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a lee lead melter and mold are only 20 and 30 dollars each, i buy federal bulk pack for 20 and empty all the shot and cast into lee drive key 1 oz slugs! 100 slugs for $20 and a little labor! they sho

Lyman 525 slug hitting hard is an understatment. In the pic, the slugs on the left, top 3 are out of a sand bag. The middle left is a unfired slug. The 2 at the bottom left, are off a steel plate.

Kineti-Dump® in it's infancy: 1-3/4"x10" black steel pipe (handle) 2-3/4" black caps 1-3/4"x3" nipple (shot end) 1-3/4"x3" brass nipple (shell end) the brass was closer to fitting the o.d. of the

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Made 50 more Birdslugs today, Winchester and Federal half and half. I used Red's "squeeze" method to open the crimps. I recommend using a small pair of Channel Locks as it allows you to squeeze from both sides as you go around the shell. This keeps from deforming the hull. I think using something like needle nose pliers would tend to pinch and make dents. Not sure what Red uses, the Channel Locks I have are about 7" long.

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Having done 50 rounds today I'm coming to the conclusion that given the time and effort to do this it's looking like doing a full reload would not take much more. One advantage is getting 1 or 1 1/8 lead to either turn into bigger shot or slugs. Given a cost of $25 per hundred shells (bird shot), it works out to...let's see let me get out the calculator.... $.25 per shell. What's the average cost of a fully reloaded shell including the lead but using recycled hulls?

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gaaah - don't melt your lead shot! Buying shot to mealt is waaaaay more expensive than melting down scrap lead to make slugs. That's crazy!

 

At $5 per box of one ounce birdshot shells - you are paying $3.20 per pound for the 25 ounces of shot. You ought to be able to bu lead anywhere for $1 per pound.

Shoot the shells, then relaod them with your own cast slugs or I'll sell you one ounce slugs at 20 cents each..........

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I knew GMike would comment on the idea of melting down shot, I hear you and I'm sure those following this thread do also. I have my extracted shot safe and sound and far from the melting pot. My comments were more theoretical in talking about cost. The point is, whether you sell the shot or trade it for slugs or raw lead, it's a wash cost wise when calculating the cost of turning birdshot into anything else.

 

And for those following this thread for the purposes of doing the shot to slug conversion of bulk shells, I think I have reached one conclusion that might be helpful and that is Federal birdshot shells are better than Winchester Universal for this purpose because of the materials and/or the way in which the hulls are made. I can't say with certainty that the plastic is thicker with the Fed but I can say that recrimping the hulls results on more successful completions than with the Winchester Universal. I'm sitting here looking at 4 shells on which the crimp was malformed which I will probably cut the tops off of to try and use. You may say that closed is closed whether it looks pretty or not but the problem with a malformed crimp is it tends to deform the end of the shell which will cause feed problems.

 

So from here on out all other things being equal I'll select Federal Game Shot shells for the re-purposing thing. There may be other brands that would work as well or better than the Federal shells but I haven't tried them so I can't comment.

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I did the math last year, and on a complete reload from a used hull, assuming you found scrap lead for $1/lb, some primers I picked out of a hat, cheap wads since the Lee slugs don't care, and some random suitable powder like Clays, I think it came out to about $.14 per slug.

 

With free found/scavenged lead if you've got a source, I think it was as cheap as $.11.

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...I think it came out to about $.14 per slug. With free found/scavenged lead if you've got a source, I think it was as cheap as $.11.

 

I'm hoping others will chime in but with numbers like this if they end up being close the average, a 10¢ savings over new bulk birdshot, the case is strong for reloading from scratch. Time is another significant issue with this IMO. If we were talking about rounds for a bolt action where the rate of fire is relatively slow, cranking out 50 in a session would be pretty good, this would probably supply a day's worth of long range target shooting I'm guessing. But to me keeping your finger off the trigger of a Saiga 12 is like keeping your foot off the gas pedal of a Ferrari...it's hard to drive 55. In the end the high dollar automated loaders get the best reload rates but there's a significant equipment investment there. But once you get set up I think you could crank out a pretty good number of shells with a Load All II.

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As far as cost goes, for me it is right around .19 cents a round. As for speed I can reload around 100 slugs in about an hour with my LL2 as long as I already have the slugs cast. That's enough for me to shoot in one session most of the time.

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Also, if you live in a northern state with a "real winter", when it's dark out, and the days are short, and there's not as much to do, that's obviously the best time to catch up on all your casting and reloading. 000.gif

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Also, if you live in a northern state with a "real winter", when it's dark out, and the days are short, and there's not as much to do, that's obviously the best time to catch up on all your casting and reloading. 000.gif

 

Makes sense. Here, winter weather consists of rainy, chilly (not freezing most of the time) and dreary. Not snow but still not conducive to doing anything much outdoors. I've always thought the oppressive heat and humidity in the Summer is a fair price to pay for not having to dig our vehicles out of snow banks in the winter. Either way it's still a blessing to have an indoor range that's Saiga friendly only 5 miles away.

