any slugmakers out there?

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admiral

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been thinkin bout makin me some deer slugs. lookin at the lee 1 oz. 12 ga molds. Does anyone here have experience with them or any other slug mold? Do they require pure lead? I got a poo-load of wheel weights to use up. i have had good luck w/lee molds but am willing to try another brand.
Don't do much shotgunnin (early-season tree rats and rabbit), so i am thinking about buying the lee load-all II for the purpose of slug loadin. looks pretty cheesy but have read that they aren't too bad.

Oh yeah, shootin the standard smoothbore slug barrel on my wingy (aka-870), but would be interested in how they shoot in rifled bbls also.

PS: Rem sluggers shoot great for me. Many deers killed.

thanks
 
I load the Lee 1oz in a LoadAllII. It works, but you have to be careful with crimp. They call for all lead, but it really doesn't matter as the slug never touches the bore-it's encased in the wad. Lee's recipe's work fairly well. Their Universal load gives me a nice one hole group at an admittedly unchallenging 25yds.
 
Hey Poodle,

As you may recall from previous posts of mine, I have been casting a bunch of different bullets since the 1960s. In all that time, however, I have never cast a shotgun slug, and I feel I am missing out on something. You mentioned using a 1 oz Lee, and I presume you mean you are using a Lee mould that throws a 1 oz slug in 12 ga. Am I correct so far? Then it seems as if you load the slug in what I am guessing is a 1 oz standard plastic wad of some brand. Am I still on the right track, or have I missed the barn by about ten yards?

If that is correct, can I also assume you use this combination in a smooth bore barrel? What can you do with a rifled shotgun barrel?

I have no real need for this information for hunting purposes. I am just a curious old man with nothing better to do.

Best wises,
Dave Wile
 
Hi David,
I'm a curious young man with too much to do ;)
Yes, I use the Lee slug mold to cast 1oz 12ga slugs. They are very similar to an unribbed forster style slug, but have a solid lead bar in the base to prevent the plastic wad (I usually use generic claybuster Federal 12S3's-a common shot wad) from crushing into the base and sticking on the slug. The mold has a core pin, so if you're used to casting for minies, it's roughly the same. Smoke the mold WELL to get proper release.
I use these slugs in an 18" smoothbore and in a 24" rifled bbl, both for a Mossberg 500. The rifled barrel does very well with these slugs. It grips the wad, not the actual slug, which remains completely encased until about 20-30yds out at which point it seperates. The slugs run about .69" in diameter as cast, which corresponds to allowing about 30 points of choke in a .72" 12 barrel, so they can run through a full choke with a tight squeeze, though I wouldn't try it. Loaded in the plastic wad/sabot, you get a pretty good tight fit in the barrel, with no lead contact, unlike traditional rifled slugs. That in turn is why you can use whatever alloy you want provided that it stays under 1oz.
Attached photo is for clarification.
regards,
Pshooter
 
Hey Poodle,

I have a few more questions for you if you do not mind. I had no idea of what you meant by the lead bar in the base until I looked at your attached photo, and then it became very obvious. Thanks for the picture.

Then you mentioned that you use a core pin for this mould. I am not sure what you mean by a core pin, but I am guessing it is similar to the method I used to make 38 caliber hollow point bullets some years ago. That was a single cavity mould into which a steel pin was inserted and locked into the bottom to form the hollow point in the cast bullet. After filling the mould, the pin was removed, and then the mould opened to remove the finished bullet. Like most of my moulds, it was a Lyman mould and produced good bullets, but I did not like the extra work required in the use of the hollow point pin, and then there was also the drawback of casting one bullet at a time. I used it for a very short while and then it just sat on the shelf for thirty years.

I assume almost any shotgun slug mould will have to be a single cavity, and I can get used to that idea, however, I really do not like the idea of using one of those pins that you have to insert each time you want to pour a bullet. Is that the way the Lee mould works? I am just too lazy to be bothered with those pin things.

I checked Lyman's 2002 catalog, and it listed a 12 ga. 525 grain flat nosed sabot slug and a round nosed 12 ga. 475 grain slug that looked somewhat similar to yours. Both of these are hollow base slugs, so I assume they also require the use of a special pin to form the hollow base. Do you have any idea about these?

Best wishes,
Dave Wile
 
These core pins are slightly different from the old style. The core pin is attached to the handle assembly (Lee's used fixed handles). All you have to do is shut the handles and the pin self centers. To release the slug, open the mold upside down. The mold halves spread away from the core pin which remains in the center. You don't need to remove the core pin, just smoke it or add a good release agent to it, as with any core pin, it makes removing the projectile a little more difficult.
 
Hey Poodle,

I am not a big fan of Lee stuff in general, however, I do actually prefer using the Lee hand primer, and I still have use for the Lee powder dippers. I just don't like their other stuff.

In spite of my above comments, however, you have persuaded me to give the Lee slug mould a try. It sounds like it is not too much extra trouble, and I think it is worth the effort. Thanks for the information.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile
 
I have that mould and have poured a FEW of them. I didn't think it was any more trouble than casting any other bullet. The reason I haven't done more of it is that Lee says to use pure lead. I don't have any pure lead. The ones I casted were with wheelweights. They seemed to work fine. I didn't shoot them for groups, I fired them out of a shotgun with a front bead only and shot them at a silhouette target at about 50 yards. Once I saw where they hit, I could keep them in the center of the target. I intend to play with it a lot more once I get some lead.
 
Hey 444,

While I frankly admit I have no experience casting shotgun slugs, I have cast quite a few other bullets over the years, and I would tend to agree with the Poodleshooter that it should not matter whether you use pure lead or a hard alloy as long as you are loading the slug in a plastic wad. I would think a one ounce slug of of lead ought to be a formidable projectile. If it is cast of pure lead, it will mushroom to the size of a mushroom, and if it is cast of a hard alloy, it ought to penetrate a bigger animal quite well.

Thanks to the information provided by you and Poodle, I am all caught up in this subject, and I am definitely going to order one of these Lee slug moulds just for the heck of it. I have been doing this reloading and casting for about 40 years now, and I still find things that bring back the"fever" that makes one continue to buy more stuff.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile
 
I haven't done any experimentation at all with these slugs other than loading and firing perhaps a dozen. I am not sure why they stipulate lead only. It might say in the instructions but it has been about a year since I messed with it. Maybe it is because of the barrel choke ?
Last year, for the first time, I shot a deer with a shotgun slug. It was a standard Remington or Winchester 1 oz slug out of a rifled Remington 1100 with a scope. WOW. That really is serious deer medicine. Hopefully I will be able to do it again.
 
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