Didn't work!

[44man]

I loaded the Lyman pellet gun slug in some uncut wads to see what would happen if the wad stayed with the slug. The crush section gets so distorted it steers the slug off course. You can see most hit the target sideways. Only one hit straight. The front damage is caused by hitting the steel plate backstop. Look how many hit sideways.
The red wads are with WW water dropped slugs and show more damage then pure lead slugs. Even the gas seal portions are ruined and powder residue is all over the wads. My bore was full of lead.
As far as I am concerned, the Lyman slug is a big bust. They should have made it bore size with a grease groove. Or better yet, smaller with a special sabot.
I shot some Lee slugs in this same wad (CSD -078) and they shot better but still not good.
Next I will try splitting the wads so they leave the slug. Fun, but recoil is like a .460.

[7br]

What ranges are you working at? Bench or offhand? Scoped or open? I would be more than happy with the groups at 75yds offhand or with open sights. I would say much better than minute of deer. 25 yards and you have a definite problem.

[swheeler]

Make yourself a tube with a hole in the side, position your slugs so the wasp-waist is under the hole, pour in your favorite melted lube, let cool and push the slug out, now load that and try- you may have to adjust the load to consider the weight of all that lube, but it should stop the slug from colapsing onto itself? maybe? I don't know? just guessing and thinking outloud. Did you already try moly coating some wads to slow the abraiding of the plastic against the barrel, that moly is some slick stuff?
Since I don't cast or shoot this slug you probably don't care to hear what I have to say, just thought I would throw some ideas into the mix since you don't seem to be getting the results you are looking for! I'll shut up now.

[jhalcott]

Could this slug be designed for a RIFLED barrel? I've seen Remingtons copper sabots do this at 50 yards from a smooth bore.

[44man]

I'm shooting a Hastings rifled barrel with a 3X9 scope at 50 yd's, from sandbags. I have tried lubes and coating the wads. The pressure against the wad is just too high. They are destroyed before leaving the barrel. Even light loads with other powders does the same.
Can you imagine what a sideways slug would do to a deer?
I am finding more and more that a wad designed for shot just doesn't work with a slug.
Why no one has come out with a mould and sabot for handloaders baffles me. I can buy great shooting ones but they are too expensive. $1 or more apiece is too much for play. I don't hunt with this gun, I use revolvers. I have been playing with home made slugs for 40 or more years with no luck. For a smooth bore the WW foster slug was always the best. I can't duplicate it with the same components. I bought the rifled barrel to play with because I got it cheap.
I just love to play with this stuff. A bore size, lubricated boolit might be the only way to go.

[drinks]

44;
What gage?
I have had pretty good results with the Lee .575 Min'ie and a .575 ball in factory one piece plastic wad/cups with a smoth bore in 20 gage.
If you are using 12 gage, there is a person in England who makes all size ball molds, up to cannons at very reasonable prices.

[swheeler]

44 man; I think you are going to have to design a sabot mold for them, let us know how it works out. Scot

[mparks]

There is the Collet Cup out there that Chris Young designed. It is available from Ballistic Products I believe and is designed to fit I think a .45 Hornady XTP in either 250 or 300 gr. Can't remember for sure.

If some one were able to produce sabots for a given bullet we'd really be in business. Would be a lot of fun to take a .45 300gr LBT and shoot that from a slug gun.

I'm always looking into finding something cheaper to shoot than the $7-10/box sabots but I haven't had much luck yet. By the time you round up all the plastic wads and whatever and deal with a roll crimp and everything $10/box doesn't seem to bad.

[looseprojectile]

YO 44 MAN;
I've got a .690 Lyman RB mold, makes about a .693 ball. Used to shoot a Navy arms cannon. You could hear the ball richochet off alder trees for a full five seconds when fired into the canyon. Also loaded some in 12 gauge, will go through an old car just whistlin. Don't get many in a pound though.
If it would do you any good I will be happy to send it to you.
What is the groove diameter of your rifled barrel?
Happy shooting

[44man]

Thanks for the offer but I also have that mould. Plus a .662 ball. Also the Lyman Foster and Lee slug.
I think the weak link is still the shot wad.
I am going to make a mould someday for a boolit and forget the wads. I need to buy some tool steel rod large enough for cherries.
I have some hard, tough wads for steel shot without a crush section. I will make a size die so my slugs fit them and see what happens.
My bore measures .727 to .730 depending on the groove side I measure.
I'm retired and never have time for anything, it seems, the year just flashed by like a lightning strike. How in the world did I ever do anything when I had to go to work every day?

[44man]

I still have to try Joe's thing with a copper jacket, it sounds real good.

[mosin9130]

44 Man,
I have an idea: fill every air space.
You have a boolit design like a .177 pellet? Fill the wasp-waist with C.O.W. (that will vanish when the boolit left the barrel and wad) and the hollow base with some light-weight lubricant like beeswax-paraffin-vaseline (to non alterate the original weight-center and stability of boolit). Then put the bullet plus fillers in an uncut wad so that all fit tight in the case and force in the barrel when fired (look at the pressions!).
I think that the wad petals, having no more space to collapse, will stay around the bullet keeping it centered and protected from contact with the barrel.
What do you think about?

