12GA Will never be the same again!

[sargenv]

I'll be trying these loads out in my Smoothbore Browning Gold. I know they were meant for rifled barrels, but if I can make slug loads on the cheap, it maymean that I will start shooting 3-gun again and all we do with the rounds is put them on paper. So while high velocity is nice for flatness, I'm just hopeful I can sling them downrange about 50 yards to print on paper. I've been reloading shotshells since I was 20 (I'm 41 now). I load for metallic and shotshell.. It's nie to see they made a better mouse trap

I think I have those clear overshot cards.. if not I'm sure I can use the paper overshot cards without too many issue. I don't roll crimp anything but slugs and only I shoot these things so we'll see.

Since all I need do is put holes in paper, I'm going to use locally aquired Lead Moly coated bullets made by Bear creek in weights of 325 and 440 gr. I'll post my results when I get the components and load some up. I did the calculations in my head and came up with a cost of $.55 per round not including the hulls. Should be interesting.

 

[JImbothefiveth]

Maybe it would be cheaper just to reload rifled slugs. Also, the pressure-reducing design might not work in a smoothbore, causing a kaboom.

 

[sargenv]

Um, I don't think I'll have an issue with the wads.. I will check everything before loading anything to max pressure.

AFAIK You can shoot any slug through any barrel. If I want I can go out and buy any of the Sabot slugs and run them through my smoothbore. They may not fly as well as a rifled barrel, but it can be done.

I've tried reloading regular slugs and there really is no difference. I may as well buy rifled slugs if I want to shoot them since there is NO price difference. I always run the desired "package" through my barrel before subjecting it to the pressure of having powder behind it (ie, a dry run with wad and saboted slug run down the barrel and "feeling" what kind of effort it takes to push said "package" through the barrel). If it's too tight, I won't do it, if it feels like a rifled slug with basewad however.. well, Lemme at em!

In all my years loading for shotshell and metallic, I've never once had a KB and I do not intend to start now

 

[Matt304]

Also, the pressure-reducing design might not work in a smoothbore, causing a kaboom.

Since a smoothbore doesn't have to cut rifling into the sabot, theoretically pressures should be lower. The design makes it so that when pressures increase, the sabot crushes more. So you either don't meet the needed pressures ever and it won't crush, or you meet the needed pressures and it will.

 

[snuffy]

Sarge, I doubt these sabots would work at all in a smooth bore. The spin imparted is one thing that helps release the bullet. The other factor is the air peeling back the petals. I think the bullet AND sabot will hit the the target, with horrible accuracy. I'd bet that sometimes there would be a perfect keyhole in the target.

I just did a cost work-up, it looks like these will cost me about $1.05 apiece! I just looked at the midway site for sabots that might compare with these. They're mostly over $3.00 apiece!

I also just discovered that I ordered the wrong primed empties!:banghead: Then I see that the ONLY difference between the FIOCCHI F10 that I should have ordered and the#064121600 is that 064121600 is skived, the F10 is not. Same basewad and brass height. So I'm good to go on that account.

 

[sargenv]

Eh, it doesn't cost much to see if this is true or not. Besides I can always give these items to a friend of mine who has a rifled barrel and likes to experiment as a good will gesture. It might work, it might not. Extreme accuracy is not what I need. I just need be able to put a slug on a IPSC turtle target at distance to 50 yards. That is a mighty big target. Let's call it about 15 MOA accuracy

When we shoot regular slugs, sometimes the wad from the slugs impact the target too. We can tell which is which by the tear that it makes on target. A slug leaves a grease ring, a wad does not.

I'm not trying to kill a deer with it just those mean nasty cardboard monsters.. lol

Besides... I already ordered the wads and bullets.. time will tell.

 

[Matt304]

It will not stabilize. You might be able to hit a target at 50 yards that size, but they will not be spinning and probably will be tumbling.

Lightfields will stabilize from a smoothbore because they have a tail of them which puts the center of pressure behind the center of gravity. Still won't be accurate though.

 

[sargenv]

That's ok.. Let me play!!!

I'll still report my results.. you may be correct I won't know for sure till I try.. Tumble or not.. a hole is a hole and if it's on target, then I get the points.. regardless

50 yards is arbitrary, most of the time they are closer (15-50 yards). I just have an issue firing factory slugs costing more than a buck each. If I can halve my cost and not give up much, well, you can understand that right?

10/18 - I received them today. Neat looking wads.. I'm also going to do some research into getting a Briley rifled choke to see if they will stabilize the wad/bullet. I just tried pushing one of these past the improved cylinder choke and it appears to be a few thousanths undersize. Not quite snug, so likely there will be some blow by. Time will tell. I do see the warning on the data though about using only in a rifled bore. Ok, I've been warned.

 

[snuffy]

results

Well which do you want first, the good news or the bad?

