Family Photo of Slugs

[longbow]

I got another mould made and some more slugs cast. Now to load and shoot!

With any luck I will get out tomorrow to burn up some powder and bruise my shoulder.

In the photo "Bore Size Slugs", from right to left:

- ribbed hollow base 500 gr. (new mould) ~ not shot yet
- Rapine 730550 sent by a friend ~ very good accuracy at 50 yards
- finned slug with 3/32" fins, 550 gr. (new mould) ~ not shot yet
- old finned slug with 1/8" fins, 580 gr. ~ so far performance has been poor

All are 0.730" diameter.

The ribbed hollow base is what I sarted out to make but saw the potential to make a finned slug so couldn't resist. However, so far finned slugs have not provided good accuracy. This time I may try an attached basewad on some.

The ribbed hollow base slug has a very thin skirt intentionally to keep it light. It will be filled with hot melt glue. Similar skirt to the RNFP below.

I know the Rapine 730550 did very well at 50 yards so will try at 100 this time.

In the photo "Shotcup Slugs", from right to left:

- Rapine 660500 sent by a friend ~ tried one set of 5 and all collapsed badly so have to be filled with hot melt glue. These fit into the steel shotcup shown. I may try some unslit to make an outside attached wad (kinda Gualandi like).
- TC hollow point from a mould I made for a friend for a rifled gun. These also fit into the steel shot wads so will be tried as an outside attached wad as above. These are 610 gr. if memory serves (got to weigh them).
- RNFP from home made mould, 450 gr. These have a very thin skirt and heavy nose. They seem to fly well (nice round holes at 50 yards) but I had wad troubles and poor accuracy so now have a thinner shotcup that makes for sliding fit. They will be filled with hot melt glue which kept them from collapsing last time.
- TC thick skirt hollow base from home made mould, 525 gr. These also seem to fly well but so far accuracy has been no better than my Lyman Foster at about 8" at 50 yards. Again, I think wad fit and performance is an issue.

These ones are all sized from about 0.655" to 0.690" to fit into a shotcup of some type.

I will be loading 5 to 10 of each depending on my confidence level for performance. I do not have high hopes for the finned slugs based on past testing but I am not quite ready to call it quits.

All will be loaded over hard card wads with an over powder plastic gas seal as that has generally given me best results with slugs.

Wish me luck!

Longbow

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Hello Longbow you are very innovative and like your way of thinking. Great work and thanks for sharing your slug family. To me the last 3 slugs from picture #2 look promising! Care to share your loads and slug weight?
Ajay
www.PreciousVideoMemories.Com

[longbow]

The slug weights vary from about 450 grs. for the thin skirted RNFP hollow base to 580 grs for the thick finned slug ~ several weights are given in the first post.

As for loads, I have been using Fiocchi 2 3/4" hulls with Blue Dot.

I based my powder charge from some published data for a 610 gr. full bore slug over 44 grs. of Blue Dot. The pressure for that load was 12,500 PSI. So far I have used a charge as high as 38 grs. of Blue Dot under a 600 gr. slug and saw no pressure signs but the recoil was enough for me!

I have gone as light as 30 grs. of Blue Dot for testing but most of these slugs (or equivalent weight) are loaded over 35 grs. of Blue Dot and on top of a stack of: plastic gas seal, hard card and nitro card wads to get the column height required then roll crimped.

Personally I have high hopes for the ribbed hollow base. I may need to fatten up the ribs and maybe it will need an attached basewad Brenneke like but I like it.

Longbow

[Blammer]

Very nice!

I'll be interested in the results for sure!

[yondering]

I'm real interested to hear more about that TC hollow point slug. It looks like it could be quite effective in a rifled bore.

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Hello Longbow its starting to get even more interesting just keep it up!
Thanks for sharing.
PS : Can you please alter a slug mould or two. Like make tha slug longer by cutting the mould 1/8" or take the mould and make the bullet grooves .006 inch larger in diameter.
Thanks
Ajay
www.PreciousVideoMemories.Com

[longbow]

Well, I finally got out to the range and did some shooting.