[44man]

I'm way ahead of you! I tried that long ago. I have also filled the hollow base with a mixture of a tiny bit of resin and a huge pile of micro balloons. The wad is always ruined. They just can't take the ride down a rifled tube and I am not even sure the slug spins. Even with a wad that stays together, I see tipping of the slug.
A shot charge is flexible and forms without ruining the wad but the slug is forced tight as it upsets and offers a lot of resistance, even cutting off the petals.
I hear the sabot for the .45 bullets works well but I still want a larger slug. That thing is too close to an inline muzzle loader to suit me. I like the bullet better out of a .45 Colt.
It seems that if you are hunting with the shotgun, it is better to buy them. The Hammer Head and the new Hastings sabot slug are extremely accurate, but that is not what handloading is about. We just can't work with plastics to make what would work.

[45 2.1]

44man-
I've fooled with homeloaded buckshot shells quite a bite and have done the foster and new pellet slug molds long ago. In all cases finding the right wad made all the difference. I would look at the wads made for steel shot. They are a lot tougher than the normal run of the mill wads you buy over the counter. The problem with them is that they are thicker and may not fit plus you would have to find out how much to slit them. One of the enjoyable parts of handloading though.

[StarMetal]

Like I pointed out in another shotgun slug post the wad was the issue.

Joe

[jhalcott]

years ago S&W made shotgun ammo for the police.They were used on barricades and auto bodies,or bad guys if the need arose! They were wasp waist HARD projectiles housed in a form fitting sabot of "plastic" If memory is right they were .50 caliber ,one ounce slugs. They were way to hard for deer hunting, they could penetrate both doors of a chevy sedan..

[Hackleback]

There was an article in the Single Shot News about a 12 bore. The gentleman was using full bore slugs (Dixie) and brass cases. Powder charges were up to 7 drams of black. He messed around with several projectiles as well. If you would like the article, PM me an address and I will make you a copy and get it in the mail.

[Leftoverdj]

I got a .735 RB mould from Dixie many years . It does as well as anything I have been able to load, but doesn't do any better from rifled barrels than smooth because the twists are too fast for the bearing surface. It also kicks like Bruce Lee because it weighs 1 3/8 ounce, and you sure don't want to let one get into a barrel with any choke in it. Federal wads with the pedals trimmed to 1/4" work perfectly.

I also got Buckshot to cut bearing bands in a Lyman Forster type mould to bring it to .735, but I have not done the work with it that it deserves. The problem seems to be wads forcing their way into the cavity and/or the sidewalls collapsing under pressure.

I still have a stash of Activ wads. They are tough enough to take the ride down the barrel in good shape using the Lee slugs, but they won't release. I've found a couple stuck in my target backer, and many more just in front of the target where they apparently bounced back after being stripped off.

This slug business is about enough to make me take up knitting.

[44man]

Seems to be what we are all about, solve an insurmountable problem with insurmountable components. No one has thought about the home slug caster and loader except those that sell ready made slugs and sabots.

[357maximum]

Sounds like a group buy in the making...

[mparks]

The issue seems to be wads and hulls. It sure would be nice to get a brass shell that would hold a 438gr boolit. Would the pressure of a 438gr boolt driven to say 1500fps be over the red-line for production slug guns? What other problems(other than cost and availability) would the brass shell cause? Seems like the conventional shotshell chamber wouldn't be too friendly to a brass shell.

[44man]

The hulls are no problem and brass will work fine. Just have to stay in the pressure limits of a shotgun.

[Trapshooter]

I was talking with a hunting friend of mine, who used the "pellet gun slug" with some success in the past, and mentioned the problems of shearing off the wad petals. He said he used Pattern Control spreader wads modified by cutting down the "spreader post" in the middle of the shot cup to keep the slug ceneterd. He said that wad was out of production for a loooonnngg time, so this tip may be marginally useful/ useless.

Trapshooter.

[Scrounger]

I was talking with a hunting friend of mine, who used the "pellet gun slug" with some success in the past, and mentioned the problems of shearing off the wad petals. He said he used Pattern Control spreader wads modified by cutting down the "spreader post" in the middle of the shot cup to keep the slug ceneterd. He said that wad was out of production for a loooonnngg time, so this tip may be marginally useful/ useless.

Trapshooter.

I remember those. They made nice doughnut-shaped patterns. Which explains why they are out of production....

[mosin9130]

I have to read more carefully what written: I didn't realize that you have a rifled barrel.
That means that you have an undersized hevy bullet that needs to be rotate by the rifling and plastic isn't the best material to grip firmly a lead bullet. More, the bullet you use has only two thin driving bands and an hollow base that cannot be easily expanded because it sits over a wad. A too havy job for plastic!
Have you ever tried to substitute the plastic petals of the wad for paper (or cardboard) patch? All in all, a 12 ga. rifled shotgun have big diameters and low pressure as a muzzle loading rifle and the solution found for undersized bullet was... hollow base and paper patch.

[44man]

Yes, you are right on the money. It is a poor design. It takes a tough sabot or a bore fitting boolit. Looks like a good winter project to make some moulds. I will get some 3/4" tool steel. A good hard boolit with lube grooves might be the best way to go.

[StarMetal]

As long as I used new or once fired hulls I had EXCELLENT results with the Lyman 20 ga slug. Maybe the 12 ga slug is a more diffucult to work with. But as for the 20 ga slug and the shotgun I was shooting them out of, you're all wrong.

Joe

[44man]

Joe, I tried new cases and reduced loads. I think because the slug is heavier makes it harder to get it right. I have gotten some real tight groups and thought I had it licked but the next time I shot it would go to pot. I even posted how good it was shooting but I have to take it all back. Anytime wads stay in one piece, I get a good group. Lose a petal or more and say goodbye. This is even harder then BPCR.