Okay, here's the good news, what there is of it!

I took along a few test loads, that were actually work ups for the 440 50 cal lead boolits,(lee mold C501-44-RF). I decided to try the longshot recipe for the 500 Hornady SP, BUT substitute the lee lead boolit. I reduced the longshot load from 35.0 to 30.0. Then since I had just mounted the scope, boresited it, but didn't know where it would hit at 50 yds. So I loaded 3 shells, 2 at 28.0 and 1 at 29.0 for sighters/scope adjusters. Here's where they hit a target that someone had been using for some 30 cal.

The lower two boolits were the 2 at 28.0, upper left is the 29.0.

I adjusted down about 4" and began firing the 350 XTP-HP'S I had trouble with the chrono NOT wanting to record/see the bullet/sabots. Here's the results;

Only one bullet hit either point or base forward, IE made a round hole! The rest hit completely SIDEWAYS! Big fireball, low or no recoil, and destroyed sabots/overpowder wads. I lowered the chrono so the bullet would pass higher over the screens, got it to read 4 of the 350 HP's.
1707, 1742, 1179, 1771.

Holes through both overpowder wads and the sabots. A guy over at shotgun world (slug shooters forum), got similar results with the clays load with 300 HP's.

Then, I put up a clean target, shot the 5 loads I had for the 30.0 gr. longshot, with the lee 440 lead.

Now that's what I'm talkin about! BUT, there's always the but, velocity was no where near what it was supposed to be.

Av. 1336
Hi. 1385
Lo. 1311
ES. 73.3
SD. 28.3

Recoil was sharp, but manageable. The recovered sabots were real nice looking, just like they should look.

I only found one X12X overpowder wad, from the good looking sabots. It's lower left in the pic, looks fired, but undamaged.

So what's my take on all this? If I had to go hunting real soon, I'd increase the longshot load to 35.0, shoot another group then sight in with the 440 lead boolits.

James, at Dixie Slugs thinks a card wad between the sabot and the X12X wad would prevent the pressure from blowing a hole in both the wad and sabot. I don't know if there's room to do that, but I do have some of them, unlubricated, but a soak in some lee liquid alox would solve that problem. He also thinks that the shorter XTP bullets need a .410 wad under them so they can't move forward during firing. I have some of them too, I may try that.

 

[snuffy]

No cvomments?

After I take time to put my test results on here, no questions or observations from anyone? If I had said, "damn that thing kicked so hard it nearly separated my shoulder," I bet some would have said I TOLD YOU SO! In fact the lead boolit loads kicked like a heavy field load, not even as hard as a rifled slug load!

 

[berettashotgun]

I'm in for the recoil question, I wasn't expecting that much (90+ lbs someone wrote) but it appears that pushing a 4-500 grain hunk of lead is going to get a little brisk.
Been shooting a 10ga with my own loads for some time now, recoil is never realized until my cheek and eye are bruised.
My main question about the load is the powder selection - STEEL would seem the logical choice for this, as it has been responsible for buckets of dove and ducks from my shotguns. same load - different pellet
Can I ask what shotgun? A Beretta Pintail/Vitoria/ES100 has been the most noticeably lacking in recoil of any "slug" shotgun I have ever fired. That includes the extrema ( pretty light) and gold shotguns (they kick the most).
I noticed with Longshot and 1 7/8oz lead was a little rougher than a similar loading using STEEL.
NEVER will use the Blue Dot again after a bitterly cold day in a blind. Stuff isn't for freezing temps it seems.
Skiving the hulls is easy with a 1" rotary file in a drill - I bought 2k of the fiocchi unskived hulls and couldn't get a CSD wad inserted by hand, let alone with the APEX 3.1 I use.

 

[snuffy]

Berretshotgun, it's an ancient 870 with a brand new cantilever fully rifled remington 20" barrel. I have an also ancient Tasco 4x on it right now.



Now think for a minute. Everybody sees "500 grain bullet" and thinks WOW that's heavy! Is it? No! What is one ounce in grains? 437.5 grains! 1- 1/8 ounce is 492.1 grains. Now consider that a 1 1/8 ounce trap load does 1200+ fps, how much does that kick? How about a heavy lead duck load say 1-¼ ounce at 1330 fps? My lead boolit loads were 440 grains that's only a little over a 1 ounce load, and they were only doing 1336 fps. They didn't kick all that hard! I know well how much a 1 ounce foster type slug does at 1500! Nothing even close to that!

You have an apex? Must be one of the few that actually works! I worked at a Hornady factory direct gunshop at the time that was bought out. We spent most of out time fixing broken stuff on that press. Too many plastic parts that got broken by ham handed, clumsy people. If yours works, be careful, I'm not sure if they still offer replacement parts.

