A Good Day Shooting Slugs...

A Good Day Shooting Slugs...

Hi Folks,

Adam604 again...

Went slug shooting today with 4 different 12 Slug loads with LEE 7/8 oz slugs.

One of the loads was really good, too bad I only had 6 of them to test today.

Last week I had a misfire on a slug load, primer went bang, powder didn't.. Slug and wad lodged in forcing cone. Drove it out with my range rod. Tried another round, same thing..

Well end of 12 gauge shooting for that day.

A few days later I had time to take them apart to see what the problem was... Wet powder, Dang, I thought the hulls were dry, (range pickups) I even dried them at home for a couple of days. I had to pull apart 50 rounds, found 6 with damp powder.

The real finding though was that I found that more than 50% of the wads were damaged during loading. The wad petals were creased, or bent a bit, some pretty badly. I try to be careful loading and thought I was doing better than that. I also found that more than 30% of the slugs were seated a bit crooked in wad.

So I changed the way I load.

I cut a clear 12 Gauge hull to make a wad holder that I could pre-load with the wad, hard card, COW and slug. I then loaded this wad stack into a primed and powder loaded hull. It went pretty quick.

Loading the Wad this way I could see that when using the Federal 12S4 wad, one hard card and 1.9 CC of COW and the LEE slug was not really doing the job. So I tried a few things to get a better stack

I ended up with 2 Circle Fly 20 Gauge hard Nitro wads 1.3 CC COW and a soft lead LEE 7/8 oz 12 gauge slug.

(I had to travel out of the area for a biz trip and came home with Circle Fly hard Nitro Card wads and 300 once fired Federal Top Gun hulls)

:Fire: The Kick Ass Load... 2 1/2" @50 yards 1 1/2 " at 100 yards... :Fire:

Once Fired 12 Gauge Federal Top Gun Hull
Winchester 209 Shotgun primer
38 Grains of Blue Dot
Federal 12S4 wad (brown)
2 Circle Fly 20 Gauge hard Nitro wads
1.3 CC COW (LEE Scoop)
Soft Lead LEE 7/8 oz 12 gauge slug
8 segment star crimp.

I loaded using my Lee load all press, I really pressed the wad stack hard over the powder, more than 30 pounds of force on the handle, then crimped as normal. None of the crimps opened up this time. (didn't shoot round for a few days)

It was cool and a bit of drizzle at the range, no wind at the start of shooting. Pretty windy at the end though.

Pictures of the results attached....

I felt I was in the groove on the first several shots, then it got windy.

This is a great load, or I had a really lucky day..

You've got excellent results with the Lee. I used it about 7 years ago, don't remember the exact results but at 50 yds about 3". That was all I really wanted as I used it for 3 shot rapid fire at 8" square steel plates. I tried the Lyman slug, looks like a giant airgun pellet on steriods, and in my 870 it grouped just a bit tighter using 35gr sr4756 (?) & waa12r wad. I just wanted a cheap practice load as the sabot slugs here cost $14-$20 per 5 out the door. My question to you, or anyone else casting these slugs, is what performance have you gotten on deer? When testing factory slugs a few years ago, I was surprised at the limited penetration results using the old wet phonebook test medium. We only tested 3-4 factory slugs and none penetrated more than about 6" at 50 yds. As a comparison, a 400 gr cast slug from a 450 Marlin at about 1600 fps exited the 14" stack we had and left a hole a bit over an inch all the way through. So, has anyone used the Lee or Lyman slugs and gotten game results close to the factory stuff?

Big Boar,

I hope someone chimes in also, I new to slug using as I've moved to a slug only area and started loading Lee slugs for practice rounds. I've not hunted with slugs before, so I felt I needed to practice a bunch to become a good shot.

On penetration tests I've done, I made a target of old carpet (about 25 ft) with a couple of 2x10 rolled up inside. I soaked the carpet and shot at it at about 40 yards. All my shots were through and through. The roll was about 2 feet across and quite a few layers of wet carpet. (heavy as hell too). I shot soft lead, wheel weight and hardened wheel weight slugs and all of them shot through with no sign of expansion in any of the slugs.

I've also shot up a stack of soggy particle board about 16 inches thick and had about 12 inches of penetration with a lighter load of Unique. Still no sign of slug expansion.

I've heard and have read of others shooting deer and had excellent performance with one shot kills, with most rounds achieving full penetration even after hitting bone.

Adam

hi guys I shot a deer last year with my 1 oz , 47 gr of blue dot at 1610 fps load and it blew right threw the deer and dropped it in its tracks I didn`t check for expansion but I beleive there was non.

Why is anyone concerned with expansion when you already have a flat nose of such large diameter? Little bullets need to expand to enlarge the wound channel, but any slug is plenty big enough without expansion

Penetration will probably be limited when hitting heavy bone, such as the shoulders of an elk, but I don't think a deer would go on down the trail if hit in the shoulder even without the slug going all the way through.

Bob

Why is anyone concerned with expansion when you already have a flat nose of such large diameter? Little bullets need to expand to enlarge the wound channel, but any slug is plenty big enough without expansion

Penetration will probably be limited when hitting heavy bone, such as the shoulders of an elk, but I don't think a deer would go on down the trail if hit in the shoulder even without the slug going all the way through.

Bob

Hi from Canada and thanks for the replys. My curiosity about penetration is from the view of not having a broadside shot but rather a quartering shot. If penetration is limited to only 6-10" then that would limit the possibility of lung/heart hits from anything but a perfect broadside shot and the deer sometimes won't cooperate. I agree that I don't want expansion on a slug with a diameter well in excess of 1/2" but do want penetration. 4 years ago I took a small deer on the run at about 40 yards with a Winchester BRI sabot 2-3/4". Hit just behind the last left rib through both lungs and out the right shoulder, total penetration about 24". I'd like to here about results with other slugs especially with the Lyman/Lee slugs.

Adam, the rib through the middle of the Lee slug tends to inhibit expansion by reinforcing the hollow cavity of the slug, so your results are not surprising.

skidd041- Hi, how far were you from the deer and where did you hit it?

50 yrds right in the shoulder