 

I went to a gun show yesterday and picked up an antique although I'm not an antique collector. I got it for $20 which is about half what I've seen them go for on eBay. Makes a nice, even roll crimp. As far as I know it has no modern day counterpart (that I know of) and I'm not sure why;

 

post-41803-0-60043500-1349709410.jpg

 

I've tested it on a couple of empty hulls and it works.

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I did the math last year, and on a complete reload from a used hull, assuming you found scrap lead for $1/lb, some primers I picked out of a hat, cheap wads since the Lee slugs don't care, and some random suitable powder like Clays, I think it came out to about $.14 per slug.

 

With free found/scavenged lead if you've got a source, I think it was as cheap as $.11.

 

That's cool. IIRC my estimates for the recipes I looked into came up to about 14 cents in components before I even got to the slug.

 

I am pretty new to this whole reloading thing, but all the literature tells me that picking primers out of a hat would be a bad idea, not to mention keeping primers in your hat. Although it would make ol' Blackbeard look like a wuss.

 

I thought everyone who roll crimped just used the ~$14 drill press attachment and set the stop height carefully. With a V-block to hold the shell against, you oughta be able to do them pretty efficiently.

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There is a Lyman 525 mold on egay, 65 + 6.25 shipping

251162326054

 

Here's one for a little over $1 less and it's new, is it the same mold? 280982916546

 

Gunfun, the $14 roll crimp die you're talking about is nylon right? The steel ones I'm seeing go for $30-$40.

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Yes same mold, drops a 525 gran slug(1 oz), looks like a big pellet.

Here are some with Lee slug, Lyman are stacked.

 

The 2nd pic is before and after a sand bag test. Lyman on the left.

The Lyman will dent a 1/4" steel plate and splater, The Lee just splater, slug on the right is a Lee.

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Edited by RED333
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Winchesters waiting for the last step;

post-41803-0-89844700-1349734287.jpg

 

it looks like your getting good at substituting the slugs in there. all probably crimped back together good i bet.

 

this has got me thinking. I was just curious what kind of knock down power this type of round would have so i found a ft lbs energy calculator on the internet. it is probably not exact but if you figure it is traveling around 1200 fps and it weighs 1 ounce the calculator says it will have around 1500 ft lbs of energy. to put that into perspective a good +p 45 acp round is usually around 1100 fps and 500 ft lbs.

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Rogers, the thing is, you can make them look good but it adds time to the process. I made about 45 birdslugs today using Winchester Universal since I have a good bit of it. I use the squeeze method Red posted to get the crimp started open. Then I've got a dental pick type deal with a 90 degree end on it and I stick it in and pull the crimps out until it's open enough to dump all the shot. Then I stick in the closed needle nose like GMike suggested and open it up enough to put the Lee slug mold handle in there to open it enough to insert the slug. Then I squeeze it closed to a point so I'll know when I put it in the Lee Load All it will recrimp right.

 

I do all this because I've had a problem with mutant crimps with the WinUniversal. I wouldn't care how it looks but when the crimp gets hosed it tends to deform the end of the shell. Federal Game Shot seems to be made out of thicker plastic so it's not hard to get a good recrimp.

 

But this whole process at it's best takes too much time IMO. I'm going to get going with reloading when I get all these damn tables figured out. I'm starting to think that unless you need a certain quantity of slugs for a special purpose, the thing to do is just take the bulk birdshot out, have fun unloading it and then reload the hulls with buckshot or slugs. This was suggested earlier in this thread but I needed to find out for myself.

 

At least until someone invents a handy dandy crimp opener that works in about 2 seconds.

 

Oh and btw, these are 7/8 oz slugs, how would this affect the calculations?

 

Man, I love eBay, you can find the greatest deals there; http://www.ebay.com/...=item45f607b598

Edited by Squishy
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here is the site that i found with a converter calculator on it.

 

http://www.reloadammo.com/footpound2.htm

 

first you have to convert the ounces to grains. then you have to figure out how fast it is going in fps. without chronographing the 7/8ths slugs it is hard to say exactly the fps. i have chronographed the 1 ounce slugs with my reloaded shells, which are loaded very close to the factory federal bulk pack, and they clocked at about 1200 fps. i would imagine that since the 7/8th slugs are lighter they would probably be going 1250-1300 fps when substituted into the Winchester bulk packs. but that is nothing more than just an educated guess. if you plug that into the calculator it says it would have about 1430 ft lbs of energy.

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Yes same mold, drops a 525 gran slug(1 oz), looks like a big pellet.

Here are some with Lee slug, Lyman are stacked.

 

The 2nd pic is before and after a sand bag test. Lyman on the left.

The Lyman will dent a 1/4" steel plate and splater, The Lee just splater, slug on the right is a Lee.

 

The reading I did a while back indicated that with rifling, the lyman shuttlecock (lyman calls it Sabot) slug gave better groups with rifling. IIRC you were running a browning paradox choke... How do you think these compare for accuracy smooth vs. rifled? also how do they compare to the Lee slugs?