 

[berettashotgun]

I'm lucky enough to have the place and equipment to make my own parts, but have never had a lick of troubles with this press.
Last count there were 27 empty shot bags in the drawer. All steel shot.
I think I bought every ACTIV hull in OKC -12 and 20ga - a few years back. Also bought every ACTIV slug , they are excellent on deer and intruders
I really was hoping the wads were going to work as advertised, but they were a little on the fringe of reality for me.
Still think I'm going to order some and do some load development myself,

 

[Mossberg88]

I could imagine that..."Hunnie whys the home security alarm going off... and whys there a 2 ft. hole in the fronnt door?"

 

[Zoogster]

After I take time to put my test results on here, no questions or observations from anyone?

Your tests somewhat completed the thread.

The primary problem appeared to be the sabots could never be used to thier potential with ultra high velocities because the charge blew through the wadding and the sabot. So a lot of the energy went right through the sabot and projectile without being imparted to the projectile.
You had to scale back to levels that did not make the sabot much different than others to avoid that.

A stronger wad might allow the compression the sabot design is supposed to be designed for.
Many wads are not hard and dense enough. That is often a good thing because if they were they would become deadly projectiles with rather erratic flights. In this case though it leaves you with a product that does not operate as intended.

So if you could try safely scaling up to the advertised velocites with better wads it would be interesting.

 

[Matt304]

Your tests somewhat completed the thread.

No, they didn't.

His loads don't even come close to the Longshot loads the data specifies. 35grs behind a 500gr bullet is going to be much higher pressure than only 30grs behind a 440gr! Even if the data suggests a maximum load, at 440 grains you are already 12% under the specified bullet weight. So, you were likely in the lower ranges of powder efficiency at such pressures. I would start at 35gr behind a 440 if you want to start low, and you could possibly work to about 2grs above it or more.

It was stated elsewhere that there has been problems with the Clays loads doing this. That is not something to look forward to for a start, but I would hope that other loads are attempted before passing these off as a failure.

 

[snuffy]

Well, I'm hardly done with testing these sabots/loads. In fact I have only just begun. I was being apprehensive about the loads as listed, I didn't think you should start out at max. I've loaded some of the lead boolits with 33.0 longshot, and some of the 500 Hornady soft points with 35.0. I'm going to cast some of the lead boolits using 20-1 lead-tin for a softer boolit. The pot is warming as I type1 I suspect the sabot will bite into softer boolit better.

As usual, I'll post my results when I get a chance to go test them.

 

[BigBuckMaster]

Kick cant be that bad. i have shot the .416 Rig, .404, .460 Weatherby, .470 NE (my most 3rd most used gun, next to my .300 Win Mag and .22; i love Africa), .500 NE, .577, .585 Nayati, and the mother of them all, the .600 NE (have not been able to shoot the .700 yet ). personally, i would like to use it on ele, but not buff or hippo. maybe rhino. defenitly dangerious game her in the CSA .and the USA.

yeah, i am used to the most punishing blows. this cant be as bad as a .460 weatherby or a .600 NE.

 

[snuffy]

Welllllllll, another range trip is over. Much to report as usual.

First I tried these loads. The X12X wad, 1 .135 federal card wad under the BLS sabot, 20.0 of E-3, 350 XTP. Never hit the 50 yard target. Recovered sabots were in terrible shape, not burned through but it looked like the xtp bullet had punched through the base of the sabot. These were 2-¾ loads.

Next I tried some 3 inch loads, 33.0 longshot, FS12, 500 hornady sp, BLS sabot. Burned distorted sabots, holes in both the O.P. wad and sabot, 3 sideways keyholed bullets. Also a 220 fps extreme spread in velocities. These were all with the COS,(clear overshot ),wad. 3 shots each, trying to conserve sabots,(got some more coming). Huge fireball, minimal recoil.

Next were some 2- ¾ loads with the X12X wad, 33.0 longshot, 500 H, and the BLS sabot. Same story all over again as with the 3 inch load, perforated gas seal, and sabot, keyholed bullets.

Then I tried a 33.0 longshot load behind some soft cast 440 lee lead boolits,(20-1 lead/tin). These were loaded as before, a .135 card wad between the X12X and the sabot but no clear overshot wad. Finally got a somewhat decent group! The velocity was a bit higher, than with the 30.0 load I tried last Sunday. Huge extreme spread on the first 3, average of 1437, hi was 1533, but the low was 1336. Can't explain that. A second group of 3 went into a same sized group as the first, BUT the exception was the velocity averaged 1390 and the ES was only 50 fps! The recovered sabots looked pristine! AND they were opened wider, only went 20 yards, and had the imprint of the lube groves on the inside of the sabot petals!

My take on all this is; the sabots are too soft! They lack the structural integrity to endure the pressures of the powder and the bullet inside the petals. Hence the holes being poked in the base of the sabot. Only when the hard card wads are put between the O.P. wad and sabot do they perform as they should. They HAD to make them that soft to make the cushion section work.

