Rifled Slug Mould?

[adam38654]

Why no HP or rifled slug moulds? Im already getting the Lee Drive Key and Lyman Sabot mould.

[scb]

Because of the helix angle of the "rifling" on a rifled slug it would be very difficult to get the slug to release from a conventional mould when you opened it. I did see one that was made by a guy using an EDM. It was one piece with a sprue plate. He said that after you poured the slug and sheered the sprue the lead would shrink faster than the mould material so one could just turn it over and the slug would fall out. I know that there some old moulds that are made that way, primarily paper patch moulds I think. Thing is they are smooth sided, I still think the rifling would cause the slug to hang in the mould, maybe not. I never did see a slug he cast. As far as hollow points are concerned, most slugs are hollow based to begin with. You put a plug in the bottom for the base and a plug in the top for the hollow point it's kinda hard to get the lead in.

[scb]

After thinking about it further it came to me that you wouldn't even be able to to open a mould that had more than 4 equally spaced fins, and with 4 two of them would have to be on the parting line.

[Dixie Slugs]

Those are swaged on, as is the entire Foster design....James

[longbow]

The rifling serves no purpose other than to limit bore contact. The Lyman Foster slug mould casts essentially the same slug as the swaged rifled slugs but is smooth.

So far I find that the Lyman Foster is considerably undersized and accuracy is poor. Paper patching helped but I still got bad fliers. SluggerDoug has a good post on how he made his own "rifling" system which is essentially a form of knurling to bring the slug diameter up to bore size. I just took a look but didn't find it. I'm sure if you search a bit it will show up ~ very good post.

Apparently Ideal/Lyman used to make a swaging system to add rifling to cast Foster slugs many years ago.

Longbow

[Dixie Slugs]

I wonder?.....What if that slug, or the Lee Key Slug, was wrapped with Teflon strip to bring it uo to desired diameter?...Regards, James

[longbow]

James:

I haven't tried teflon but have paper patched to bring diameter up to bore size. That helped but I still got bad fliers. I think the paper doesn't like the rough plastic and roll crimp and is tearing sometimes.

Teflon may be better but after all the mucking about I have done it seems to me there are two directions that make sense ~ to me anyway: undersize slug to fit a shotcup like the Lee Drive Key or bore size like your Tusker. Personally I like the Tusker though the ones I just shot didn't give very good accuracy from my gun. I just started a new thread with my latest unscientific results.

The Tuskers flew point forward all the way to 100 yards making round holes through paper at 50 and 75 yards and I dug one out of the 100 yard berm and it hit nose first. Obviously they fly stable but I didn't get very good accuracy, though as mentioned, they were a rattle fit in the bore which doesn't help. I only had 4 to test and they were sent to me by a friend.

If I can make the Tusker work well in my smoothbore that would be the slug of choice for me. Full bore diameter and tough. It is a nice design in my view and I bet it is devastating out of a rifled barrel.

Longbow

[Dixie Slugs]

The important fact right now is that Tusker design did fly point on out to 100 yards from a smoothbore barrel. That proves again that the weight forward design of Tusker works. If a design tumbled, there is nothing one can do! As time allows, I will try to get Mike Orlen to use one of his extended choke tube blanck and cut it to a Tusker slip fit. That would give a little more than 2" to do final alignment for the Tusker. You ar correct as far as massive Smash-Down with Tusker in rifled barrels..
I do think there is a great deal of potential with Tusker in smoothbores. Some shooters are getting excellent results, but I do think it is matching the barrel to Tusker.
Regards, James

[longbow]

James:

I certainly agree with you on the barrel fit and I'm sure that is responsible for the poor accuracy. In hindsight I wish I had knurled them up a few thou to make them a better fit.

Possibly a slight choke constriction would help, or my favourite ~ a slow twist rifled choke tube.

