This article appeared in Fouling Shot #178 Nov/Dec 2005.
Part 3 of 4 by John Alexander
After noting that the muzzle energy and momentum of factory twenty gauge slug loads were comparable to those of short range deer rifles, I bought a twenty gauge NEF Ultra Slug gun and mounted a BSA 1.5-4.5X scope. I next tested eight factory slug loads at fifty yards from a bench rest. Six of the eight produced five shot groups of over ten minutes of angle making them unsatisfactory as humane loads for deer much beyond bayonet fighting range.
Two of the factory loads performed much better in the NEF gun. The three inch Brenneke USA Magnum exceeded the muzzle energy of the factory 405 grain .45-70 loads and was also the most accurate producing five shot groups at fifty yards averaging 1.5 inches, or three minutes of angle (MOA). The Winchester “BRI” load was almost as accurate averaging 2.1 inches (4.2 MOA) for five shot groups, and producing muzzle energy levels comparable to the .44 magnum.
Either of these combinations had adequate accuracy and power to be satisfactory deer loads for woods hunting. However, the Brenneke and BRI shells cost over $2.50 and $2.00 per bang respectively. My goal was to develop handloads of comparable accuracy and adequate power for deer at up to 100 yards.
I had three possibilities on hand for slugs for my handloads. One was the Lyman “Shotgun Sabot Slug” which looks like an oversized and elongated air gun pellet. I had also cast a good supply of both 0.575 and 0.635 inch diameter balls from various alloys. The smaller ball weighed about 280 grains while the larger ball and the Sabot Slug weighed 370 and 360 respectively.
Part 3 of 4 by John Alexander
After noting that the muzzle energy and momentum of factory twenty gauge slug loads were comparable to those of short range deer rifles, I bought a twenty gauge NEF Ultra Slug gun and mounted a BSA 1.5-4.5X scope. I next tested eight factory slug loads at fifty yards from a bench rest. Six of the eight produced five shot groups of over ten minutes of angle making them unsatisfactory as humane loads for deer much beyond bayonet fighting range.
Two of the factory loads performed much better in the NEF gun. The three inch Brenneke USA Magnum exceeded the muzzle energy of the factory 405 grain .45-70 loads and was also the most accurate producing five shot groups at fifty yards averaging 1.5 inches, or three minutes of angle (MOA). The Winchester “BRI” load was almost as accurate averaging 2.1 inches (4.2 MOA) for five shot groups, and producing muzzle energy levels comparable to the .44 magnum.
Either of these combinations had adequate accuracy and power to be satisfactory deer loads for woods hunting. However, the Brenneke and BRI shells cost over $2.50 and $2.00 per bang respectively. My goal was to develop handloads of comparable accuracy and adequate power for deer at up to 100 yards.
I had three possibilities on hand for slugs for my handloads. One was the Lyman “Shotgun Sabot Slug” which looks like an oversized and elongated air gun pellet. I had also cast a good supply of both 0.575 and 0.635 inch diameter balls from various alloys. The smaller ball weighed about 280 grains while the larger ball and the Sabot Slug weighed 370 and 360 respectively.
Lyman Sabot Slug
Since the only loading information I had found for any of these projectiles was the sheet of suggested loads for the Sabot Slug Lyman had packed with their mold, I decided to try it first.
After measuring the Lyman slug, I wasn’t too optimistic. It is designed to be fired in a conventional plastics hot wad used as a sabot but the two brands of wads I had on hand didn’t seem too promising. The
Since the only loading information I had found for any of these projectiles was the sheet of suggested loads for the Sabot Slug Lyman had packed with their mold, I decided to try it first.
After measuring the Lyman slug, I wasn’t too optimistic. It is designed to be fired in a conventional plastics hot wad used as a sabot but the two brands of wads I had on hand didn’t seem too promising. The
Photo #1: From left to right; the Lyman Sabot Slug in a conventional shot wad used as a sabot, a0.575” ball seated on twenty eight gauge wads in a shortened shot wad used as a sabot, and a 0.635”ball and twenty eight gauge wads in a shot wad shortened to below the ball’s midpoint. diameters of the head and skirt of the slug measure 0.574 in. and 0.559 in. respectively and the thickness of the shot cups were 0.023 - 0.025 in. Thus the diameter of the slug and sabot combination was at best 0.624 inches in diameter on one end. It was not clear how this 0.624 inch projectile was to engage the rifling in a 0.632 inch groove diameter barrel.
