anyone ever do any workup on short hull 12g slugs?

[poco loco]

I got my lee mold a while back and have been experimenting with slugs since....

I just picked up the STI roll crimp tool and it works great, nice tight crimp, shoots well,,impacts the slug a touch but as I'm casting with dead soft lead it really doesn't effect it except for a ring in the slug face.....

Well i was browsing Ammo to go and saw the Aguila 1.5" slugs neat looking little things and had good reviews so I looked at my set up and said, why not?....

So I trimmed down the hull and as I'm using a very light load to save the shoulder the powder takes up so little room I needed a 3/8 card under the wad anyway....I pulled the card first and got a perfect 2" slug....thought about it a little and used a gas seal with a 3/8 card wad and the shotcup cut off of the regular federal wad I use.....With the same load, this got me to an inch and three quarters....

An old reloading buddy swears that as long as I have good wad pressure, no air gap, It will shoot fine ......they cycle fine through both the Mossberg and the 870 and they allow 8 rounds in the standard Mossberg mag and 6 in the 870 instead of 5 and 4 respectively.....

It makes for a longer jump to the rifling or the bore but other than that, can anyone think of anything that might be dangerous about such a slug?


If I can't find anyone with reason why this is a bad idea, I'll load up 20 or so and do a range report in a couple days......


So, what do y'all think, safe? dangerous? stupid? good idea to allow more capacity esp for the Mossy which needs a new barrel to add a mag extension?.....

Thanks in advance and I await your ideas....

 

[Afy]

I dont know anything about loading 12 Ga, but do take pics and let us know how it goes.

 

[longspurr]

Poco
It sounds like a very interesting idea with 3 possible problems.

I've read that the Agilia short shells do not feed well in some pump guns. If yours works then great. A gunsmith that is familiar with pump actions may be needed for better reliability.

Powder charge. How to figure out a good load? This is pretty uncharted ground for most. The folks over at http://www.parkerguns.org/forums have some experience with short shells.

Wadding. i'm thinking you want a gas seal wad with a deep base to seal during the jump through the chamber. Then how do you keep the slug from tipping during the jump? Can you screw the slug to the wad like the Brenndke slug does?

 

[poco loco]

I think to attach the wad

I'd need to modify the mold as the drive key is fairly thin.....

I do have 2 molds though and as the baseplug already fell off of the first one, i had planned on modifying it anyway.....

I'd have to use a 20 gauge wad and leave the shotcup untrimmed but it might work that way....

that was my biggest worry was the slug cocking in the long leade...

maybe to a semisolid base very shallow depression though there would be no need for the key section at all with an attached wad.....

I do have a few slightly taller gas seals than the one I used on the initial shell...

still haven't shot it yet, looking at it and searching for info on this...so far not out there or many answers....

thanks for the link, I'll go take a look and see what they've found out....

If I can make it work and semi accurate, it's 8 rounds in a standard 5 round mossberg magazine and I like that.....

 

[poco loco]

hmmm just found some very low pressure loads using components on hand and 800x for the powder..... one and an eighth ounce shot loads from the Hogdon site ranging from 20.5 to 23 gr and 5800 to 6800 psi at those pressure levels I don't think I can blow it up anyway...that's close to half pressure of the load I'm using in full size hulls according to the book I was using.......and as I recall it seems to be generally accepted that you can substitute shot loads for slug loads and you will have lower pressures?...I hope so as that's the theory I've been working with....

I cked out the Parker site and there's some stuff on 2.5 inch shot loads and one post I found where the person was cutting the hulls down to keep using them and according to him he had good results down to 2" and planned to go further and no one yelled at him to stop......

maybe I'll make up a couple in the 800x recipe and see how short they are roll crimped....

 

[poco loco]

maybe 800x is the answer, without altering the recipe except subbing a 1oz slug for the 1 1/8 oz shot, and roll crimping after trimming the wadand hull, no under slug card, it's just under 2 inches and cycles well.....should be room for the cushion too and still be at 2"...

also, the slug will not fit sideways even in the end of the barrel and no way in an inch and 3 quarters.....I guess I'm to how will removing the crush section and subbing a 3/8 card wad effect pressure.....at these levels I would think not enough to create a problem anyway....hmmmm

I think I'll load up a couple of each and try with the 800x..... at those pressures I don't see an overpressure situation.....any thoughts before I head blindly (well kinda) into the fog?