The one I recovered from the 100 yard berm shows almost no skuffing on the sides so it flew nose on and penetrated the sand nose on. I often get skips up the berm or slugs turning sideways with standard Foster styles and of course once they turn sideways they flatten out. The Tusker almost looks like it could be shot again if I cleaned the sand off it!

I haven't taken any pictures of it yet but if you are interested I will take some and send them to you or post them here.

I would like to do some more testing with this slug. Are they availabe as a reloading component?

Longbow

[turbo1889]

In regards to the Lyman foster slug mold being vastly undersize -- there is a fix for that. Observe far right side -- that's a greatly improved Lyman foster slug mold, diamter of driving bands = 0.730" on the micrometer as cast:

http://forums.handloads.com/uploads/turbo1889/2007-11-17_222534_Wad-Slug_Loading_Technique.JPG

Find yourself a machinist who knows how to lathe bore modify an existing mold and it's a simple enough modification to the Lyman mold.

[longbow]

turbo1889:

I plan to do exactly that. Just haven't got to it yet. Too many projects and not enough time.

When I get to it I plan to bore the body of the mould out to bore size by adding 3 or 4 bands similar to yours and also changing the hollow base pin to produce a thicker nose and skirt.

Have you done any accuracy comparisons between the "before" and "after"?

I did make a mould to produce a long thin skirted Foster slug that would fit a shotcup similar to the Lee Drive Key slug. I made the nose heavier than the Lyman but the skirt quite thin then filled it with hot melt glue for support. The idea being sort of like a Brenneke except without the hassle of attaching wads. I was totally unsuccessful. It did not give very good accuracy.

So, I modified the mould to make a teardrop shaped slug with large bore diameter nose and tapered shank then attached a basewad. It gave better accuracy but still not great. Maybe my attached wads weren't good enough or maybe there were turbulence and weight distribution issues. Anyway it didn't work any better than the Lyman Foster slug.

I decided I wanted a bore size slug so no tapered wad petals to bother it, and a body as long as I can make it at reasonable weight. I wind up with about the same length as diameter just like James at Dixie has pointed out ~ a square slug. I may be slow but I get there eventually!

Anyway, I rather like the Tusker design so if I make a mould I will make something similar but maybe with a slightly longer skirt. Until then I will try modifying the Lyman mould like yours.

Do you lube yours or shoot as is? I was in a rush for my last shooting session so didn't lube and expected leading but didn't get any after shooting 30 bore size slugs and round balls.

Longbow

[turbo1889]

Accuracy Improvement Tests ???

Well let's just put it this way as the mold came stock if I cast with anything harder then pure lead -- I could not hit an 8" paper plate at over 50 yards if my life depended on it out of a rifled barrel NEF-USH. After mold modification and loading as shown with a Fed "S" series wad with the petals cut off and hard 1/8" nitro card in-between the slug and the plastic wad I can hit that paper plate at the 100 yard line all day long without trying too hard. By the way -- I should point out this is not my original idea -- I acquired some slugs so modified from another fellow over on the handloads.com forum and then had a machinist modify my mold in the same way.

As far as lube I tumble lube them with the Lee goop or if I'm in a hurry and don't want to wait a day for them to dry I polish them up with car wax that seems to work well too to keep leading to a minimum for small batches.

[longbow]

About the best I have done with smoothbore and the Lyman Foster slug is 6" at 50 yards and that was when I tried paper patching pure lead, but I still got a few bad fliers.

Lately without paper patching more like 8"+ and irregular groups, worse with hard cast.

Did you have the hollow base pin turned to thicken the skirt or just the cavity opened up?

One of the fellows here machined a Lyman mould pretty much the ways yours has been done too ~ Buckshot I think but I can't remember for sure.

Longbow

[Dixie Slugs]

My comments were aimed at smoothbore barrels. If you are satisfied with your design's results, by all means ignore my comments.
Regards, James

[longbow]

James:

I'm not sure who you are responding to but I appreciate your comments and input. I am interested in doing more testing with the Tusker if they are available as a reloading component.

