paper patch slug

[Heavy lead]

Anybody ever paper patch a slug. I'm thinking maybe the Lee keyed slug paper patched out of a standard hull over a wad with the petals cut off.
Any imput?

[longbow]

I have paper patched the Lyman 12 ga. Foster slug with varying results.

The slug as cast is 0.705" which is way under bore size and way too big for any shotcups I know of. I wondered why for long time and I have never been able to get it to shoot well at all.

I think this may be a hang over from the days when you could get rifling dies for the Lyman slugs. I am betting they swaged the rifling into the 0.705" slug and brought it up to bore size.

Slugger Doug did a really good write up on his method of "rifling" the Lyman slug and he did find that when it is brought up to bore size it can give good accuracy.

I used a heavy brown shopping bag paper patch to bring them up to bore size and saw an immediate improvement but I still got bad flyers. Try as I might, I have not been able to make paper patching work consistently well. My theory is that the paper gets damaged due to the rough hull/opening crimp/jump to the forcing cone ~ one or all maybe. Doesn't happen all the time but I get enough bad flyers to make me quit.

This is with smoothbore by the way.

The Lee slug is apparently about 0.680" diameter so that is a long way to patch back up to bore size.

It certainly shouldn't hurt to try it but why bother when the slug already fits standard shotcups?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Longbow

[Heavy lead]

No good reason why I want to, just wonder why not? I'm still expermenting with some loads out of my 11-87 rifled barrel and have a Lee mould I was conteplating doing this with, might give it a try. I would think though a paper patch out of a all brass shell in a single shot might be the ticket.

[longbow]

Not sure about the throat or forcing cone or whatever rifled shotguns have but I would be willing to bet that the jump to the forcing cone is hard on a paper patch. Even more so for 2 3/4" in a 3" chamber which is what I have. A 3" hull might do better or 2 3/4" in a 2 3/4" chamber.

Now, having thought about it a bit, possibly using a heavy paper with a bit of glue used in water for wet patching then slitting like a shotcup at least part way when dry may act like a sabot. It would be possible to patch to fit your bore size that way and may work.

A brass hull might also do better than plastic ~ probably would.

It seems like a lot of paper thickness to me though and I am not sure how that will react in a rifled barrel. It may shred or skip rifling but certainly wouldn't hurt anything except accuracy so no good reason not try it and find out.

Personally I am leaning towards full bore slugs and balls over hard card wads as I have gotten the best results that way.

Longbow

[billw]

Anybody ever paper patch a slug. I'm thinking maybe the Lee keyed slug paper patched out of a standard hull over a wad with the petals cut off.
Any imput?

I patched the Lyman Foster slug with blue masking tape to fit the bore of my Win M97. It didn't seem to help, wasn't accurate at more than 50 yds, most testing at 25 yds. That was with the muzzle cut off by the original owner to full IC choke. Later, I put a Poly choke on it but the gun smith wasn't experienced with Poly chokes and ruined it. I then put on a Cutts and have 3 tubes, IC, M and FC from my Browning A-5 Cutts, so far shooting slugs and 00 buck thru the IC, OK but some shot wads are getting mangled with the Lee Key slugs. Lyman recommended no slug shooting with the Cutts and only spreader choke I don't have with buck shot. I have a Rem 870 with Hastings rifled barrel and slugs do much better with it. I need to shoot both guns with some more test loads. I bought a #4 buck mould, aluminum, no sprue cutter, 12 pellets per cast, recently on eBay and told the guy I wanted a brass mould with sprue cutter for 00 buck when he gets one made.