Gun show bought slugs

[nhithaca]

Got a couple of different slugs in local gun shows over the last 5 years. Anyone ever load these?

[nhithaca]

The BRI's have hollow tails filled with a plastic plug and weigh 7/8 oz. with the sabot.
The Brenneke slugs weight about 1.1 oz.

[longbow]

Never loaded the BRI slugs but they are a sabot slug intended for rifled barrels.

The Classic Brenneke slugs are what I have been trying to find! They are for smoothbore but apparently work well in rifled barrel too.

I'd like to take those Brenneke slugs off your hands if you were willing to part with them but alas , even if you'd part with them you can't export them without an FFL.

I haven't seen Brenneke component slugs here in decades and last attempt at finding loaded rounds I struck out. Got to be some somewhere but not where I've been.

Longbow

[megasupermagnum]

I have load data for both in a BPI slug and buckshot manual from about 1980. It's almost a shame to shoot them though. Both still exist in factory ammo, but neither has been sold as components since about 1980.

[longbow]

I certainly haven't seen Brenneke slugs for reloading since about the 1970's... but that's in Canada.

Apparently they are still available in Europe:

http://www.siarm.com/product_info.ph...products_id=93

Except... they haven't responded to my internet contact.

Maybe I should just order then see if they arrive?

Longbow

[6pt-sika]

I’ve got a box of the Brenneke ones someone gave me . I took them home and put them on a shelf in my loading room . Think it’s ten in the box , I figured I only had enough to figure out a load then they’d be gone . So they work better as a collectible .

[longbow]

There is that aspect!

A few years ago a member here contacted me to let me know he had bought a box of Rocket Slugs online or at a gun show or...?

Anyway I had never seen these things before. They appeared to be swaged with a squat oval nose mass and 4 fairly long thin fins. All lead.

IIRC it was a full box of 25 he'd gotten. He loaded and shot most then sent me 5 to try out. The slugs fit into shotcups.

As I suspected the fins crushed at firing and accuracy was poor.

I posted results of those and other homemade slugs here:

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...ugs-and-Others

I still have the empty Rocket Slug box but I don't think I took a pic before shooting those slugs!

Now those would have been a good collectible! Especially if the box was full. Oh well!!

At least you are thinking more clearly!

Longbow

[megasupermagnum]

I certainly haven't seen Brenneke slugs for reloading since about the 1970's... but that's in Canada.

Apparently they are still available in Europe:

http://www.siarm.com/product_info.ph...products_id=93

Except... they haven't responded to my internet contact.

Maybe I should just order then see if they arrive?

Longbow

$6.80 Euros = $7.69 USD, plus shipping, for 10. That's not a horrible price if you were a bulk buyer like Ballistic Products. That's on par with all their Gulandi slugs. For an individual that's steep. With shipping, that would push it close to $10 a box if you bought quite a few of them. I like reloading, but I'm not spending $1 per slug when I was buying loaded Brenneke ammo for $7 a box of 5. Of course everything is way more now, but that's what sane Brenneke classic ammo cost 3-4 years ago from Buds gun Shop.

[megasupermagnum]

@Longbow, post #7. You can still get those rocket slugs. You can even make them yourself. Corbin's sells the swaging dies. I too got to shoot some years ago, and also found them useless.

[longbow]

I'll have to take a look for the Rocket Slugs. I have not seen them before and the box is very old.

No desire to have any for shooting but as 6pt-sika points out, they'd be an interesting collectible/conversation piece.

The Corbin version has 6 more substantial fins than the 4 fins the Rocket slugs have.

Coincidentally I asked a friend to use his dividing head with his milling machine to make me a 6 slotted core for a push out slug mould. Once I got it home I thought... "I can see a 6 finned slug core here!" The original intent was to make a straight ribbed Brenneke clone. That 6 finned slug is in a pic in the link I attached. I didn't find the Corbin finned slug until after I cast those.

Neither the 4 finned Rocket slugs or the 6 finned cast slugs gave very good accuracy though they flew nose forward and stable punching gear shaped holes in targets!

If I order Brenneke Classic slugs from Siarm it would be just to confirm the accuracy so I can pursue a homemade clone. I agree they are pricey to plink with.

Cap'n Morgan has pretty much confirmed smoothbore accuracy as being very good with his Brenneke clones so maybe a moot point. I just need to make a decent clone!

I've always liked the Brenneke Classic slug.

Longbow

[megasupermagnum]

Can you have a local dealer order some Brenneke ammo for you? I was buying them for about $7 for a box of 5 (about $8.92 CAD). That's expensive ammo, but at that price it's hard to want to buy slugs at $1 each.

[nhithaca]

FYI
I took one of the Brenneke slugs apart just to see how it was assembled.
The slug itself appears to be swaged out of pure lead and has a very large hollow base. There is a stem in the center of the hollow that extends to the bottom of the skirt of the slug. The skirt of the slug surprised me with how thin it is. It appears to be a very high quality swedged "bullet". The wadding consists of a hard nitro disc next to the slug a softer fiber disc fairly thick and then another nitro disc at the base. A number 6 or smaller flat-headed wood screw holds everything together.

[longbow]

Last time I checked locally noone had Brenneke... not that there is much selection locally. I tried in Kelowna 3 1/2 hours away which has a population of 149,000 with no luck and tried in Edmonton (600,000 population) when we visited my daughter and no success!

I found a place near Vancouver that had some but shipping requires all the HAZMAT protocols and we haven't driven that way in a while.