I will be shooting smoothbore for the foreseeable future as I have limited budget for toys so I plan to do the best I can with what I have got. I like the Tusker design and would like to see if I can improve accuracy in my gun by knurling or wrapping to bring it up to bore diameter.

Longbow

[turbo1889]

Basically from personal experience what I have found four combinations that are accurate for either rifled or smooth bores:

1 ~ Undersize hollow base pure lead slug dead soft with high-burn rate "snappy" powder. The slug bumps up to over bore size in the chamber swags down to full bore size and then swags down in the choke again if needed and gives respectable accuracy of "min of pie-plate" at 70 yards best case scenario 50 yards is "normal" with a little bit of effort put into the project. Two sacrifices in the process though -- soft lead is suitable for nothing bigger then deer avoiding taking shots that will hit bones any bigger then rib bones and secondly using fast powders limits muzzle velocity to the 1,200 fps at best range.

2 ~ Solid pumpkin ball slug load with hardness of at least 20:1 alloy in a "ball cup wad" fully buffered. Same range limits as above but ball can be cast as hard as you want and the right powders can give muzzle velocities in excess of 1,600 fps. Balls however have a nasty habit of glancing off bone rather then crushing through it.

3 ~ Under bore slug nose-heavy required for smooth bores not necessarily for rifled bore with some sort of arrangement to bring it up to full bore diameter through the use of a "soft" material that will "squish" in a choke such as paper, plastic, or rubber. There must be at least two points of contact at full bore dimensions one in the front and one in the rear -- a middle contact point or two, or a full length "saboting" doesn't hurt. The category would include both the Lee and Lyman "wad-slug" designs as well as true sabots and the very excellent slugs made by D-Dupleks (http://www.ddupleks.lv/EN/articles/show/products) with have full bore contact rings of soft material both for. and aft. along with other similar designs by other companies.

4 ~ Full Bore size slugs either of round ball, hollow base, or brenneke style for smoothies and including solid and tail heavy designs for the rifled bores. Obviously these are a big no-no in any kind of choked gun with the exception of soft balls (30:1 at the hardest) which you can sometimes get away with without splitting a choke and other times it comes around and bites you in the proverbial back side.

Now here is what most definitely doesn't work for accuracy -- an undersize slug of any shape that does not swag up to bore size either due to hardness or slow burning powder bouncing and rattling it's way down the barrel. If it's anything more then a few thou. under bore size it will produce a pattern not a group and don't be surprised if that pattern is measured in feet even at reasonably close range.

The whole theme of "bore size" is clearly evident in three of the four combinations that work either one way or the other it needs to be bore size when going down the bore. The only way the other under bore-size balls work is if they are in a "ball cup wad" where the wad is bore size (yes there it is again -- full bore size) and is cupped to hold the bottom half of the ball and keep it dead center in the bore -- the buffer makes sure the ball behaves itself and stays in the cup where it's suppose to be.

In Other Words:

Bore Size !!! In The Bore !!!

Is what it all comes down to, I'm sure Dixie will agree with that in principle as well as many others. We may differ about what happens after it leaves the bore but it does NEED to be bore size while in the bore. Under bore size in the bore = can't hit broad side of barn from inside the barn.

[Dixie Slugs]

