I’ve been casting and loading slugs for a while now, mostly just for plinking with. I now have 3 different moulds a .69 round ball, a lee 7/8ths keydrive and a Russian copy of the Lyman air rifle pellet.
I have been loading all three in Winchester AA hulls and wads with AP70N.
Mostly using a Plastic Fantastic Lee Load-All press, but I do have a hand made loading kit that I’ve cobbled together out of bits n pieces, either home made or addapted.
these Lyman knock offs are my favourite load, but I do have a double round ball load on a modified wad thats a hoot to shoot at roughly 900gn’s.
for casting I use a Lee bottom pour pot, that I’ve been pretty happy with.
I’ve also found the Lyman style slugs perform better if the base is filled with hot glue gun glue, far from my idea,but it is meant to stop the wad getting forced up into the slugs bum hole and allowing them to separate neatly
I will be shooting it from 18" and 20" barrel, so I don’t think I will get to the same velocity and I don’t think I need that much powder (barrel length vs burn rate? Help?)
Questions:
What’s a good starting load for this, shot out of 18" barrel (SxS coach). I have a feeling that 30’ish grains is too much for this?
Wads - I think the wads will do, but suggestions are welcome. I may or may not need to pop a card in there to raise the slug, but the question is more about the wad suitability, rather than tweaking assembly.
Yeah, any suggestions to get me started here would be good.
Also had a look at ADI bushing charts and it seems that Lee bushings don’t go up to even 30gr of AP70N, which is weird or the 30gr charge is way too much or I am missing something, also, please help
secondly you are not supposed to mess around shotgun loads, your manual will have warnings about it, Lee put warnings in the instructions of the load-all.
but don’t tell these guys that!
Thirdly, a 3/4 oz slug generates less pressure than a 3/4 oz load of shot, so scrap “secondly” and you can load that slug using any 3/4 oz load data you want.
I load them with the closest Lee bushing, 29gn if I remember correctly and the shoot pretty good.
Yes you will most likely need to build up your wad column with some cards.
probably the best postage would be the 3kg, 5kg fixed price Aus post satchels. put a box inside to stop breakage. Once fired sends his brass this way. Not that I would do that again, just not worth it. Brass fired in AR’s streched to the max dints everywhere. Must have small base die.
I bought a bunch of 30-06 from him and apart from there being a milsurp berdan primed case (which cost me a decapping pin) it was all good.
I’d buy brass from him again, maybe just avoid 223.
i know i need a .50 mould but have no idea about weights when i looked at it