So, no go for me so far!

I'd just like to shoot some to compare. If they are as accurate as I remember that is my smoothbore benchmark and goal.

AQ slugs shot very well for me as well and I have tried to replicate them with partial success. Still working on it.

With the availability of the Russian moulds and tailwads I guess I am chasing my tail here! Except I started this quest before these moulds were available and I don't like to be stuck using proprietary "stuff"! But that just may be the best option for home cast smoothbore slugs.

Longbow

[centershot]

I understand how you feel, Longbow, but sometimes you just have to go with what works. If my roundball loads hadn't worked out so well I'd be running those Russian slugs too! It's as close to a homemade Brenneke as you'll likely ever get and it's a lot cheaper than loaded Brenneke ammo! At some point I'll probably break down and buy a mould and some tailwads just to see what I can do with them!

[megasupermagnum]

FYI
I took one of the Brenneke slugs apart just to see how it was assembled.
The slug itself appears to be swaged out of pure lead and has a very large hollow base. There is a stem in the center of the hollow that extends to the bottom of the skirt of the slug. The skirt of the slug surprised me with how thin it is. It appears to be a very high quality swedged "bullet". The wadding consists of a hard nitro disc next to the slug a softer fiber disc fairly thick and then another nitro disc at the base. A number 6 or smaller flat-headed wood screw holds everything together.

It is not pure lead. It is actually relatively hard by shotgun slug standards, but it is softer than a lot of what we use for cast bullets. I don't remember exactly what the Brenneke slug are, 4% antimony or something like that. The walls are not what I'd call thick, but compare to something like a Federal truball which are paper thin, and they are much stouter than that. There's actually some minor variations over the years on the tail wadding, but for the most part the recipe of a couple discs with some fiber wad screwed together with a machine screw is all the same. New ones actually use plastic for the discs, but minor difference. The nose profile of the slug has changed slightly, but minor difference.

[megasupermagnum]

I cast a whole bunch of round balls today, and I did a quick run of something I've been thinking about for a while now. Just about everyone has tried to copy Brenneke at some point. The problem being the normal guy doesn't have access to the equipment and dies needed to make them accurately. It would take a whole swaging setup, plus a special die set to screw them to the slug. That's got to be a $3000 investment at least.

After watching many attempts I figured I should finally throw my hat in the ring. I've chosen a round ball as the slug. The simple designs lends itself to self-alignment, and the narrow bearing surface makes it safe in most guns. I've even shot them from full chokes. You can't simply screw something to them and hope for it to work. My solution is to inject hot glue in the bottom to take up that dead space and create a bond to the wad. The wads are felt wads, simply because they are cheap, hold together great, and cut well. I've been talking with Lathesmith about a simple die set for this. It will be nothing but a tube with some holes in the side. The idea being I will insert the slug, inject hot glue, then seat the first felt wad to the bottom of the slug. The excess glue would then squirt out of the holes insuring a consistent base, and complete fill. I would then follow with a dab of glue and another felt wad, and stacked as much as I needed until the slug stabilizes in flight. That's the theory anyway.

I have not got that die set yet, but I decided to do a simple test. I cut a plastic tube off a shotgun shell, and used a 20 gauge shell as a punch. I lubed the 12 gauge shell inside with oil so the glue doesn't stick. I had to guess how much glue to add, but this is just a test run. I have to say it look real promising. The slugs are bonded to the wads fairly well. Everything goes together easy and looks consistent. At only 4 felt wads the slugs feel real front heavy, and I have high hopes this will stabilize. I'm going to make a few more like this, load them up, and just see what happens.

[centershot]

MSM, that looks good, a rather ingenious process! Do you have any concerns about the exposed glue rubbing on the bore?

[Cap'n Morgan]

It sounds like a good idea. You might wanna add a nitro card to the bottom of the wads to protect the edges.
I tried some rather flimsy felt wads with one of my first Brenneke experiments w/o the nitro card, and found that the wads would be somewhat
damaged during launch. At one point I considered impregnating the wads with shellac, but then decided to go with injection molded wads instead.

OT:
Recently I found a bag of polycarbonate wads from some years ago when I was experimenting with various sabot/slugs combinations.
The slugs worked quite well, but were not as accurate as my Brennecke-clone so I gave up on the "sleeve-wad" as I called it.
One of the versions had an extremely large meplat and shot great out to about 50 yards, then it would start tumbling.
The latest version -The Propeller-head - did not tumble. At least, that's what I believe; it flew nose-on but so erratic
that it probably would have missed the target at 50 yards!



I plan on modifying the slug mold to a more aerodynamic shape and give it one last try.
The combined sabot & slug will be quite heavy (about 630 grains) and will definitely be a subsonic project.

[longbow]

msm:

I made a form so I could "cast" a hot melt glue attached tailwad to a round ball as an AQ clone.

I drilled a 3/8" hole into the ball so the glue tailwad would bond.

I paper patched the glue so it wouldn't melt or scrub off in the bore. Those worked okay if I got good tailwads which was the challenge. However, tough as that glue is some tailwads broke off at the glue post into the ball. That was a weak point.

If you don't paper patch or otherwise keep glue off the bore I think you'll have issues with glue build up in the bore.

For that style wad slug I tumble the slugs with cast on tailwads in talcum powder. That keeps the glue from sticking to wads or hull. Motor mica or graphite should work as well.

If you can get good tailwads those should be a good AQ slug clone.

I'll be watching for a range report!

Longbow