Marking & Loading a Rifled Lyman Slug

[dsh1106]

Some have requested seeing how the Lyman Rifled Slug is made.

1st a little background on the Lyman Rifled Slug Kit

Lyman introduced this around 1955 it 1st appeared in the Lyman Handbook #40
This Kit was sold to be used with the Lyman EZY Loader which was introduced in the Lyman Handbook #39 in 1953.
No other data was listed about the slug size or weight in the #40 Handbook, but it was mentioned, "For additional information contact your local Lyman representative"

The Kit consisted of the following items:
Slug Mold and handle
Rifled Swage Die
Rifled Slug Mandrel

Here's a picture of the kit contents with a raw cast slug and a completed swaged rifled slug.

More to come .....

[dsh1106]

The raw cast slug (pure Pb) drops from the mold with the following dimensions.
.690 diameter
.695 long
433 grains

[dsh1106]

1957, the rifled slug kit was listed in the Lyman #41 Handbook.
There was only one line of load data published in the Handbook, but still nothing on slug weight.

1960, the rifled slug kit was available in 12 - 16 - 20, Lyman #42 Handbook.
Load data provided listed the slug weight @ 1 oz.
The handbook referenced the use of regular bird-shot shells, removing the shot and replacing the shot with the slug.

1964, the rifled slug kit was available in 12 - 16 - 20, Lyman #43 Handbook.
Load data provided listed the slug weight @ 1 oz.
Up to this point all shotgun cases were made of paper, this was the year Remington introduced the plastic hull and plastic shot cup / wad.

Here are some more pictures

[longbow]

Interesting!

Especially interesting that your mould drops 0.690". Mine drops 0.705" which seems to be common from comments others have made but... I have also read posts where some have reportrd the Lyman Foster casting as small as 0.685". At 0.685"/0.690" a guy could size those down a bit to fit shotcups... at 0.685" maybe not even needed.

Not sure if they have changed diameters some over the years but I have to wonder why they have not made the mould to cast at nominal bore diameter since the swaging kits are no longer available.

What is the finished diameter after "rifling"?

Longbow

[dsh1106]

LB

I too was curious about the size and weight differences I kept seeing and reading about.

Originally the mold was designed and listed at 1oz, as the years passed the slug size and weight increased.

I'll post those findings tomorrow.

Scott

[dsh1106]

As I mentioned earlier, the Lyman Handbook indicates that up to approx 1964 all shot shell reloading was done in paper hulls. No plastic shot cups, just hard cards and fiber wads.

I read through four of the Lyman Handbooks and from what was published these slugs were centered in the hull and held in place using a roll crimp.


1967, the rifled slug kit was missing from the Lyman #44 Handbook.
*** It was documented that the rifling on the slugs had no effect on accuracy ***
The 12 gauge slug was listed @ 443 Grains
Slug mold were now available in 12 - 16 - 20 - 410

Note ** This was the last year Lyman provided load data for shot-shells in the handbook, starting in 1969 Lyman released the Shot-shell Handbook.

1969, Shot-Shell Handbook #1
The 12 Ga slug weight was list @ 443 grains

1976, Shot-Shell Handbook #2
The 12 Ga slug weight was list @ 445 grains

1984, Shot-Shell Handbook #3
The 12 Ga slug weight was list @ 475 grains

1998, Shot-Shell Handbook #4
The 12 Ga slug weight was list @ 475 grains

2015, Shot-Shell Handbook #5
The 12 Ga slug weight was list @ 475 grains

[dsh1106]

The Swaged (Cast Slug pure Pb) drops from the swage die with the following dimensions.
.685 diameter
.697 long
382 grains

[Cap'n Morgan]

One of these days I'm gonna try swaging a Brenneke clone from pure lead... wonder how much pressure it would take.

[longbow]

Now that is interesting!

At 0.685" they might fit some plastic wads depending on petal taper. They should be suitable for Mylar or maybe Teflon wrap. They are certainly well under bore diameter.

In the past I have speculated that the swaging process might raise lands up on the slugs resulting in bore diameter or at least nearer bore diameter slug. Looks like I was off base with that thought!

I bought my mould about 30 years ago and assumed it was 475 grs. per my Lyman manual but don't recall weighing one cast from pure lead. As mentioned, slugs cast to 0.705" from my mould, and IIRC
that is with pure lead.

I do still wonder why Lyman chose to make moulds (and swage kit) to make such undersize slugs. There doesn't appear to be any logical reason or benefit.

If anyone knows... please share!

Longbow

[dsh1106]

LB

These fit very well in the Federal 12S3 wads I have, if you place a 20 Ga .125 Nitro Card under the slug.

I filled the base of the slug with hot melt glue and assembled the shell, applied 40 lbs pressure and roll crimped everything on my Lyman Easy Loaded.

[dsh1106]

One of these days I'm gonna try swaging a Brenneke clone from pure lead... wonder how much pressure it would take.