The family photo is now full of bruised and battered slugs (my shoulder is also bruised and battered!)

I did not shoot any finned slugs as so far I have not been able to get decent accuracy plus I had 30 slug loads to shoot from the bench and figured that was enough.

I did send some of each of the finned slugs and the ribbed hollow base slugs to diehard to test so someone else's should can get some milage on it as well.

So, results were... how can I say it... dismal.

Nothing shot well. Not sure why as some loads were identical (well almost) to previous tests where things went better.

The run down goes like this ~ I loaded and shot:

- Rapine 730550; hard card wad stack and plastic gas seal
- Rapine 660500; inside steel shotcup with hard card spacers so shotcup remained attached
- 630 gr. TC hollow point inside steel shotcup with hard card spacers so shotcup remained attached
- RNFP slugs inside Claybuster shotcup as a wad slug (wad release)
- Ribbed hollow base; hard card wad stack and plastic gas seal

All but the 630 gr. TC slugs were loaded over 35 grs. Blue Dot, the 630 gr. TC slugs were loaded over 32 grs. Blue Dot.

All hollow base slugs were filled with hot melt glue ~ this is one change for the Rapine 730550 which last time were shot as cast.

At 50 yards I got open buckshot patterns with all slugs!

What went right:

- all hollow base slugs made round holes in the target, big spaces between them but round holes so they flew well
- the 630 gr. TC slug made nice round holes but very large group
- all slugs recovered from the 100 yard berm showed nose on impact so again, they seemed to fly well (at least nose forward)
- The ribs on the ribbed hollow base slugs did not flatten out so must have enough bearing surface and the thin skirts did not collapse so oven heat treating made them strong enough.

What went wrong:

- the two attached wad slugs did not shoot very accurately at all but recovered wads showed distorted cushion leg. While they look a lot like the Gualandi DGS cushion leg, they are not nearly as thick so distortion is likely what killed accuracy. So much for an easy Brenneke style.
- The RNFP did not shoot well at all even though they were a good fit in the Claybuster wad. No idea why.
- The ribbed hollow base slugs show skirt distortion from firing and the rather thin skirt broke off two recovered slugs and two others broke in half lengthwise (if you look at the photo you can see the "whole slug" is not only missing a bit of skirt but it is actually two peices). These were oven heat treated in an attempt to make sure the skirt was strong enough for firing ~ a lesson learned from the finned slug test.
- The Rapine 660500 distorted badly on firing even though the hollow base was filled with hot melt glue and it was in a cushion wad (also likely explains why accuracy was so bad). Look at the photo and you can see it is shorter than unfired and the skirt has swollen.
- The Rapine 730550 slugs had previously done very well to 50 yards when shot with the same load but not filled with hot melt glue. Not sure why that would change things but it certainly seemd to.

So, what did I learn? Well, I need a heavier gun, more padding and maybe a bag of shot between the butt and my shoulder for shooting that many slugs from the bench!

I also learned that while the thin skirt makes for real nose heavy it is too fragile even filled with hot melt glue.

So basically it was another trip where I learned more of what not to do.

I have already altered the core pin for the ribbed hollow base slugs to make the skirt thicker and will give those another try. There is no reason they should not give typical Foster accuracy or better since they are bore size.

Next time out I will shoot more of the ribbed hollow base with thicker skirt and some finned slugs with attached base wad.

If I don't see some improvement soon I will go back to round ball! While they cannot be called tack drivers, they do not bad to 50 yards and are very dependable.

Longbow

[carpetman]

Longbow----no finned slugs--dismal---it sounds fishy to me.

[longbow]

Maybe they swam upstream.

[yondering]

Longbow - are you using a smooth bore or rifled bore? probably asked you before, but can't remember.

I just got a scoped rifled barrel for my 500, and have been disapointed in the accuracy with the Lyman sabot slugs; they shoot better in my smooth bore barrel. Round ball accuracy was OK though.

[longbow]

I guess I should have mentioned that ~ yes, smoothbore.