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I must admit I registered on this site for this thread only. Don't own a Saiga, and chances are they will never be legal were I live. I do however own a 870, and this thread gave me a load of info. It's the 1st time I've read about the whole process of swapping shot for slugs. Everybody else just warns against it. I'm eager to try this myself, got both a LEE 1oz and a Lyman 525grains Foster type mold (Whish now I'd bought the sabotversion, but I doubt I'll see any big diff as I shoot a smoothbore with a fixed cylinder choke.

 

Cudos to Squishy for taking the time to record his actions. Not only was the information valuable, it was also enjoyable reading.

 

As for roll crimping, I bough one of these:

http://slugsrus.com/.../product65.html

 

Looks like something you could make with simple means. The benefit is uniform length. Roll crimping freehand with a battery drill isn't easy. I've made some rather short shells I never dared to fire before I got this contraption in the mail. Roll crimps on slugs look rather good though, and it's very easy to separate them from regular shot shells.

 

Also got a rustbucket MEC600jr that I hope to restore to a usable state. Smelt like a farm tool when I got it (hay mixed with heavy duty grease), rather reminded me of my grandad and thus wasn't all bad, bud had to get the rather thick layer of grease and debree off.

 

Didn't mean to pollute this thread, but it's got my vote for a stickie.

 

Øivind, Norway

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I've been following this thread for a while and have got everything and have been replacing the shot with my Lee slugs. The one thing that's a pain in the butt is opening the crimp and getting the shot out. I got to thinking and a solution came to mind. I use to have a kinetic bullet puller that I used to pull bullets from bad reloads and the like. That made me think "why would'nt it work with a shot gun shell?" So while at the station I found an old piece of 3/4" galv water pipe with the ends sawn off. Well lets see if a shell fits in it, it does. Now lets plug the end with something and I did. Now lets hold a shell in the tube with some tape and give the pluged end a nice solid rap on a soild surface (the plugged end,not the shell end) I did and the shot came out. The straight piece of pipe works just fine but I was thinking when I get time I'll make one that more resembles a hammer made with a tee section with a handle and two pieces of pipe that holds the shell and shot. After the crimp is open it's a lot easier to expand it for the slug with what ever means you want to use.

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oih,

 

Thanks for the kind words. It's a shame you aren't able to enjoy the Saiga 12 as most of the members of this board can. At least you can shoot the 12 gauge round on another platform.

 

My interest in roll crimping is based on the idea of being able to quickly remove the uncrimp/recrimp step from the equation as it appears to be the biggest bottle neck in this whole process. But two factors make cutting the center/crimp out or removing the top all together. One is the reduced length of the shell, the other the fact that in every shell I've looked at the shot cup extends all the way to the top of the shell. This means that when you try to roll the top of the hull you're also rolling the top of the cup.

 

And as the cup is slit into 4 segments it doesn't roll, it folds over the top of the slug.

 

If the top of the hull could be cut evenly 1/4" or so to allow for a roll crimp that would end up at the "normal" length it might work in this shot/slug substitution thing but I don't know how this could be done.

 

I've reached the conclusion that roll crimping won't end up being a viable part of this particular process. But, for shells collected after firing to be reloaded, it might have a place.

 

Ricky,

 

I'm not familiar with kinetic bullet pullers or how they work but after reading and rereading your post, I have to ask if I have this straight. When you bang the pipe downward on a solid object that force alone causes the crimp to open and the shot to exit the shell? If this is how it works it's a very interesting concept. It seems a simple way to hold the shell in the pipe would be to obtain a length of pipe that would fit over the end of the main pipe, weld a blank over one open end and slide this over the main pipe after the shell is inserted. Then you could grip it and the main pipe when you get ready to benefit from the kinetic force.

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Yes the kinetic energy from swiftly moving the shell forward then abruptly stopping it is released through the shot exiting the front of the shell. An object in motion tends to stay in motion, Newton. Here's what an acual bullet puller would look like http://www.cabelas.com/tools-accessories-cabelas-bullet-puller-3.shtml

 

There are improvements I will make eventually but this was a free piece of pipe laying around so I used it in this rudimentary form.

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I understand the concept but I am surprised that the force/movement of the payload would overcome the resistance of the crimp. I should say overcome the resistance of the crimp with the amount of force the shell's own weight would generate.

 

Great idea.

Edited by Squishy
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I've been following this thread for a while and have got everything and have been replacing the shot with my Lee slugs. The one thing that's a pain in the butt is opening the crimp and getting the shot out. I got to thinking and a solution came to mind. I use to have a kinetic bullet puller that I used to pull bullets from bad reloads and the like. That made me think "why would'nt it work with a shot gun shell?" So while at the station I found an old piece of 3/4" galv water pipe with the ends sawn off. Well lets see if a shell fits in it, it does. Now lets plug the end with something and I did. Now lets hold a shell in the tube with some tape and give the pluged end a nice solid rap on a soild surface (the plugged end,not the shell end) I did and the shot came out. The straight piece of pipe works just fine but I was thinking when I get time I'll make one that more resembles a hammer made with a tee section with a handle and two pieces of pipe that holds the shell and shot. After the crimp is open it's a lot easier to expand it for the slug with what ever means you want to use.

 

That's a great, and marketable idea!

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