Jump to content

Margin of error for slugs weight?


Recommended Posts

I just cast about 100 lee 1 oz (437.5 grain) slugs. Most are coming out at around 418 grains. (My scale is accurate). Where do you draw the line to recast or use it? I would assume its not nearly as critical as a rifle bullet is, but I'm new to shotshell reloading.

Link to post
Share on other sites

They are cast from lead ingots I got on ebay advertised as pure lead. Whether they are 100% pure, I suppose I can't know for sure.

 

I started loading some hulls and encountered another question;

After pushing in the wad and slug, I will only get a good crimp when I finish if I have pushed the wad/slug down far enough that the ribs on the wad begin to buckle. Is this okay, or should they be perfectly straight?

Here's a pic of one I cut open after I finished it.

post-38686-0-92183800-1364269977_thumb.jpg

Edited by Turbo.M777
Link to post
Share on other sites

Those wads will work a little better for crimping if you trim the petals to about the level of the end of the slug's ogive. In theory this is supposed to be more accurate too, since the fold is pushed open by the slug, rather than the petals.

 

The Winchester silver wads are a very nice fit, and I have settled on using Federal 12S0 wads for all my lee slug loads. I end up compressing them about 1/8" to crimp with some of the loads I do. I made marks on my cheapo press to keep the compression easy consistent and repeatable.

 

Here is a pic of the various fit

 

http://forum.saiga-12.com/index.php?/gallery/image/7866-lee-hi-shotcup-fit/

 

Thanks to MSRDiver for the help and some of the supplies shown.

 

There are lots of good book loads to start with.

 

As a general rule, you can put a lee 1 oz slug safely in commercial bird shot data for loads that are 1 oz or 1 1/8 oz, as long as you keep the other components and powder exactly as the books say.

 

For hotter loads, the simplest choice is

Link to post
Share on other sites

Son of a fuck. I have the claybuster waa12 wads. Wish I would of seen this before I bought em online. Its good to have this info now though! Thanks for sharing that. I'll have to find some more fitting wads in the future. But as far as what I have, Are these shells with that buckling still okay to shoot?

 

From your picture, are you saying to put the nitro card in the shot cup, under the slug?

 

(I am also still wondering if 1 oz slugs not being 1 oz are okay)

Edited by Turbo.M777
Link to post
Share on other sites

If you are using 1 1/8 oz load data they will be on the light side anyway. Do the math and just be careful not to exceed the weight of book data for your recipe.

 

People who are picky about accuracy sort theirs by weight and load in batches.

 

Also, casting from a bigger pot of lead will average out more variations in alloy from smaller batches if your source of lead is changing.

 

Check your local scrap yards. I was able to pick up a couple hundred ish pounds of lead at $0.60 lb. about half was dental foils which are very pure and melt fast. The other half was Linotype, a much harder and more valuable alloy useful for high speed pistol bullets and rifle rounds. Ebay has been a lot more expensive any time I have looked. Your dentist might even give you a few buckets of dental foils. They look at them as a nuisance, an you are saving them a trip to the recycling center.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I bet the seller didn't cull out the zinc from the wheel weights..

 

OP if you are using an aluminum mold I would be mindful that molten zinc, even mized in with aluminum, can ruin the mold. Zinc disolves aluminum like hot water disolves salt.

 

I use the same Lee mold and mine come out heavier than 418 using wheel weights.

 

I use cheap Federal bulk ammo for my slug loads. I remove the shot and drop the slugs right back in. The cups do not have internal ribs so it works great. Winchester bulk and I belive Remington both have ribs that require replacing the wads.

 

I have melted down the dental lead. I was given what I thought was a large bag but when melted it gave me less than I would have expected. But they are free so I don't mind.

Link to post
Share on other sites

To be THAT light... theres gotta be some tin or another metal mixed in... the only way to really tell for certain what, or how much, would be to do a brinell hardness test on them to see what they spec out at...

 

If you are getting 418 grains.... thats .955 ounces... thats a difference between your 1oz load data and the actual slug weight by about TEN #6 sized shot pellets, or FIFTEEN #8 sized shot pellets worth! As long as you are using 1 oz load data... I cant imagine its going to make ANY difference except MAYBE a slight increase in velocity... and I DO MEAN SLIGHT... LOW double digit increase in MV... there are formulae out there you could do the calculations as to what to EXPECT in MV... and you could adjust load mass accordingly... but for what you are doing, and how its going to pan out in the end... LOAD em, SHOOT em, ENJOY! 032.giflaugh.png

 

Next time you buy lead... try to get it from a known source or one that will certify its 100% pure lead.

 

As above for the wads. trim as needed... try not to have the press wad crimp pressure set as high... see if that helps. 032.gif

 

 

000.gif

Link to post
Share on other sites
Son of a fuck. I have the claybuster waa12 wads. Wish I would of seen this before I bought em online. Its good to have this info now though! Thanks for sharing that. I'll have to find some more fitting wads in the future. But as far as what I have, Are these shells with that buckling still okay to shoot?

 

From your picture, are you saying to put the nitro card in the shot cup, under the slug?

 

(I am also still wondering if 1 oz slugs not being 1 oz are okay)

 

 

Those clay buster wads can still be filled with buckshot just fine. Or even birdshot, I've been told. Finding birdshot for less than you can buy completed rounds is another matter though. PM me if you do find bulk shot for cheap.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I've used wheel weight lead for my slugs, and it seems to work fine. I read someplace that the reason they recommend pure lead, is because it releases from the mold easier, particularly the portion that forms the hollow base. You have to get the mold pretty hot before casting or the slugs will hang up on that.