Cap'n

The EZY Loader press is made of cast aluminum and it doesn't seem to have any issue swagging these, but there's not a lot of material being moved/removed. I'm using the stock handle that came with the EZy Loader, if I had to guess I'm probably applying 150 - 200 lbs of force to the handle the swagging process.

If I were going to attempt this, I would cast your blanks as close to size as you can. I believe the RCBS Rockchucker or any of the older cast iron large frame presses would be able to finish swage your slug.

[Markopolo]

Very very cool sir... thanks so much for making this thread.... and showing...

It would be also fun to find this kit in 410....

Marko

[dsh1106]

Very very cool sir... thanks so much for making this thread.... and showing...

It would be also fun to find this kit in 410....

Marko

From all the printed information I have, the swag kit was only available for the 12 - 16 - 20 slugs.

I assume one could be made, if you could find someone to broach the die for you.

[longbow]

Just to make sure I am reading and understanding correctly...

This swage kit you have is a Lyman swage kit?

If so I have to wonder why it would be made to swage to 0.685" when these were in use before plastic wads were available. 0.685" is ridiculously small for a nominal 0.729" bore.

My past experience with this slug unrifled and casting at 0.705" in soft lead is that using Lyman manual loads the slugs obturate to fill the bore but do so erratically so the slug is never quite the same after firing. That leads to inconsistent flight and poor accuracy.

Got to go. More discussion later!

Longbow

[Markopolo]

Awwwww... no 410... this must be a type-O...


“1967, the rifled slug kit was missing from the Lyman #44 Handbook.
*** It was documented that the rifling on the slugs had no effect on accuracy ***
The 12 gauge slug was listed @ 443 Grains
Slug mold were now available in 12 - 16 - 20 - 410

Note ** This was the last year Lyman provided load data for shot-shells in the handbook, starting in 1969 Lyman released the Shot-shell Handbook.”

I was just hoping.. to find the kit complete in 12g would be awesome in itself, but to find one in 410 would be devine intervention.

My search continues...

[dsh1106]

Just to make sure I am reading and understanding correctly...

This swage kit you have is a Lyman swage kit?

If so I have to wonder why it would be made to swage to 0.685" when these were in use before plastic wads were available. 0.685" is ridiculously small for a nominal 0.729" bore.

My past experience with this slug unrifled and casting at 0.705" in soft lead is that using Lyman manual loads the slugs obturate to fill the bore but do so erratically so the slug is never quite the same after firing. That leads to inconsistent flight and poor accuracy.

Got to go. More discussion later!

Longbow


LB

You are correct, this is a Lyman/Ideal kit.

My mind went the same place as yours, these slugs would "bounce" around in side the barrel until exiting. I looked back through the printed load data and nothing was there to indicate any fillers or shimming of any kind. So I re-read at least four of the Lyman Handbooks thinking I was missing something, still nothing.

Unless Lyman had supplemental information available on loading these, I'm not sure how anyone using these could hit anything.

The only thing I came across that confirms our thoughts was the verbiage that was printed in 1967 when the rifled slug kit was dropped from the product line, Lyman stated "that the rifling on the slugs had no effect on accuracy." I'm guessing the engineers in 1955 at Lyman must have thought that adding the rifling to the slug would stabilize it after bouncing down the barrel. Apparently it took 12 years for them to realize that rifling an undersized slug didn't help.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Scott: The weight from my Lyman Slug mould (AKA; "the worst mould I ever owned.") Drops at 441 gr with WW material. They measure .695-.697 depending on the direction of the measurement. They are .760 long.

Your finished weight was 382 gr?

So is the die cutting the grooves or Swaging them. If it is swaging there has to be some place for the displaced metal to go, and the weight wouldn't change much if at all? If it is cutting then you'd end up with a bunch of strips of lead and some definite weight loss.

with pure lead there shouldn't be much pressure needed to do this operation. I just had a guy email me the other day and he was Swaging .44 cal bullets on one of my Hand Presses. so I expect that you could do your operation on one too.

Randy

[dsh1106]

Randy

The raw casting is:
.690 diameter
.695 long
433 grains

The size after swagging is:
.685 diameter
.697 long
382 grains

This die is more of a cutting die than swagging die.

At the end of the process there is a small lead ring that is sheared of the slug.

[dsh1106]

Awwwww... no 410... this must be a type-O...


“1967, the rifled slug kit was missing from the Lyman #44 Handbook.
*** It was documented that the rifling on the slugs had no effect on accuracy ***
The 12 gauge slug was listed @ 443 Grains
Slug mold were now available in 12 - 16 - 20 - 410

Note ** This was the last year Lyman provided load data for shot-shells in the handbook, starting in 1969 Lyman released the Shot-shell Handbook.”

I was just hoping.. to find the kit complete in 12g would be awesome in itself, but to find one in 410 would be devine intervention.

My search continues...

Marco

The Slug mold was made for the 410, I've seen a couple on ebay, but the rifling kit wasn't available for the 410.

[longbow]

I might be over using the term but again, I'll say interesting!

Live and learn.

Well, Lyman hasn't done much learning it seems but I'm referring more to me. I am always learning something new on this site. I almost bought Lyman swaging kit from a poster here about 5 years ago. Since I really don't like the mould I decided I wouldn't bother but am glad I didn't after reading your post. From a collector standpoint it is all quite interesting (again!) but I do really have to wonder where Lyman's head was when they decided on diameters! At the time I was assuming that the swaging kit might raise lands so increasing the cast slug diameter. Wrong!

It has been said that slug manufacturers were concerned about slugs being shot through full chokes so made them under size. I'll assume Lyman used the same logic for their slug mould? A fine thought... except that the soft slugs obturate to fill the bore anyway so what is the point!?! Allowing that much slop is just plain silly and really an abuse of customers who trust a company to put out a quality and well designed product.

Surely if that is true these manufacturers do a lot of testing so they could easily have pressure tested the undersize slugs against bore diameter slugs couldn't they? From what I have read the undersize Foster slugs were the norm. Weird!

Longbow

[dsh1106]

I might be over using the term but again, I'll say interesting!

Live and learn.

Well, Lyman hasn't done much learning it seems but I'm referring more to me. I am always learning something new on this site. I almost bought Lyman swaging kit from a poster here about 5 years ago. Since I really don't like the mould I decided I wouldn't bother but am glad I didn't after reading your post. From a collector standpoint it is all quite interesting (again!) but I do really have to wonder where Lyman's head was when they decided on diameters! At the time I was assuming that the swaging kit might raise lands so increasing the cast slug diameter. Wrong!

It has been said that slug manufacturers were concerned about slugs being shot through full chokes so made them under size. I'll assume Lyman used the same logic for their slug mould? A fine thought... except that the soft slugs obturate to fill the bore anyway so what is the point!?! Allowing that much slop is just plain silly and really an abuse of customers who trust a company to put out a quality and well designed product.

Surely if that is true these manufacturers do a lot of testing so they could easily have pressure tested the undersize slugs against bore diameter slugs couldn't they? From what I have read the undersize Foster slugs were the norm. Weird!

Longbow

LB

My pursuit of this swage kit was based on the same assumption that you had. I read a few posts and saw pictures of the swag kit and the slugs, but never saw anything about the accuracy or lack of, so I had to find out for myself.

I'm not going to say it was a waste of time, because I learned quite a bit through this process, but I will say what I found has lead me to believe Lyman could have put a little more thought into the product before releasing it.

All I have left to do now is, get to the range and see if these perform better than any of the others I've shot. If they don't, my plan is to modify the mold core plug to make the nose and the skirting thicker on the slug.

Scott

[longbow]

Those slugs are so close to wad size you should see if you can find wads they fit, and there should be some because BPI lists wads for 0.690" RB's. The petals must be pretty thin but its worth a try.

Alternately I made two "hammer sizers" for 12 ga. slugs. One to size knurled slug back to 0.733" to suit my single shot and one to size Lee Drive key slugs to remove the taper. Both work well. I drop the slug in the top then use a close fitting rod to drive the slug through the sizer with a hammer/mallet. I cut off pieces of my old truck axle then bored and honed to size.

I tried sizing the Lee slugs to 0.662" (16 ga.) for paper patching to suit wads from CSD steel thick petal wads to regular lead shot wads when paper patched. That didn't go so well for wheelweight slugs, they'd broke up. I had to bore the sizer out to 0.672" which just removes the taper from my 1 oz. slugs and leaves just a bit on the 7/8 oz. slugs. In the end I found no advantage to removing the taper except I can paper patch to suit whatever shotcups I have.

Point being that if I can size wheelweight slugs back by 0.013" (0.685" to 0.672") you should be able to size those rifled slugs down by 0.005" or so to fit shotcups. They should behave like Lee slugs then and may work pretty well. I agree that a new core pin with thicker skirt and nose would be a good thing too. Filled they shouldn't suffer from collapsed skirts.

Another option might be Mylar or Teflon wrap ~ once around. I wouldn't have thought that would work but Greg Sappington has done it and I am sure I have load recipes that use Mylar and Teflon wrap on slugs. I have seen single wrap plastic on shot loads back in the late 60's or early 70's too, before full plastic wads were universally used. So that is worth a try too. Even paper patching is worth a try. With thin paper you may get a double wrap. If it survives opening the crimp it should work. I paper patch some of my home made and sized Lee slugs but they are in shotcups so the paper isn't exposed to the rough hull or crimp.

Had my Lyman Foster mould cast decently I might have followed the same path as you and bought that rifling swage kit a few years ago just to try. However, I despise my Lyman Foster slug moul dso elected not to pursue improvements. Small minded I know... what can I say?

Longbow

[W.R.Buchanan]

Randy

The raw casting is:
.690 diameter
.695 long
433 grains

The size after swagging is:
.685 diameter
.697 long
382 grains

This die is more of a cutting die than swagging die.

At the end of the process there is a small lead ring that is sheared of the slug.

Got it,,, That's what I expected.

Randy