The rear of the Lyman sabot slug is hollow, similar to an air rifle pellet or a Minie ball. The high pressure gas propelling air rifle pellets and Minie balls expands the soft skirt of the projectile to engage the rifling so one possibility would be for the slug to expand upon firing. However, since the sabot slug leaves the muzzle still in its sabot/shot cup with a gas seal behind it there is no obvious mechanism to expand the skirt. Although I didn’t understand how this system was supposed to work, I did have loading data and decided to try it and see what would happen when a .624” diameter bullet was shot out of a barrel with a .632” groove diameter.
l also sorted through the advertised wares of various shooting supply houses for thicker shot cups. I found that Ballistic Products Inc. of Corcoran, Minnesota offered something called “cushioned steel shot wads” for which they claimed extra barrel protection. Although nothing was specifically mentioned about thickness I reasoned that more protection implied more thickness and ordered a batch.
While waiting for the steel shot wads to arrive, I tried a few combinations using the Lyman Slug in ordinary Winchester and Federal shot wads I had on hand. Powder charges were 26 grains of Blue Dot and 25 grains of 4756 as recommended by Lyman.
All early testing was done using old Remington paper shells and obsolete Remington 157 primers. Yes, I am a scrounger and wanted to use them up, but the paper shells were also easier to crimp and I was just learning to load shotshells.
Shooting was done at fifty yards from a bench. I was encouraged when the first three shot group with Blue Dot went into 1.5 inches. Some of the gun experts who write for the popular gun magazines would have called it a day and written a glowing report. However, I actually hoped to hunt with my handloads and have been disappointed by great results from a small sample before. The next three groups averaged 8.4 inches. The 4756 loads were worse, some of them missing the paper.
Further testing of the Lyman sabot slug in conventional shot wads ahead of 26 grains of Blue Dot produced mediocre results. Loads with Federal shot wads produced five shot groups that averaged 6.7 inches (13.4MOA). Similar loads using Winchester shot wads did slightly better at 10.3 MOA. Although this isn’t exactly precision shooting these undersized sabot slugs produced accuracy comparable to six of the eight factory loads tested.
The rear of the Lyman sabot slug is hollow, similar to an air rifle pellet or a Minie ball. The high pressure gas propelling air rifle pellets and Minie balls expands the soft skirt of the projectile to engage the rifling so one possibility would be for the slug to expand upon firing. However, since the sabot slug leaves the muzzle still in its sabot/shot cup with a gas seal behind it there is no obvious mechanism to expand the skirt. Although I didn’t understand how this system was supposed to work, I did have loading data and decided to try it and see what would happen when a .624” diameter bullet was shot out of a barrel with a .632” groove diameter.
l also sorted through the advertised wares of various shooting supply houses for thicker shot cups. I found that Ballistic Products Inc. of Corcoran, Minnesota offered something called “cushioned steel shot wads” for which they claimed extra barrel protection. Although nothing was specifically mentioned about thickness I reasoned that more protection implied more thickness and ordered a batch.
While waiting for the steel shot wads to arrive, I tried a few combinations using the Lyman Slug in ordinary Winchester and Federal shot wads I had on hand. Powder charges were 26 grains of Blue Dot and 25 grains of 4756 as recommended by Lyman.
All early testing was done using old Remington paper shells and obsolete Remington 157 primers. Yes, I am a scrounger and wanted to use them up, but the paper shells were also easier to crimp and I was just learning to load shotshells.
Shooting was done at fifty yards from a bench. I was encouraged when the first three shot group with Blue Dot went into 1.5 inches. Some of the gun experts who write for the popular gun magazines would have called it a day and written a glowing report. However, I actually hoped to hunt with my handloads and have been disappointed by great results from a small sample before. The next three groups averaged 8.4 inches. The 4756 loads were worse, some of them missing the paper.
Further testing of the Lyman sabot slug in conventional shot wads ahead of 26 grains of Blue Dot produced mediocre results. Loads with Federal shot wads produced five shot groups that averaged 6.7 inches (13.4MOA). Similar loads using Winchester shot wads did slightly better at 10.3 MOA. Although this isn’t exactly precision shooting these undersized sabot slugs produced accuracy comparable to six of the eight factory loads tested.
