New batch of Lyman 525's

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With the nice mild weather we've been having I thought I'd replenish my supply of Lyman slugs. I set my casting equipment outside and started the process. This MiHec mold requires a bit of futzing before the slugs come out nice , I discarded the first 10-12 pours primarily to get the lead in my pot hot enough and to get the mold adequately heated as well. The double cavity mold is nice for producing a higher yield but it eats up the lead at the same rate, I finished off with approx. 200 slugs. I still have the fill the bases with wax. Now I have to get busy reloading.

 
Wow, fantastic mold!
What are you using for load data?
Seems many members are now starting to cast these and load data is scarce.
-Jake
 
These slugs weighed in at 505 grs. (not pure lead) and with the bases filled with wax are 514grs. The slugs are loaded as intended nose up , the wax seems to help prevent the wad from driving into the slug and improves accuracy from what I read over on castboolits. Some the guys over there are filling the bases with hot glue but I thought I'd try the wax which is easier and less expensive than hot glue.
I haven't done a side by side comparison for accuracy with or without the bases filled, I jumped right in to try some proven results and I was pleased with the accuracy I got with the bases filled.
I did start a thread when I first loaded these with some W571 mag powder I had on hand and got good results (Blue Dot pwdr is quite scarce ), I did have to put a fiber card in the powder column to bring it up flush with the hull.
 
I have lyman 5th edition shotshell reloading that has load data for 525gr slugs.I will prob use universal with winchester hulls
 
Ok here goes, here's how I load these slug loads. It's not the only way and maybe not the best way but it's how I do it and I've had pretty good success with it. I don't have a roll crimp (yet ) I wanted to see if these would even shoot so I used the crimp on my shotshell loader and it works well enough for now.
As mentioned earlier I am using recommended lyman loads which calls for Winchester components which are now obsolete (but I did have some old supplies that I'm using).
First step was to weigh the slugs and group them together, to try to obtain the best accuracy available.
I then shaved some paraffin wax with a utility knife and melted the shavings in a spoon over a lit candle and melted the wax, I then poured the wax into the hollow base of the slug. Then I trimmed the excess wax with the utility knife once the wax hardened.
I didn't have any of the recommended Blue Dot powder but I did have some old W571 so I measured some 42 gr. charges and loaded them into the AA hulls. This charge left the height in the hull too low so I made some cardboard wads to bring the powder column up to the correct height. I used some dense cardboard and punched the discs out with a 5/8 hole punch that produced a disc that fit perfectly in the AA wad base.
Here are a few pics of the process.










 
With the bases filled the wads dont rend to swedge into the slug base. And the glue/wax offers support to the slug skirt so it is less likely to collapse on a magnum loads heavy accelleration.

I now use WW and a little tin. Nthey cast awesomely! I use Unique and Herco for most of my slug loads. I dont shoot them real hard, and they normally will shoot into 2-3" or better at 75 yards. They make a serious wound channel!

My powder charge and wad selection info is not handy at the moment guys, sorry.
 
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Got out to shoot these the other day, wads held together nicely (no blown wads) and slugs expanded good too. The wax stayed intact in the slug base.


The best group of the day , but I did have a flyer on the 3rd shot I think I pulled it so I fired a 4th and it settled back into the group ( these do kick).

 
Very good info. Thanks for sharing. My load is pretty close. I use 35 grains of 571 with the WAA12SL pink wad with pretty good results to. Mine kick very hard also.
 
A little update.
The Lyman 525 is my go to home rolled slug that still amazes me, I initially used with my Savage 210 F rifled slug gun. I got great results with this combination.
I picked up a 20 in. rifled barrel for an older 870 that we had (when they still made them right) and my number one son used that during our shotgun/muzzleloader season when we did midday pushes, the Lyman slug was a winner in that gun . Number two son had to use the 30 in. smoothbore that a Mossberg 500 wore, that is until now. I picked up a 24 in. rifled ported cantilevered barrel for that gun and decided to try to sight it in recently. I originally put a red dot sight on the gun but was dissatisfied with it at the range during bright sunlight I could barely see the dot on max. illumination so I stuck on a cheapo Weaver 4X Challenger scope I had kicking around.
The initial sight in at 25 yrds. just about floored me, not only was I on paper , I darn near hit the bull ( no boresighting or anything).
I moved out to 100 yrds and after raising the point of impact high and left I proceeded to try for a 100 yrd group.
The load was the Lyman slug wax filled base, WW components, hull, 12AAR wad with a fiber disc under the wad and 32 grs. of Herco this is a newer load from my original powder.
The final volley yielded under 2 in. group.
Im sure better optics would even improve things more.
So that's 3 different guns shooting the same slug/load that produce better that satisfactory results.

25 yrd.
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100 yrd. first attempt
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100 yrd. final
teldj22.jpg
 
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