Casting Lee 12 ga Slugs

[Jkrem]

I’m on my way down the slug reloading rabbit hole. For those of you shooting Lee slugs, particularly 7/8oz ones, should I be using pure lead to cast or would mostly wheel weights be ok? I’d like to use these for very close deer hunting if I can get a recipe to pattern well enough at 30-40 yards. FYI, I plan to use wads and HS-6, I have data for several combinations of wads and hulls to test. Appreciate your thoughts.

[Adam Helmer]

I’m on my way down the slug reloading rabbit hole. For those of you shooting Lee slugs, particularly 7/8oz ones, should I be using pure lead to cast or would mostly wheel weights be ok? I’d like to use these for very close deer hunting if I can get a recipe to pattern well enough at 30-40 yards. FYI, I plan to use wads and HS-6, I have data for several combinations of wads and hulls to test. Appreciate your thoughts.

Jkrem,
My friend, you must have too much free time. LOL. I live on a 60-acre PA farm with many new tasks everyday.

I cast all my handgun bullets and many rifle bullets. If you want to cast shotgun slugs, you surely can. I suspect pure lead is best. How many shotgun loads do you need? It may be easier to just buy factory slugs. I am not sure of your circumstances, but go with pure lead.

Be well.

Adam

[schutzen-jager]

the instructions that came with my Lee slug molds clearly state to use pure lead only on both page #1 +# 2 -

[longbow]

While Lee recommends pure lead, I have cast all my Lee slugs, both 7/8 oz. and 1 oz., from range scrap or wheel weights with no issues.

Soft lead will tend to slug up/obturate at firing so the slug will likely swell to fill the bore better if soft lead. However, if cast from hard lead (ACWW) and you select wads so the slug/wad fit to bore is snug that doesn't matter. The slug in wad should be a snug push fit through the bore. If too loose accuracy will be poor, if too tight wad petals may shear and accuracy will be poor.

Lee recommends soft lead because they say wheel weights will stick to the core pin. I have no problem at all with wheel weights sticking, the slugs drop out of the mould and off of the pin.

If your gun is choked beyond I/C then soft lead is likely the better choice. My guns are cylinder bore.

Also, a properly set up slug gun with rifle sights will improve your accuracy over using a typical shotgun bead front sight and no rear sight. What gun are you planning to use? Smoothbore? Rifled? Rifled choke tube?

Longbow

[Frosty Boolit]

My experience mirrors longbow. I have used whatever unverified alloy I had and had no problems with slug coming off the core pin.

[schutzen-jager]

related thread

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?290952-20-Gauge-Slug-recommended-lead-hardness-for-hunting

[Jkrem]

Longbow, I’ll be using these in a vintage 1970 Ithaca 37 20in Deerslayer. I understand these are cylinder bore.

[longbow]

I have no personal experience with Ithaca Deerslayers but have read that they reduced bore diameter to better fit the slugs that were available. You want a slug/wad fit that is a snug fit when pushed through the barrel. You should be able to push it through using a large wood dowel or piece of 1/2" PVC pipe.

Comments from thehighroad:

Deerslayers typically have tighter than normal bores for use strictly with foster type slugs, to allow for a tighter bore/slug fit. Once upon a time I believe they were as tight as .690, and now run around .705-.710, since several manufacturers have made there foster type slugs larger in diameter for better accuracy in .729-.730 barrels.

Per Jim Cirillo in his book Guns, Bullets, and Gunfights: Legends and Tales of a Modern Day Gunfighter, a rifle sight equipped Ithaca 37 Deerslayer would put 5 slugs inside a cigarette pack at 100 yards.

Just my .02,



LeonCarr nailed it, I got .710 when I broke out the calipers and stuck them in the muzzle, I don't have a way (that I know of) to measure all the way down, I could pull off the barrel and measure the other end but that's it. According to my google foo, .710 = modified diameter. Sounds like its straight all the way through. Explains a lot about what I was seeing. I'm sure a cylinder bore with choke at the end (or forcing cone in the case of a fixed) must produce better patterns than my straight tube but this shot gun just got a lot more versatile, or should I say its operator is getting out of the way of what the gun 'can and can't or shouldn't be able to do'. Lol

Thank you all for your input and setting me on the right path to better info!

If yours is that tight you will need thin wad petals!

Also, if yours is that tight you should cast the slugs from soft lead. A soft slug may allow squeeze down without shearing wad petals in that tight of a bore. If it is 0ver 0.720" bore diameter then I would just match slug/wad to bore and not worry about alloy. If in doubt, better to cast soft slugs to try them first.

As a comment, my Lyman Foster slug mould casts at 0.705" and I have read post where people say they cast even smaller. Why? I have no idea since if soft lead they swell up and fill the bore anyway. Apparently most factory Foster slugs were also undersize which is why Ithaca reduced bore diameter... so I am told.

Longbow

[243winxb]

Pure lead to get the 1 oz slug out of my mold. The hard ball alloy near impossible to use. Pure is needed so the slug can expand in the barrel on firing, to better grip the rifling.

Did clean up some rough spots on mold, helped very little. Did use HS-6 with Lee data. Best in rifled barrel, but usable in I/C choked smooth bore.

Note that slug has a taper, smaller diameter at the base. Needed to expand on firing.

Tested in Scoped Mossberg 500 cantilever & smooth bore 12 ga. Average 7" @ 100 yds with rifled bbl. 35 shots fired that day. (Ouch). Never again.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?media/lee-12ga-key-drive-slug.531/full

[barnabus]

lee slugs are not worth the wasted time in my experience.go with lyman slug and save your hair

[longbow]

You are meaning the Lyman sabot slug right?

I have tried the Lyman Foster slug and is is about the worst slug I have ever shot. Loaded exactly per the Lyman recipes it would shoot better than about 8" groups at 50 yards. I get far better groups with Lee slugs and slugs from home made moulds as well as Rapine, round balls and other slugs.

I have read many posts about the Lyman Foster slug that mirror my experience. I do not recomment the Lyman Foster slug to anyone!

The Lyman sabot slug does get good reviews especially from rifled barrels.

Longbow

[schutzen-jager]

lots of variables involved - what works perfectly in one gun bore + choke will be terrible in others - been using the lee since they were introduced + they work well in my shot guns -

[redryder]

Through the magic of time, the recipes that came with my lee slugmolds have disappeared. Thought I could just go to lee precision online and download said recipes, but no such luck. Anybody know where I might find them?

WOOPS cancel this request. Found them on the Lee website. Thanks anyways folks.

[Frosty Boolit]

I simply can't help myself: forget about it, you'll shoot your eye out anyway!

[Jack Russel]

I shoot a lot of Lee slugs. I cast with pure lead ,as Lee recommends. Wheel weights stick on the core pin as said in another post.

[W.R.Buchanan]

OK; I have gotten pretty good results with Lee Slugs and use them most for my 3 gun shoots and General Plinking. My Monkey-Berg has a Rifled Choke Tube in it right now and that gun shot 4 rounds thru the same hole at 25 yards so I figure that 2-3" at 50 yards would be the result.

I load these using a Claybuster Blue Slug Wad with a 1/8'' Card under the slug, and loaded into a AA hull using 18 gr of Green Dot, or more properly my normal Trap Load subbing in the Slug. These will be just as effective as any Low Recoil "Rifled Slug." But they cost about nothing to make. I use wheel weights for everything,,, period.

Randy