This has been some interesting and informative posts on what people thought about slug/bullet designs...and prompted a late evening meeting here at Dixie.
Now...let me re-state what Dixie has said about the Tusker design from the very start. Tuker was designed for rifled barrels, but had some aplication in specific barrels....specific meaning the relationship of slug diameter to barrel diameter...period!
I see now that I should have never entered a conversation about smoothbores when the Tusker was being compared to home growm designs altered to fit the shooter barrel.
It seems the most overlooked topic to be addessed is the slug/bullets performance on game. If anyone thinks a soft lead slug design will give the total tissue damage/penetration that a hard alloy heat treated slug/bullet will is just fooling themselves....and I would like to see those designs stress tested at a public test like the Linebaugh Seminar....that includes home grown and other
factory slug/bullets.
Contrary to what I have heard here....there is a difference in required slug/bullet designs between snoothbore and rifled barrels!
So...since there is a great variation in diameters of smoothbore barrels......from . 724" to 10 ga diameters...there is no way a non-expanding slug/bullet like Tusker can be accurate in all of them...even it remains (as proven) at any extended range.
With this in mind...the decision not to sell any Tukers as reloading components was arrived at last night....and this includes samples for reloading.
I have no problem with home grown designs to fit a shooters barrel. Those designs are interested. However, if Tusker is fired in a reloader's barrel that the slug/bullet does not match...then they seem to say that the Tusker design is at fault...no way will I put up with that! I have posted in public the machine drawing of Tusker...it can be modified to fit any barrel...and that's as far as I will go from now on. Any request for component slug/bullets for sale, or requests for samples to reload, will be turned down.
Regards, James

[longbow]

James:

I am sorry to hear that the Tuskers are not available. I really like the slug design and it certainly is one tough slug. Like I said, the one I dug out of the 100 yard berm could be cleaned and reloaded!

The ones I tried were slightly undersize for my bore and I attribute that to the large group, not the slug design. Had I knurled them to increase diameter a bit I think results would have been different.

However, as mentioned, they flew nose forward all the way to the 100 yard berm and punched clean round holes at 50 and 75 yards so were stable.

I understand your concern about slug to barrel fit though. My smoothbore barrel slugs at bang on 0.729" but I just heard from a fellow who says his is 0.734" and my understanding is that the rifled barrel groove diameter tends to be under 0.729" so that is a large variation to accomodate.

In any case, I am certainly not criticizing the Tusker, I think it is a very nice design and I do appreciate you sharing the drawing.

As always, I welcome your comments and experience.

Longbow

[adam38654]

I don't see how faster burning powders will expand a hollow based slug to bore diameter if there is a thick wad or shot cup behind it.

Could reasonable accuracy be achieved from a fixed full choke mossberg 24' barrel with slugs ? It appears the only molds widely and cheaply available are the Lee Key Drive and the big air gun pellet looking that are both undersized. Would a choke help are is the slug being under sized in the chamber still the problem.

I would also like to get a correctly sized round ball mould also. One sized to fit in a shot cup wad and one sized to the bore for shooting naked. Where should i measure the barrel at when slugging for a cylinder bore un choked barrel and where should i get measurements for a full choke barrel

[longbow]

If the stresses on the slug during acceleration exceed the yield strength of the lead it will distort by getting shorter and fatter by swelling up to fill the bore. I have recovered both Lyman Foster slugs and and Gualandi DGS slugs that have expanded to fill the bore.

I think any thin skirted Foster style slug cast from soft lead will obturate. If cast from harder alloys maybe not, though the Gualandi's are hard and with a cushion wad but they obturated as well.

I can't answer the question about accuracy from a full choked gun but if the slug is designed to accomodate a full choke it will be safe to shoot and may do okay accuracy wise. Normally no more than I/C choke is recommended for slug shooting ~ at least in my references.

No solid slug or round ball over choke sized should be shot through a choke ~ even I/C! You also have to include the shotcup petal thickness if loading a ball or solid slug into a shotcup. My old Browning BPS slug barrel has an I/C choke at 0.711" and handles Foster style slugs fine but I have been advised not to shoot even a 0.715" round ball through it and certainly not slugs like Dixie's Terminator or Tusker which are designed for cylinder bore/rifled barrel only.

Mike the barrel at the muzzle to get the muzzle diameter. If the gun is cylinder bore this should be the bore diameter and if choked this will give the tightest constriction, which is what you have to size for.

