slug in wad with cushion leg over Blue Dot which is relatively slow.

My blow up put me off hollow base slugs but in reality, if they have heavy skirts they should be find. I just would not choose to make shorty shells with them or intentionally try to get the skirts to expand through chamber pressure.

I have been pursuing Brenneke style solid slugs with attached skirts/wads for a while but for the home craftsman it is either an expensive job (injection moulding) or labour intensive (turning plastic rod) to get consistent attached wads that will take the abuse of firing and jumping through a forcing cone.

I am going to re-try my heat treated wad slugs as well as my scaled down turbo design (like bikerbeans 10 ga. mould) and give them another test or two. It is hard to beat cast lead for consistency when the wad just seals then separates at the muzzle.

I was in the process of posting the photos of recovered Foster slugs when everything went dead here. I will re-post those shortly in answer to BB's question.

Longbow

[smkummer]

124708I have an Ithaca Mag 10 roadblocker with a cylinder bore and a 22" barrel. I have been looking to load a 10 gauge slug for sometime. I have both WW ingots and soft ingots to trade. The wheel weight ingots typically test at 12 BHN but if you drop them into water, they will hit 20 BHN. The soft lead is from roofing lead, I am guessing 7-9BHN. I load 10 gauge with 800X with the SP10 wad. I understand SR4759 powder is to be discontinued. I would need to find a roll crimper. I am interested in working out a trade with you.

[bikerbeans]

124708I have an Ithaca Mag 10 roadblocker with a cylinder bore and a 22" barrel. I have been looking to load a 10 gauge slug for sometime. I have both WW ingots and soft ingots to trade. The wheel weight ingots typically test at 12 BHN but if you drop them into water, they will hit 20 BHN. The soft lead is from roofing lead, I am guessing 7-9BHN. I load 10 gauge with 800X with the SP10 wad. I understand SR4759 powder is to be discontinued. I would need to find a roll crimper. I am interested in working out a trade with you.

PM Sent.

BB

[bikerbeans]

smkummer,

I really like that autoloading cannon.

BB

[smkummer]

smkummer,

I really like that autoloading cannon.

BBYes, so do I. I found it at the Indy gun show about a year or so ago. It was priced right ($650) and I had to have it. I have used it in one pistol match already when they allow shotguns for a stage, needless to say it was a head turner but it only holds 3 so I lost time. The metal plates and poppers went down with authority though. I have been wanting to do my own slugs for it for a long time (for less than $2 per shot) and now I get the chance, thanks so much.

[smkummer]

And for what its worth, I rate the Mag 10 as a very firm push and not a kick. Of course that is a fine line but the gas feature does take some "kick" out of the mighty 10 gauge.

[longbow]

Well, twice I have tried to post photos and twice things have crashed then I had no access to Cast Boolits for several days ~ "Web page Not Available"! Not sure what is going on as I have not had any trouble before.

In any case, eventually I will get slug photos posted. These are 12 ga. not 10 ga. but the same things will be happening in the bore. Yes, skirts do deform and in many cases quite dramatically.

I have even recovered Gualandi DGS slugs which are hard alloy and the HB slug skirt has been badly distorted by the cushion leg ramming into it under pressure. Nonetheless, accuracy with those seemed quite good.

I will try posting again after I get a response from the web master here.

Alternately if you PM me your e-mail address, I will e-mail photos to you.

Merry Christmas to all!

Longbow

[pacomdiver]

theres been a bps 10 at a local show for over a year, ive watched the price migrate down from 750 to 500 at the last show, but as always I don't have enough cash for it to leave with me.

[longbow]

While I am a 12 ga. slug shooter, a 10 ga. has an appeal. Big holes are nice! And that turbo designed slug is a winner.

I do have a vintage W.C. Scott and Son 10 ga. side by that is in need of a large dose of TLC and will likely never be the grand old gun that it was ~ locks damaged, stock broken, pivot badly worn and barrels somewhat pitted. I have been holding onto it with the intent of getting it fixed to at least shootable condition and if not any value as a restored gun then it may become a side by slug gun but it is Damascus so would be BP, BP sub or BP equivalent pressure loads. Still it is a 10 ga. and even at BP pressures that is a big hole!

That Ithaca mag. 10 roadblocker is impressive! Kinda artillery like.

Longbow

[finstr]

I have a Remington SP-10 that i shoot 1-3/4oz factory Federal slugs out of and the recoil is bad but tolerable. Never tried rolling my own slugs for that cannon but this thread is certainly interesting. Would like to see how those slugs pattern thru that Mag10.