Lee 1 oz slug Rem 870 fully rifled barrel Problem

[BushDevil]

I have tried everything on the load data that came with the mold. And there is no way on earth this will work in my Remington 870 slugster 24" barrel. I tried every wad combo listed with wooden dowel trying to push thru for a test. I can't even get it started. Even with cut down petals. Now with my smooth bore 20" no problem. Now my slugs are .680. Any idea's??

I am thinking this is a sabot only barrel

[pipehand]

Bushdevil, the instructions you've read about pushing the wadded slug down the bore apply to smoothbore. It takes a bit to engrave the wad slug with the rifling in a rifled bore.

[longbow]

What pipehand said!

With smoothbore you want a snug slip fit but for rifled gun the rifling has to engrave and spin the slug so there has to be some compression or the wad will simply slip by the rifling and shred.

Do some searches on this forum for what others have used successfully... I am thinking more like wad brands. Some wads are good and tough and some are not. Also, some give better fit than others although the Lee recommendations should all be reasonable.

I can't help beyond that because I shoot smoothbore. I am sure others will offer advice based on their first hand experiences.

Well, I can offer one other bit of advice and that is to use a 16 or 20 ga. nitro card wad under the slug. Not quite as important with Lee Drive key slugs but I believe you will find you get better performance using a nitro card wad to protect the shotcup from distortion into the hollow base of the slug.

Longbow

[duckey]

I have pushed a WAA wad through a Mossberg 835 Rifled barrel just fine. It was snug but not impossible. I did cut the wad pedals down to just at or slightly below the curve of the Lee 1oz drive key slug. I am sure not all slug barrels are created equal so keep trying different wads. Check out Fortunecookie45lc on YouTube as he has a 4 video series on loading the Drive key slug. He talks about wads, hulls etc. Good info and it helped me a lot! Good luck. keep us posted.

[Faret]

It the combo is still too big you will have issues just like a smoothbore. Measure the lands and groves then pick a size that is in the middle of those measurements. You will have a lot better luck! I had to go with the WW114 wads and a sized slug of .670 in order to get any kind of accuracy. Total size came to .720. Hope it works out for ya!

[too many things]

one thing you can do
cut the petals off and do a paper patch or a cloth patch like the ML use. You could use a shotgun cleaning patch to try. they are about 2in
the bore on my 870 rifled is .728 that is the groove not lands . most smooth is .730