I'm through working with the jacketed bullets. It seems they are too slick for the sabot to get a grip on them to impart spin. I'm going to fire up the lead pot again tonight to make some more of the 440 lee boolits. IF the weather holds, it was cold, grey and windy today but no rain, I may make another trip tomorrow with some new loads, or should I say more powder behind those lead boolits.

 

[sargenv]

I don't have the bullets yet to try the loads but I'm curious. The wads don't seem to be any softer than the steel shot wads I'me currently using and those stay in one piece. I am pushing those to 1500 fps with 1 1/8 ounces of shot and don't get any gas cutting of the wad base. Until i try it though I can't comment since you've seen it and I haven't. I'm still going to go forward with my trial, but likely will switch over to my Mossy with a slug barrel in it to play with. I may be able to get an inexpensive rifled tube for it.

Vince

 

[CBS220]

Didn't read the entire thread, so I apologize if this has already been posted... but if anyone were feeling up to buying them, it looks like you need special sabots to get velocities that high.

Load# 81022-189

HULL: FIOCCHI 12-gauge 2.75” (#06412600)(#0641216US)(#0641208)(#064121103)

PRIMER: FIO616

PROPELLANT: HODGDON, LONGSHOT 36.0 Grains

WAD: FS12(#072FS12 - flex gas seal) ) + BLS (#322BLS - bullet carrier)

BULLET: 500 grain HORNADY JFP MAG (#0850105)

ROLL CRIMP: no overshot card. Press load column down before roll crimping.

RESULT: 9500 PSI 2250 FPS

BLS (bullet) sabot carrier. (Requires rifled shotgun barrel 1:34 or 1:28 twist.)


If that works, then wow. 2250 fps with a 500 gr bullet... in a 2 3/4 hull?

 

[snuffy]

Vince, it's my belief that the sabots should be be tougher, and harder.

One of the things I just tried, a suggestion by another guy that's been trying different loads with the BP sabots. He cut the cushion section off a couple sabots, said they worked better. When cutting them, I found them to be very soft, almost as soft as a standard shotcup for target loads.

Another thing I've tried, as I stated earlier, is to put a hard nitro card wad under the sabot. That prevents the sabot from burning through. Then they shoot acceptable groups with no keyholes. The hard card wad backs up the weak sabot.

The cut off sabot allows a lot of room for filler wads. I put a ¼ inch cork cushion wad between 2 hard card wads, then loaded the shortened sabot with one of my lee 440 soft lead boolits. The bottom card wads sits on top of a X12X BP over powder wad. This is in a 2-¾ shell.

 

[Dixie Slugs]

Well I see that the problems Ole' Dixie told you would happen...did happen indeed!
Now....Forget the BPI loading dats, Forget the Flex Seal, forget the velocity figures...and load the following:
(1) a 12 ga 3" Cheddite, Fiocchi, or Federal Gold Metal hull.
(2) 38 grs (weighed) of Longshot
(3) BPI X12X overpowder wad.
(4) .250" Circle Fly hard niro.
(5) BPI sabot
(6) a .503"/.506" - 450gr/480 gr cast slug that is .930" long with a shank at
.630".
(7) roll crimp doown to the lips of the sabot. You may have to add a 1/8" pure cork wad to get the needed crimp index.
Sight in at about 1"/2" high at 50 yards...go hunting!
No blown sabots!...or keep playing with the hyper-velocity loads, Flex-Seals. etc...and live with no accuracy and blown sabots...simple!
Regards, James

 

[Matt304]

Ed Hubel is getting the BPI sabots out at 2600FPS with a 437gr bullet in there, with no blown sabots. Definitely at higher than BPI data pressures, too. I believe he is using fiber filler wad. I have no idea how these are blowing through at lower pressures. I assume it has to do with the wadding used.

 

[Dixie Slugs]

We posted a solution to the blown wads long before it spread about. The problem is caused by the sabot blowing forward before the bullet can start moving...and the bullet's base is plugging the sabot and Flex-Seal. The faster the burn rate of the powder, the worse the situation is. Yes, I have seen some posts on hyper-velocity indeed and am at a loss as to how they relate to general hunting loads or the general reloader?. If one uses the BPI X12X - a hard nitro about .250" (cut by circle Fly) - and the sabot...this giving a very firm under column...there will be no blown sabots. For bullets that are shorter that the inside of the sabot..... use hard .410 nitro cards to build up the height until the bullet's ogive is just under the tits inside the sabots petals. Roll crimp down to the lips of the sabot. If there is trouble getting up to the proper crimp index (2.71") a thin pure cork wad (1/8" to 1/4") can be put between the X12X and the nitro wad.....not between the nitro card and sabot though.
Regards, James