Photo #2: From left to right; dangerous game load for the 635 Nitro Express, ball in a sexy brass shell (future project), type of crimped load actually used in hunt, one of the unsuccessful shortened loads, and load for future rook rifle project. When the steel shot wads arrived from BPI I found the shot cups of these wads were indeed thicker than those on conventional wads, approximately 0.28 in. at the rim and 0.040” at the base of the cup. This made the outside diameters of a Lyman Sabot Slug and cup combination approximately 0.636 and 0.627 inches at the head and skirt respectively or a bit larger than bore diameter at the head but still smaller at the skirt.
A series of groups using the steel shot cups and 26 grains of Blue Dot shot gave a five shot group average of 8.8 MOA. This isn’t an impressive level of accuracy but it was better than the same slug in conventional shot wads and more to the point, significantly better than most of the factory loads tested. This level of accuracy and power should make an acceptable combination for deer out to perhaps fifty yards.
As hunting season was rapidly approaching no further testing was done with the Lyman Sabot Slug for the time being and efforts were concentrated on seeing if one or both of the available round balls would offer better accuracy.
At this point I decided that since the 26 grains of Blue Dot had produced recoil comparable to the factory loads and hadn’t blown up the gun yet and I already had enough variables, I would to stick to that charge for the limited time I had left.
This would probably be underpowered for the 0.575” ball which weighed 280 grains compared to 360 grain Lyman slug but I reasoned that it should produce similar pressures and velocities for the 370 grain 0.635” ball if the energy needed to start the ball into the rifling didn’t change things too much.
The 0.575 Inch Ball
Like the Lyman slug, the smaller ball required shot wads as sabots to bring their diameter closer to the barrel’s groove diameter. Of course they were much shorter than a charge of shot and couldn’t be crimped properly without shortening the shot shell or putting wads under the ball in the shot cup. I tried several combinations of each approach.
Shells were shortened by placing them over a halfinch dowel held horizontally in a vice and rotating them against a sharp, thin bladed knife held at the desired length. I tried shells shortened so a crimp could be folded over the ball. The shot cup was shortened to extend just past the halfway point of the ball so as not to interfere with the crimp. These made cute little stubby shotshells but of course resulted in the ball and sabot taking an enormous jump before getting to the start of the rifling - maybe not conducive to accuracy. In spite of the undersized ball/sabot combination, and the long jump to the rifling, they shot about as well as most of the factory loads - not very well. Five shot groups averaged in the vicinity of 12 MOA.
I also tried loads in shells shortened even more with the ends of the shell only partially crimped to form a strange looking pointed round. When this didn’t improve accuracy, I shortened some shells even further and fired them with no crimp at all.
The fit was tight enough to securely hold the ball and sabot in the mouth of these strange looking devices. This made even shorter and cuter rounds but of course the leap to the start of rifling for the ball and sabot was even longer These also shot about the same as most of the factory loads - not good enough for much over thirty yards.
Temporarily giving up on making short shells, I decided to use fiber wads to make conventional length shells. I found that twenty eight gauge fiber wads fit well in the shot cups of conventional plastic cushion wads and about one and one half of the type on hand brought the ball into proper length for crimping. Both the conventional shot wads and the thicker steel shot wads were tried. After much fussing around I was able to make shells with a decent crimp.
These were much more accurate, producing five shot groups that averaged about half the size of the ones made with the shortened shells or a bit under seven MOA. This was equal to, or a bit better, than my best effort with the Lyman Sabot Slug in the steel shot wads from BPI and significantly better than most of the factory loads, but still almost twice the group size of the Brenneke and BRI loads.
The 0.635 Inch Ball
When I started loading the 0.635” ball from Jay Wilkinson’s mold, things picked up. I had a variety of ancient wads on hand left over from a bit of shotshell loading forty years ago. These included such things as Alcan Felton-Blue streak hard fiber wads, PGS plastic gas seals, various card wads, and plastic shot wrappers, all from the time before one piece plastic shot wads were invented. Some people never throw anything away. Members who have attained Geezerhood may remember using some of these products in the dark ages shortly after round shot was invented. I also bought some currently manufactured B & G soft fiber wads.
