Rifled slug mould?

COREY

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Howdy All,

I am getting a 12 gauge that is primarily going to be firing slugs, but I am considering loading for it. Does anyone know of a good rifled slug mould, or a slug mould that will shoot accurately in a smooth bore barrel?
 
To the best of my knowledge no one has ever made a mould for "rifled" slugs. Many years ago Lyman made a die that would "rifle" one of their standard foster type slugs. It was discontinued because it was of no value - slugs shot about the same with or without the "rifling" on them.

The rifling on factory loaded slugs is primarily a safety feature, it allows them to be bore filling yet be swaged down if shot thru a choke. Rifling on a conventional slug will not impart any meaningful spin as there is not enough of surface to catch air and make the thing spin.

There are several options for made-at-home slugs. First is the round ball, sometimes called a "pumpkin ball". Lyman makes several sizes. The next is the Foster slug, similar to the common store bought slug. These are hollow base and rely in the "rock in a sock" effect for accuracy. Lyman makes moulds for these in 12 & 20 gauge. Lee makes a version that they call a "drive key" slug, it is similar to the foster except that it has a bar of lead that bridges the hollow base, this bar is there to keep the wad from shoving into the hollow base. The last lug mould that I am aware of is the Lyman "sabot" slug, it is similar in concept to the foster in that it has a hollow base, however it is designed to be loaded into a standard one piece wad, and the slug is flat nosed and looks like a giant air rifle pellet.

I have never used the Lee slug so I will not comment on it, other than to say I really ought to order one sometime.

I was never terribly happy with the performance of the Lyman Foster type slug; they are generally undersized for most barrels. Plus they require fussy combinations of card wads or require other wads to be modified.

Round ball slugs are fun, easy to cast and easy to load and provide decent accuracy at close range.

The best home made slug is the Lyman Sabot slug, IMO. Accuracy in my experience ranges from good to excellent. Best results that I saw were from a friends 11-87 Remington with a rifled choke tube. Groups fired with this combo were so good they were almost hard to believe. If I were to quote group sizes people would think I was full of ####. The same load also shot decently from a plain barrelled 1100 Remington. A nice thing about the Lyman sabot slug is that they are easy to load, no special hard to find wads are required and your standard crimper works fine, no need for a roll crimper.

There are no doubt other custom or semi custom slug moulds out there (NEI makes or used to make one), but the above are common and may be readily purchased.
 
My friend and I have all three molds. Lee, Lyman and a round ball mold.
The Lee slugs are hit and miss for accuracy but are great for penetration. Some shoot really well and then one or two go there own separate way.
You have to be really careful when you load them.
The Lyman are accurate but I do not find that they penetrate as well but that big flat face does look impressive. I also find that they tumble after they hit but do make a spectacular show when they hit. We use jugs and 20L pails filled with water at 50 Yards. The round balls are .690 dia. and work very well in a rifled barrel, lots of penetration and fairly accurate. I can put 3 into a 6" circle at 100 yds. All the slugs mentioned are loaded in std. wads and use a star crimp. So far we have only tested them in a rifled barrel and over the past couple weeks I have been casting more. My shooting and hunting mate reloads them and we go out to the back of his farm and shoot away. All that being said my choice for hunting last fall was the round balls, can't tell you how they worked as the deer knew what I had for ammo and would not come within 200 yds.
 
My expierience parralels p.e. islander. If you want super penetration with Lyman sabot slugs, try them cast of quenched wheel weights. In my tests ,they penetrated over twice as far in dry phone books as Brenneke's do.
 
I used the Lyman Foster type, in a Benelli M121 with the 22"(24"?) rifle sighted barrel, I loaded a very stiff load of BlueDot under a WWF114 wad with the petals cut off, and then paper-patched to fit the bore. 6" groups at 100m, any time with the odd 4 ncher thrown in when I could stand the abuse from the bench.
 
Splatter said:
I used the Lyman Foster type, in a Benelli M121 with the 22"(24"?) rifle sighted barrel, I loaded a very stiff load of BlueDot under a WWF114 wad with the petals cut off, and then paper-patched to fit the bore. 6" groups at 100m, any time with the odd 4 ncher thrown in when I could stand the abuse from the bench.

I tried much the same thing, except I used scraps of spun bonded polyester building wrap to try and get a better bore fit. It was a definite improvement over unpatched slugs.

The patches I used were round. the patch was simply centered over the case mouth and the slug pressed in on top of the wad (also with petals removed). Did you wrap the slugs with paper as would be done with a rifle bullet?
 
Can you use one of the round balls that are used in the black powder rifle for a slug and if so which cal or size can be used
 
JB said:
Can you use one of the round balls that are used in the black powder rifle for a slug and if so which cal or size can be used


For 12 Gauge I use a .690" round ball cast in a Lyman mould. This was loaded into a standard wad with the petals intact. This combination of round ball and wad could be pushed thru my Remington 1100 slug barrel using a cleaning rod, I would recommend that you try this with your barrel just in case it has more choke than you expect. I think the petals of the wad add a certain safety factor as they will pinch off rather than destroying a choke as might be possible with a solid bore diameter round ball (especially a hard cast one).

I know people who have used .72" round balls in cylinder bore 12 gauges, however as the projectile is in contact with the bore there is some leading as a result. I would think that a hard cast .72" round ball would be bad news for most chokes!
 
Hello,


I have the same mould and have yet to cast using it. What type of crimp are you using? Do you have any pics of your wrapped bullets? Anyone try teflon tape?


Splatter said:
I used the Lyman Foster type, in a Benelli M121 with the 22"(24"?) rifle sighted barrel, I loaded a very stiff load of BlueDot under a WWF114 wad with the petals cut off, and then paper-patched to fit the bore. 6" groups at 100m, any time with the odd 4 ncher thrown in when I could stand the abuse from the bench.
 
I was using a folded crimp in 2-3/4" shells (don't recall the brand), I got the load from an old "Gun Digest"
The paper patching was my idea.

No pix, sorry.
 
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