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Scrounger
04-16-2006, 11:52 AM
Does anyone here have one of the Lyman 525 Grain Wasp-Waist Molds? What can you tell me about it? And where can I find loading data? I'm thinking about ordering one of these molds.

357maximum
04-16-2006, 12:28 PM
I have one in both 20 and 12

they cast a beautiful pellet, My 20 shoots real good if made of wheelweights instead of pure lead, it hits em hard and does the job.

Now as far as accuracy goes with the 12, I got it to work real good out of smoothbore barrels, I have yet to perfect it and get what I think I should in a rifled barrel.

In my 20 gauge I was able to just use a the shotcup only from a winaa20 sit atop a ballistic products gas seal and some hard cards soaked in bore butter to get accuracy in rifled barrels.

I have not tried any tweaking in the 12 that way yet, because to 20 shot so well I quit playing with the 12. I had dismal luck in the 12 using the standard "whole" wad column load data in rifled barrels. The best I did was with the smoothbore and a load using sr4756, I could look it up if you need me to.


If you are willing to play and find what YOUR gun likes you should be able to make em work.

redneckdan
04-16-2006, 12:47 PM
They are excellent slugs, you can get data from the 12th edition shotgun reloading book or straight from lyman. I'm am selling the 20 guage slugs now and will be selling the 12s in about a week, if you wanted to get a batch to try before investing in a mold let me know.

Scrounger
04-16-2006, 01:45 PM
They are excellent slugs, you can get data from the 12th edition shotgun reloading book or straight from lyman. I'm am selling the 20 guage slugs now and will be selling the 12s in about a week, if you wanted to get a batch to try before investing in a mold let me know.


I'll be glad to buy a few hundred from you to try. PM me when you're ready...

redneckdan
04-16-2006, 02:23 PM
I'll be glad to buy a few hundred from you to try. PM me when you're ready...
will do

hollow-point
09-16-2007, 03:58 AM
have this mold. i intend to use it in fabarm 12g s/s one rifled one smooth bore. shots winchester sabots into3 inches @50yds what info on loading these cast lymans?

longbow
09-16-2007, 06:58 PM
Take a look at Ballistic Products site - lots of good stuff and good service. They sell slugs and moulds - Lyman Foster and Sabot (wasp waisted) in 12 and 20 gauge).

http://shop2.mailordercentral.com/bpicart/products.asp?dept=148

If you want a real nice slug for smoothbore try the AQ.

Idaho Sharpshooter
09-17-2007, 02:43 AM
I started with top end 1 1/8oz trap load data. I'm shooting 45.5gr of Blue Dot for 1540fps and sub-3" three shot groups at 100 yds with a Savage 210. You need to cast at about 830-degrees to get wrinkle free slugs, at least I did with 20:1. Killed two deer with it, one shot apiece.

Rich
DRSS

Handgunr
09-17-2007, 01:45 PM
Scrounger,

I've got both Lyman moulds for the 12ga.
The old foster type they've offered for years, and the later 525gr. sabot slug. Starting with their load data in their latest shotshell manual (which is the best place for that particular data), I went with the load data using the Federal Gold Medal hulls as I had some of them, but far more of the regular buckshot field hulls.
I've collected them for years off of the Sheriff's range where I was an instructor for years. I literally had barrels full of them.

I used to hunt deer with a smoothbore slug gun, but accuracy was always kind of crappy with smoothbores, and when the handgun laws changed to allow them, I dropped the shotgun and never looked back. I never dropped the challenge of trying to obtain a good slug load though, and screwed with it for almost 20 years or more. I've been casting since I was about 10, and I'm 50 now, so I've shot my own loads and bullets since I was young. Never spent alot of money on factory ammo I guess.

Anyway, when Lyman offered the new sabot mould, I grabbed one and started casting them out of pure (and I mean pure) lead obtained out of shielding from XRay dept.s, and telephone company shield castings. I have a lead hardness tester instead of guessing.
After casting up a good amount of the 1 1/8 ounce sabots, I loaded them initially in the federal Gold medal hulls using a Winchester 209 primer, 32.0 grs. of Herco, and a WW F114 "yellow" wad. I didn't have a good rifled barrel for either of my 870's, so I waited to buy one. During that time, my father in law kept bragging about the Hasting's slugs being "the best" on the market and so on. He wanted to come out to use my range to show me how good these slugs were. (He even bought the video that Hastings put out to promote their wares.)