I tried both old paper and newer plastic shells with the 0.635” ball, 26 grains of Blue Dot, the little PGS gas seals, and fiber wads. The gas seals are small plastic cups resembling the rear part of modern plastic one piece wads. Various combinations of the hard and soft fiber wads were tried to bring the ball to the right height for crimping. I tried balls cast of scrap lead, linotype,wheel weights and quenched wheel weights. Brinell hardness readings were 9, 21, 12, and 28 respectively according to my LBT tester.
In preliminary testing three things became apparent. First, the larger balls which engaged the rifling produced better accuracy than I had been able to achieve so far with either the Lyman Sabot Slug or the smaller ball in sabots. Second, harder is better for the balls. Third, softer is better for the fiber wads. Even the first loads with soft lead balls and inconsistent crimps shot as well or better than any handloads I had tried earlier. The linotype balls consistently shot better than the soft lead balls and the quenched wheel weight balls shot better than the linotype variety. Best accuracy was with the B&G soft fiber wads at about four MOA.
I also loaded the 0.635” ball ahead of conventional shot wads. Twenty eight gauge fiber wads were used in the shot cups to bring the length of the shell to the proper length for crimping on top of the ball. After the needed number of wads was determined, the shot cups were cut off below the midpoint of the ball. Although these were more work than simply loading with the PGS gas seal and fiber wads they produced approximately the same level of accuracy.
Ten, five-shot groups with both loading methods and the quenched wheel weight 0.635” balls ranged from 3.1to 6.6 MOA, for an average of 4.3 MOA. Although I hadn’t fired enough groups to be sure, it looked like the best load combination of a gas seal and B & G wads produced groups that bettered the 4.3 MOA average a bit. At this point deer season was at my throat but it looked like I had found an accurate enough load to use with a clear conscience out to about 100 yards, which was longer than I expected to shoot.
But what would I tell my twelve gauge packing friends when the hooted about the pip squeak gun I was carrying. To check to see if they might be right, I chronographed the most promising load. The velocity 15 feet from the muzzle was 1,240 ft/sec for the 370-grain ball. In a coincidence, the mass of slug and the muzzle velocity are just right to make the energy of the load approximately the same numerically as the velocity, or 1,240 foot pounds. This compares to 1,190 foot pounds for the Winchester BRI factory load and 2,120 foot pounds for the three inch Brenneke, the only two factory loads that shot well in my tests. In comparison to rifles shooting similar heavy slow moving bullets, 1,240 foot pounds of energy falls between a long barreled .44 Magnum pistol and a rifle in the same caliber. This was a little less power than I had hoped for. But since the .44 Magnum is considered a reasonable deer caliber for woods hunting and since I was out of time anyway, I decided this would be my deer “shotgun” for the season. Zeroing for one and one-half inches high at fifty yards resulted in a group four inches low at one hundred yards.
Part four will detail my adventures and misadventures in the wilds of the Balhinch region of Indiana hunting the wily whitetail.
Note: Since the first article in this series came out I have received several letters, emails, and phone calls from other members offering encouragement and relating their experiences in loading slugs for shotguns. Apparently, I am not the only one who finds unconventional projects interesting.
Richard Kayser called reporting that he and other shooters in Idaho were getting excellent accuracy with the Lyman Sabot Slug in twelve gauges, leading me to speculate later that maybe the dimensions are better for the twelve gauge slug/sabot combination than for their twenty gauge version. Havis Owens wrote about the effect of slugs and buckshot on deer.
Lon Langle is shooting Lee 0.578 inch Minie balls in sabots out of a twenty gauge NEF Tracker out in South Dakota. He has tried several powders and reports excellent accuracy with some of his AA#2 loads. I immediately ordered a mold for one of the Lee Minies and am looking forward trying it out.
Donald Rink from somewhere in cyberspace has explored the mystery of why much heavier powder charges are recommended for slugs than for shot charges of equal weight. He has replaced the shot in a factory load with an equal weight slug and found that the muzzle velocity dropped from 1,300 ft/sec to 800. He also offered a plausible theory for this phenomenon. I hope he will write a report on this and his other interesting experiments for The Fouling Shot.
