What lead to use for shotgun slugs?

[gnmontey]

Have a friend who's interested in casting shotgun slugs. Should he be looking at using pure lead or WW's or does it matter?

Thanks,

M

 

[yomomma]

Lee suggests pure lead

I use pure lead for the 1oz..will go through a full choke

 

[gnmontey]

Is that with a sabot?

M

 

[yomomma]

Lee uses a regular wad

 

[legi0n]

I use hard-cast (18BHN) lead but only in a cylinder bore
This is for "enhanced" penetration

 

[denydart]

I use the Lyman 525 (pellet type) with rifled barrel. I keep the pure lead for hunting loads and practice / sighting etc. is with WW.

 

[bertn]

I use the Lyman 525 (pellet type) with rifled barrel. I keep the pure lead for hunting loads and practice / sighting etc. is with WW.

Why not cast them all with pure then?

The ww ones should come out a bit lighter than pure so your poi could shift between sighting rounds and hunting rounds right?

 

[antiqueguy]

doesn't really matter that much depending on choke if its a fixed full you may want to use pure lead if its not id rather use water dropped wheel weights. just remember you don't have to hot rod these slugs to get good performance on game if you look at what happens to a lot of factory foster/rifled slugs on impact they tend to break because their soft and have a huge hallow base. id stick with a target load that uses a wad the slug will fit in

 

[barsik]

take a few slugs and pass them through the barrel with the same wad that they will be reloaded with. you can us a bit of force with a dowel or something such. if you have to resort to pounding it through the barrel with a hammer maybe resort to plan B. plan B is playing with the alloy. accuracy can be improved by playing with the heat and alloy in any mold, more so with larger caliber molds than smaller ones. some will cut the petals off the wad or even resort to using filler wads. play with it until you get the results you want.

 

[freire]

I don't think it matters with rifled barrels, with chokes might be a different story.

 

[denydart]

Why not cast them all with pure then?

The ww ones should come out a bit lighter than pure so your poi could shift between sighting rounds and hunting rounds right?

I have tons of WW and a very limited supply of pure lead - at least for now. I shoot about 300 slugs a year for off-hand practice etc. but for 50-75 yards I haven't seen much change in POI and not like I'd see it off-hand anyway.

 

[bertn]

I have tons of WW and a very limited supply of pure lead - at least for now. I shoot about 300 slugs a year for off-hand practice etc. but for 50-75 yards I haven't seen much change in POI and not like I'd see it off-hand anyway.

Makes sense then.

You could try to trade some of your ww ingots for pure lead.

 

[antiqueguy]

stick on wheel weights are pretty much pure lead range scrap is also pretty soft if its mostly jacketed bullets

 

[jethunter]

I have tons of WW and a very limited supply of pure lead - at least for now. I shoot about 300 slugs a year for off-hand practice etc. but for 50-75 yards I haven't seen much change in POI and not like I'd see it off-hand anyway.

WW will be fine in a slug barrel, even good for hunting. Let them air dry after casting and they'll be a little softer than water dropped.