Zinc fullbore slugs courtesy of HogTamer

[Blood Trail]

I did a little horse trading with HT to procure a couple of his fullbore zinc slugs for a non-tox hog hunt I’m going on next week.

I’m Range testing a few of them tomorrow using my 835 rifled barrel. He had them pressure tested and they’re all within SAAMI specs, however I do have one concern.

He shot them out of an USH. I have a USH but I’m taking the 835 on this hunt. These slugs mic out around .734-ish. I know zinc is a lot harder than lead so my concern is swaging and sidewall pressure.

The 835 barrel is thick, but not like the USH. Should I just keep these loads for the USH or do y’all think it’s safe to shoot out of my 835.

HT, what say ye?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Hogtamer]

I can't answer that one for you. I have a cantilevered Hastings (not the bull barrel) barrel on my 870 and a buddy out of a Berretta rifled gun. With the grooves on the slug you are engraving only 30% bearing surface. Easy enough to slug the barrel of the Mossberg though. I will say the first time one was fired the gun was strapped down on a sled and trigger pulled with a 20' string!

[copdills]

the slug sounds great but I'm with HT be careful and keep us informed Please

[longbow]

If HT had them pressure tested I'd expect they'd be good to go, but... I understand your hesitation.

If the pressure gun has a standard SAAMI bore, which it should, the bore would be 0.719"/0.721" and the grooves are 0.727"/0.729" so significantly smaller than the slug so if pressure was okay in that then certainly should be in any gun. It is worth checking though.

Who did your pressure testing HT? Did they provide details or just give the pressures?

I've shot those Zlugs through my smoothbore with attached wads on them but then my smoothbore runs large at 0.733" bore.

Longbow

[Hogtamer]

With 44 gr Steel in 3" Win hull w/Fed 209A velocity about 1700 fps and psi about 10,700 5 shot average. 35 gr 800x about 1550 fps and 11,300 average. Roll crimped. The first batch I sent were 40 Steel and 30 gr 800x, underpowered and revealed my roll crimps were inconsistent. Tom Armbrust at Ballistic Research did the testing and called with results then sent me a written report which of course I cannot find at the moment.

[Blood Trail]

Shot them out of my 835. Not bad accuracy from 50 yards. Gonna put them to use next week


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Hogtamer]

Come on BT, you know you used a string!! I hope you get a couple lined up broadside, keep us posted.

[bikerbeans]

I love those Zlugs! I dug a couple of them out of the backstop at my club, cleaned them up and reloaded and shot them a second time.

BB

[Blood Trail]

First group at 50 yards. Only played with Steel due to time constraints. I’ll take it. I’m sure I can tweak it a bit. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180226/869aa0994fd7670ad692aa6174d01230.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk