Adam604
11-22-2008, 11:53 PM
A Good Day Shooting Slugs...
Hi Folks,
Adam604 again...
Went slug shooting today with 4 different 12 Slug loads with LEE 7/8 oz slugs.
One of the loads was really good, too bad I only had 6 of them to test today.
Last week I had a misfire on a slug load, primer went bang, powder didn't.. Slug and wad lodged in forcing cone. Drove it out with my range rod. Tried another round, same thing..
Well end of 12 gauge shooting for that day.
A few days later I had time to take them apart to see what the problem was... Wet powder, Dang, I thought the hulls were dry, (range pickups) I even dried them at home for a couple of days. I had to pull apart 50 rounds, found 6 with damp powder.
The real finding though was that I found that more than 50% of the wads were damaged during loading. The wad petals were creased, or bent a bit, some pretty badly. I try to be careful loading and thought I was doing better than that. I also found that more than 30% of the slugs were seated a bit crooked in wad.
So I changed the way I load.
I cut a clear 12 Gauge hull to make a wad holder that I could pre-load with the wad, hard card, COW and slug. I then loaded this wad stack into a primed and powder loaded hull. It went pretty quick.
Loading the Wad this way I could see that when using the Federal 12S4 wad, one hard card and 1.9 CC of COW and the LEE slug was not really doing the job. So I tried a few things to get a better stack
I ended up with 2 Circle Fly 20 Gauge hard Nitro wads 1.3 CC COW and a soft lead LEE 7/8 oz 12 gauge slug.
(I had to travel out of the area for a biz trip and came home with Circle Fly hard Nitro Card wads and 300 once fired Federal Top Gun hulls)
:Fire: The Kick Ass Load... 2 1/2" @50 yards 1 1/2 " at 100 yards... :Fire:
Once Fired 12 Gauge Federal Top Gun Hull
Winchester 209 Shotgun primer
38 Grains of Blue Dot
Federal 12S4 wad (brown)
2 Circle Fly 20 Gauge hard Nitro wads
1.3 CC COW (LEE Scoop)
Soft Lead LEE 7/8 oz 12 gauge slug
8 segment star crimp.
I loaded using my Lee load all press, I really pressed the wad stack hard over the powder, more than 30 pounds of force on the handle, then crimped as normal. None of the crimps opened up this time. (didn't shoot round for a few days)
It was cool and a bit of drizzle at the range, no wind at the start of shooting. Pretty windy at the end though.
Pictures of the results attached....
I felt I was in the groove on the first several shots, then it got windy.
This is a great load, or I had a really lucky day..
Hi Folks,
Adam604 again...
Went slug shooting today with 4 different 12 Slug loads with LEE 7/8 oz slugs.
One of the loads was really good, too bad I only had 6 of them to test today.
Last week I had a misfire on a slug load, primer went bang, powder didn't.. Slug and wad lodged in forcing cone. Drove it out with my range rod. Tried another round, same thing..
Well end of 12 gauge shooting for that day.
A few days later I had time to take them apart to see what the problem was... Wet powder, Dang, I thought the hulls were dry, (range pickups) I even dried them at home for a couple of days. I had to pull apart 50 rounds, found 6 with damp powder.
The real finding though was that I found that more than 50% of the wads were damaged during loading. The wad petals were creased, or bent a bit, some pretty badly. I try to be careful loading and thought I was doing better than that. I also found that more than 30% of the slugs were seated a bit crooked in wad.
So I changed the way I load.
I cut a clear 12 Gauge hull to make a wad holder that I could pre-load with the wad, hard card, COW and slug. I then loaded this wad stack into a primed and powder loaded hull. It went pretty quick.
Loading the Wad this way I could see that when using the Federal 12S4 wad, one hard card and 1.9 CC of COW and the LEE slug was not really doing the job. So I tried a few things to get a better stack
I ended up with 2 Circle Fly 20 Gauge hard Nitro wads 1.3 CC COW and a soft lead LEE 7/8 oz 12 gauge slug.
(I had to travel out of the area for a biz trip and came home with Circle Fly hard Nitro Card wads and 300 once fired Federal Top Gun hulls)
:Fire: The Kick Ass Load... 2 1/2" @50 yards 1 1/2 " at 100 yards... :Fire:
Once Fired 12 Gauge Federal Top Gun Hull
Winchester 209 Shotgun primer
38 Grains of Blue Dot
Federal 12S4 wad (brown)
2 Circle Fly 20 Gauge hard Nitro wads
1.3 CC COW (LEE Scoop)
Soft Lead LEE 7/8 oz 12 gauge slug
8 segment star crimp.
I loaded using my Lee load all press, I really pressed the wad stack hard over the powder, more than 30 pounds of force on the handle, then crimped as normal. None of the crimps opened up this time. (didn't shoot round for a few days)
It was cool and a bit of drizzle at the range, no wind at the start of shooting. Pretty windy at the end though.
Pictures of the results attached....
I felt I was in the groove on the first several shots, then it got windy.
This is a great load, or I had a really lucky day..