Well when he came over, I had my range set up at 50 and 100 yds., and it goes all the way out to 300. I had the nominal shotgun ranges all papered with targets, so that he could just sit at the bench and shoot. He brought his two 11-87's, both rifled and scoped, and proceeded to fire his first 3 rounds at the 50yd target. For some reason he decided to sight his gun in using foster slugs, so when he shot the Hastings slugs they hit about 7 inches high.
All 3 Hastings slugs went into one nice tight cloverleaf....very nice !

Before he shot anything more, I told him to wait a minute and I'd be right back. I went down into my reloading room and grabbed a handfull of those Lyman sabots that I had loaded the day prior. I handed him 3 of them and told him to shoot them, not knowing what we'd see. He fired all 3 rounds and no holes appeared ???????.....so he thought. I was standing directly behind him and could see the paper "lift" with each round fired, so I knew they were passing through, what looked like, the exact same cluster that the Hastings had left.......:-D

I tacked up another target, and sure enough, not only did they cluster, where the Hastings left a cloverleaf looking cluster, the Lyman slugs only slightly elongated the original hole.
We tore a Hastings slug apart, and it's slugs shape is almost identical to the Lyman. The sabots are a 2 piece, and quite different than the shotwad used in the Lyman. The basewad flies with the slug in the Hastings, and the Lyman doesn't need it apparently to fly straight. Being that both the Hastings and the Lyman sabot slugs are so much the same, I wonder why they even need to have the base wad stay with the slug.

Anyhoo, I jumped up and down like a kid with a new toy.........FINALLY!

Needless to say, his other 11-87 (his wife's actually-he calls it his[smilie=1: ) shot the same. He was almost depressed that I could put a handload together that would outshoot his Hasting slugs, he was so sold on them. It was a "pot luck" freak thing, but I was one happy camper.

My hunting partner Dennis, brought out his Benelli semi auto to sight it in, and I did the same thing to him, now that I saw what happened before. I was pumped !.......

Now Dennis has shot every sabot slug you can imagine, from the original BRI's right on through to this day. He's an older fella that had plenty of time with sabots. He decided to start at 25yds, then 50. The group at 25, was one clean hole for 3 rounds.......hmmmm, no big deal right ?..........then 50yds.......the group was almost identical..........I got a "hmmmmm, wow" out of him......when he fired 3 more at 75, and the group was a nice tight cloverleaf, only slightly bigger than the 50yd target.......he about fell over........I got a big WOW.....! at that point.

Not to ramble on here, but the wind break on my range opens from the 75yd. mark, on past the 100yd mark, and when he fired another 3 at 100yds., you could easily see that the wind opened the group to the wind's downside of the target. The group still was well inside of 2 inches though, and with no wind, I'm positive that they'd group together. If you could've seen the 75yd. group, there'd be no doubt in your mind.

Oh BTW- that was with a 4x scope also...........can't say enough about them now......
When i changed over to using the Federal field hulls (used in buckshot loads) I had to switch over to the WAA12 "white" wads to hold the slug higher in the hull for a good crimp, as the hulls are slightly deeper. All else remained the same, and they shot every bit as good if not slightly better maybe.


Sorry so long.............


Take care,
Bob

WBH
09-17-2007, 10:02 PM
Here is a copy of the post I made under Lee Slugs.

i too, have found the Lyman "hour-glass" 1 oz slug to be superior to the Lee for accuracy. I shot a small buck this past season at 167 meters (by range finder) with a rifled barrel. I used Federal Gold Medal hulls and Win 209s. Needless to say I was more impressed with the shot than the buck. Load data is available from many sources. Good luck.

ovendoctor
09-19-2007, 08:25 PM
been shooting them for a few years

currently shooting them in AA winchester 2.75

havend had a deer complain yet:drinks: