Very Cheap 12g Slugs My Take.

[woody12]

Hi guys.

Following on from 25pdr's thread on his home made slugs cast using a ring spanner I decided to have a crack myself. His idea gave me the spark so all credit to 25pdr.

I had a spare couple hours this evening so I got down to it and made the mold with a 5/8 inch six point socket. Well I say made but in this instance its a bit fraudulent as I didnt really do any making the thing took about half hour to set up. I was planning on using a twelve point socket but I dont have one that drops a slug of a decent diameter.

To create and align the hollow I used a slightly over sizes bolt that has a round rim protruding from one end which fits inside the sockest with a little tap and the nut seals the rest. The slugs are dropping at .730'' which is perfect. They need a little touch with the file but they are all consisted in shape and weight.

Filled the holow with epoxy placing a dense fibre wad atop to create a fixed wad style slug which always seem to perform the best. The weight is 32grams the same weight as what im using from the factory.

Tomorrow I'll see how they do accuracy wise, it's been blowing a gale today so there was not much point. I'm going to have a mess around with the socket and see what I can do. If I can get my tap and die set back (non returners really get me going:mad:) I'll make a new bolt to give a larger diam hollow, at the moment im limited to .365''diam . Anyways I'll stop babling the pictures speak for themselves really.

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww307/davidw1123/DSC00477-1.jpg

[Freebore]

Let us know how it does. This is interesting to me.

[woody12]

Will do mate.
The day after I cast and loaded them the weather turned and its only just cleared up. Im going to test this evening. After the football of course:-o.

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

How do you get them out of the socket? When i first read about this, I tried it with a socket too, but had trouble getting them out withuot destroying them.

[Y-man]

@Woody12,

I was able to do some stuff along similar lines. I live in a country where 12ga Slugs are completely NOT available.
At one point: I tried the 6 point socket too: I had a hell of a time extracting the finished slug: I ended up putting the whole thing back in the fire to melt out the lead!

Check out what I ended up doing here: this has WORKED! I am getting the right kind of impact, accuracy and all....

Let me know what you guys think:
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2009/08/24/turning-birdshot-into-slugs-for-self-defense/

[woody12]

Finally managed to shoot some groups. I say some but by the time I zeroed I only had enough slugs left to shoot one four shot group. Distance was 50yards measured with the good old rangefinder. In my opinion they did pretty well. Im not the best at measuring groups but I would say 3.5 inch. I know they can do better.
These are cast in a nose pour method and the socket was brand new. I removed the burs from the end they were to come out and smoked the socket before use. I did find that if I allowed the socket to get to hot the slugs couldnt be removed with out being destroyed. You also need to fill it just right. What alloy did you use to cast with? I used pure lead and they came out easy with a little tap with a hammer and a piece of bar.

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww307/davidw1123/DSC00479.jpg

[longbow]

woody:

I was going to say I was surprised at the good accuracy with such a short fat slug but then reread and realized you attached a basewad. That makes a big difference.

I agree with you that the attached basewad slugs seem to do best. At least for me and my guns so far. Brenneke, AQ and Gualandi have all performed well.

I have tried making a few attached basewad slugs with reasonable success but due to inconsistencies I get fliers. Plus they tend to be a bit of work to make.

What type of fiber wad did you use? I was thinking that a really dense felt might be the best.

Still playing and still learing.

Longbow

[woody12]

The wad in the pictures I decided not to use. Their really delicate and you can pull them apart easily. I changed to a pink wad which is a real hard felt substance sandwiched between two pieces of cork not sure of the brand as I bought them a while back.

To attatch the wad I filled the hollow with epoxy put the slug in the offcut from where I shortened my barrel and placed the wad on top. I ended up gluing one in but you learn from your mistakes;-). I still wasnt happy with the bond between slug and wad so I added a wood screw of the right length. I had a good look around my target and within the shooting lane to see if I could find any wads but almost all were close to the target or within my backstop so their staying attached. Im going to get in touch with gualandi and see if its possible to buy the wads attached to the dangerous game but I doubt it will be likely.
david

I dont know how to resize pictures so heres a link to the wad I used. http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww307/davidw1123/DSC00485.jpg

[longbow]

woody:

Another option I am about to try is to use an undersize slug at about 0.655" to 0.660" in an unslit steel shotcup. I know BPI sells them:

http://www.ballisticproducts.com/products.asp?dept=87

I have some home cast slugs at 0.654" and some Rapine 660500's that should be 0.660" (I haven't miked them) and they both fit tight into the wad (the Rapines a little tighter). A friend has tried the 0.654" slugs in these and had pretty good results with a smoothbore. The wad and slug stayed attached and gave good 50 yard groups. Of course the wad is left unslit.

This may require trimminmg the cup to the same length as the slug body or using smaller gauge nitro card wads to fill under the slug.

So, instead of a hollow base slug with a wad stuck up it's butt, the slug fits into a standard wad and still gives the Gualandi approach to nose heavy attached wad slug.

If you wanted to use the "socket mould" approach you might be better with a twelve point. I am sure between metric and imperial you would find one close enough in size to suit.

I may be trying some of the home cast and Rapines in the steel shotcups this weekend I will post results after shooting.

Longbow

[dogbert41]

What got me started in casting to begin with was watching a video on Youtube by Bushboy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g06a6RWC4A

He made his mold out of a pine board.

[diehard]

What got me started in casting to begin with was watching a video on Youtube by Bushboy:

That's one of the things that got me interested too! That and a huge spike in the price of my favorite cheapo full bore slugs.

[woody12]

That guy made me laugh. Its not exactly precision reloading good enough for home defence though. Im back in the u.k now so there will be no more slug shooting until im back in france. Ill post some more reesults, I managed to get some gualandi base wads I just picked some decent ones up from the range. some people use the gualandi and dont superglue the base wad on and it does tend to come away from the slug in flight. which is O.K for me because I can use the un-damaged ones.
David.