My full choke BPS is is 0.680" at the muzzle so 0.680" - shotcup petal thickness x 2 gives ball diameter. Up to 0.003" over is okay. So, if my shotcup petal thickness is 0.020": ball diameter = 0.680" - (2 x 0.020") = 0.640" so maybe as big as 0.643".

I have been getting some pretty good results with a 0.735" round ball in a cylinder bore barrel. It is 0.006" over bore but there is not much to swage off the equator and it is happening in the forcing cone. In any case it is working well but cannot be shot through a choked gun.

Simple ball loads can be made by replacing an equal weight of shot with a ball of appropriate diameter ~ remembering to include shotcup thickness. This can be done with reloads or even factory rounds opened up to dump the shot and replace it with RB.

Here is a site with some slug info:

http://www.ballisticproducts.com/products.asp?dept=148

http://www.ballisticproducts.com/products.asp?dept=71

If you don't have slug loading manual, you should get one. Shotguns are very particular about what goes into a load and slug loads even more so.

There is also lots of slug loading info on this site as well as shotgunworld.com and others. Best to read up before loading.

Have fun but play safe!

Longbow

[bobk]

longbow,
I was just thinking about boolit exit from the muzzle. The advantage of a bore-sized ball in the smoothbore may be that it is less likely to be steered around by powder gasses when it exits. With that in mind, use of faster-burning powders may help, by reducing muzzle pressure. RBs poor ballistic coefficient causes them to drop to subsonic quickly anyway. The idea is, the foster's thin skirt may make uniform exit difficult to achieve. A bore-sized wadcutter would weigh exactly double what a same-sized RB would weigh, and this might be too much, but I'd like to try it someday. It would be a real easy mold to make, though.
Bob K

[longbow]

bobk:

I've made several simple push out moulds for both rifle and shotgun. In fact if you make a base pour version like the old Ideal paper patched bullet moulds you can make them with whatever nose shape you want, hollow point, through pin to attached a wad Brenneke style, whatever your heart desires.

This type of mould is described here: http://www.lasc.us/Brennan_4-4_PaperPatchedBullets.htm

They are quick and easy to make.

Alternately a hollow base wadcutter is easy to make too and by varying the size and length of the core pin and body length you can get about whatever weight you want.

I made one many years ago for my 20 ga. with only a drill press and it worked okay.

Another option is a short full bore wadcutter cast with a pin in the ejector to leave a cavity for a screw so a base wad can be attached Brenneke style.

I have tried a couple of home made Brenneke and AQ styles with success but they are a bit tedious to make.

I have decided that full bore is the direction I am going so will work on round ball AQ style and a weight forward design like the Tusker but sized to suit my barrel.

The experiments and testing continue. That's all part of the fun.

Longbow

[johnly]

I'm looking at a similar project, except it's going to be 20 gauge and an Encore rifled slug barrel.

I was thinking of re-boring a mold, until I checked the Mountain Molds website and they will lathe bore a mold to your specifications.

So now I'm wondering what weight slug I need for the project. I'm thinking somewhere between 600 and 750 grains in a truncated cone configuration. Opinions and suggestions most welcome.

John

[Dixie Slugs]

We have done a great deal of work on 20 bore for rifled barrels. We tried various weights and settled on 500 grains as to give the best velocity, etc. Dr Charlie Sharp was the first to test and write up his results....and in an Encore barrel. Todd Corder tested a proyotype .625"-500 gr-1200'/" at the John Linebaugh Seminar. We standardize our load at 1400'/"..a good balance of weight, velocity, pressure, and recoil. Our mould wad cut by Dan at Mountain Molds...the best!
Regards, James

[johnly]

I just check your website and didn't see any sales informnaton on the 20 gauge products.

Any chance I could purchase some slugs cast from your mold?

John

[Dixie Slugs]

We have closed down all component bullet sales at Dixie....Regards, James

[johnly]

OK... I'll just order a mold then.

John

[Dixie Slugs]

Mountain Molds make the best 20 bore molds around...and has a computer program where you can design it yourself.....Regards, James