 

I used the data for Lee slugs straight off Hodgdon's site, with no issues. I found that you want to use the genuine Winchester wads; the Claybuster copies are a little tight and don't fit the slugs right.

 

Black powder shooters also need pure lead, and a quick rule of thumb test for pure enough is whether you can easily scratch it with your fingernail.

Edited by Netpackrat
Link to post
Share on other sites

Its more a matter of not wasting the good wheel weight alloy which is becoming hard to get. It is useful for pistol and rifle bullets which need the extra hardness and strength, whereas the slugs are designed to be soft and smoosh to the bore if needed.

Link to post
Share on other sites

That's true, and I'd already decided not to cast any more slugs from my disappearing stash of wheel weight lead. Used to own a tire shop, so pure lead was actually more difficult for me to come by when I needed it for my black powder rifle. We cast a LOT of wheelweight into ingots and I still wish I'd saved more of it since we sold the shop.

 

I found this source of lead pigs but I'm not sure if it is a good deal or not:

 

http://www.rotometals.com/product-p/55_lbs._of_lead.htm

 

They also sell bullet alloys but they seem kind of expensive to somebody who has never actually had to buy lead.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Look in the WTS section of castboolits. Local craigslist too. Mainjunker on youtube has a couple good videos on sources of lead. Since you are in Alaska, I expect you must be near at least one commercial fisherman. Ask to strip out the dead leadlines. A gillnet typically has about 300-400 lbs of leadline per shackle. I know of places where they used the old nets as a berm to make a retaining wall against sand drifts. I sure wish I could mine those.

 

Roto metals is supposed to be very high quality but expensive. The product they are known for is "super hard" or something like that. It's an alloy designed to be added to pure or range lead by weight to get the tin and antimony up. Since the goal is to get around 14 BHN for most pistol ammo, that is pretty easy to do using aprox 50/50 WW/ "pure" and water dropping. Air cooling WW gets the same hardness. I am not sure why so many people are averse to water dropping, it works fine for me.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Since you are in Alaska, I expect you must be near at least one commercial fisherman. Ask to strip out the dead leadlines. A gillnet typically has about 300-400 lbs of leadline per shackle. I know of places where they used the old nets as a berm to make a retaining wall against sand drifts. I sure wish I could mine those.

 

Been there, done that, eff that. That's a hell of a lot of work for what little you get. The only real time efficient way of getting it out is burning. Besides, if you've ever been around commercial fishermen, you would know that they tend to have an inflated idea of what their used up old crap is worth, as soon as a little interest is shown in it. They may have been planning to throw it out, but as soon as you ask about hauling it off, it becomes gold. Besides, anything that requires associating with commercial fishermen is going to be an exercise in frustration.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I just sent an excerpt of your last post to some of my family.

 

Me:

 

post-17871-0-85279900-1364717824_thumb.jpg

 

post-17871-0-58488900-1364717856_thumb.jpg

 

post-17871-0-01307500-1364717864_thumb.jpg

 

 

post-17871-0-73639600-1364717965_thumb.jpg

 

Dad:

 

post-17871-0-08156600-1364717949_thumb.jpg

 

One of my cousins in the industry:

 

post-17871-0-57011200-1364718175_thumb.jpg

 

My uncle a while back with a passable load:

 

post-17871-0-97423600-1364718233_thumb.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

"Some of my best friends are commercial fishermen..." yadda, yadda, yadda. Lots of decent people in that industry; I grew up in a town that revolved around it. But on the whole, you'll rarely find a bigger bunch of assholes than commercial fishermen in general.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Did you know that the cheapest Most Expensive part on a fishing vessel is a nut in the wheelhouse? 021.gif

 

 

IMO, you aren't far off about fisherman, it's just half the story. Fishing attracts the extremes of the personality bell curve. People who don't fit into normal life and normal job styles who strive for a risk and a gamble and stress and an annualiy scheduled panic catastrophe. They live on adrenaline (and other chemicals) without sleep and gamble many thousands of dollars of overhead and months of work against being in the right place for 2 weeks. Basically the same sorts who would have shown up the the 49 SF gold rush, the nevada silver rush, and the Yukon rush.

 

There are some amazingly generous and talented people. The common trait though is a restlessness and competitive drive, and unwillingness to sit around and do as someone else tells them. Naturally these non-conformists also include a lot of aggressive jerks, addicts, thieves, a small but highly visible bunch of illegal fishers who screw the rest of us, whiners and people who become bullies when they don't get their way. The worst though are the jackasses who make us all look bad on TV.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Gunfun; my mother's oldest brother is an extremely talented seine captain... He has a natural gift for always being able to find the fish, no matter how everybody else is doing. Fishing is literally what he was born to do. It's also something he is not allowed to do, because he got greedy, and got caught fishing during a closure, and selling to the Canadians. To the best of my knowledge, he got a felony conviction out of it, and a permanent bar on commercial fishing in the state of Alaska (he's a piece of crap in other ways, too). So yeah, I know all about the bad side of it. On the other hand, just because a lot of the apples are bad, doesn't mean they all are. As I said, some of my very best friends fish for a living. I don't get to see them all that often, because it seems like whenever I get back to Cordova they are out on the water, scrambling to fix the boat, etc.

 

One of the other things that always struck me as odd, is that at least in my hometown, these non-conformist, rugged individualist, small businessmen... ...have a union. It's not a "real" union in the labor relations act sense, but they go full commie when it comes time to stick it to the processors. Aforementioned uncle had a warehouse torched for fishing during a "strike" because he thought the price was okay. I'd love to see the reaction of some of these same guys if their crews decided to go on strike in the middle of an opener for a bigger share. 021.gif

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Chatbox

    Load More
    You don't have permission to chat.
×
×
  • Create New...