Bullet Casting & Coating MegaThread

Jay77 said:
I found some time to load and test these yesterday. My first shotgun reloads and down the rabbit hole I go. I have a few months before deer season to work up a potential load.
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I found it cheaper to buy anything other than trap loads, lol
I do load lee slugs but they are tame vs say a Rem Slugster Loading sabot is a waste with out a rifled barrel
 
Some test rounds shot from the 50 yard line. Top group was the kid and the lower group was mine. My scope is a 3x9 crossfire on a rifled mossberg 500. The Hornady SSTs are 3-4 bucks a pop so I don’t shoot slugs too often, only during deer season if I see a deer. So last year I shot 2-3 rounds of that. Even if these are never used during hunting season the extra trigger time is huge benefit to me.
 

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I do miss buying clearance slugs… The Hornady SSTs have been hit or miss for the last few years. 20 gauge are slowly coming back in steady supply. There was a couple of years the kid hunted with the same box of ammo due to shortages.
 
mac1911 said:
Projectile
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This was the Lyman 525 slug. My buddy included this mold with the press and a bunch of them already poured. He literally hooked me up with everything I needed. I just threw in some Unique. I’m going to grab the two MP versions of the 12 gauge sabots when they are both in stock. I love the MP molds.
 
Jay77 said:
I’ll definitely will give them a try in a smooth bore barrel to see if they are more accurate.
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I was looking into loading sabot with 300 gn 50 cal bullets. The wads where close to $1 each and the bullets where expensive. This was pre covid.
The lyman shuttle cock slugs ate not going to spin much with the wads used for those. Very little benefit even if they do spin.

My friends son had a 20g bolt action full rifled barrel. I have watched him plant 3” groups at 200 yards with those federal 20g copper sabot.

All we really need is Minute of Vital Zone .
When I did hunt here in SE MA where the deer where to be found your lucky to see 50 yards
 
mac1911 said:
Keep them 1100-1300 fps and they generally group well.

Lee slug and clays @1150 fps are my most consistent target loads. No idea how well they would be for hunting
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A slug at 1000 would drill through an animal. They’re not armor plated. I think a lot of people underestimate a lead slug. 45 cal jacketed hollow points and ballistic tips in a shotgun sabot load at stupid fast speeds might explode when they hit a rib. Not a Lee key drive slug.
 
38ExtraSpecial said:
A slug at 1000 would drill through an animal. They’re not armor plated. I think a lot of people underestimate a lead slug. 45 cal jacketed hollow points and ballistic tips in a shotgun sabot load at stupid fast speeds might explode when they hit a rib. Not a Lee key drive slug.
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The old rem 1oz sluggers are 1750 ish fps. Retaining a good amount more energy down range.
 
mac1911 said:
The old rem 1oz sluggers are 1750 ish fps. Retaining a good amount more energy down range.
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Too much. Yeah maybe the shoot flatter but at the 50 yard new England range we shoot deer at anything over 1000 fps is probably overkill.
1750 won’t make it deader. Just make you less likely to practice with your hunting ammo. More likely to flinch.
I’m of the belief that most of the bad shotgun groups I see are due to 3” mags making people flinch than bad accuracy.
 
Got the Lee Hardness tester today since I wanted to know more about the lead that I had been using. It's fairly simply to use and I found my non water dropped WW bullets are 10.4 BHN. It's less than I thought but perfectly fine for 38 SP and 45 ACP bullets. The pressure appropriate for that hardness is only 13,300 PSI and my 9mm is now at 25,000 (based off the load).

ETA: I just tested the 9mm Hi-Tek coated bullets and those are 13.4 from the same lead source. I assume the heating in the oven made the difference.

I'm going to make some more and then water drop them after coating and see what I get.
 
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ddeck said:
Got the Lee Hardness tester today since I wanted to know more about the lead that I had been using. It's fairly simply to use and I found my non water dropped WW bullets are 10.4 BHN. It's less than I thought but perfectly fine for 38 SP and 45 ACP bullets. The pressure appropriate for that hardness is only 13,300 PSI and my 9mm is now at 25,000 (based off the load).

ETA: I just tested the 9mm Hi-Tek coated bullets and those are 13.4 from the same lead source. I assume the heating in the oven made the difference.

I'm going to make some more and then water drop them after coating and see what I get.
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Nice. Keep us informed.
 
ddeck said:
Got the Lee Hardness tester today since I wanted to know more about the lead that I had been using. It's fairly simply to use and I found my non water dropped WW bullets are 10.4 BHN. It's less than I thought but perfectly fine for 38 SP and 45 ACP bullets. The pressure appropriate for that hardness is only 13,300 PSI and my 9mm is now at 25,000 (based off the load).

ETA: I just tested the 9mm Hi-Tek coated bullets and those are 13.4 from the same lead source. I assume the heating in the oven made the difference.

I'm going to make some more and then water drop them after coating and see what I get.
Click to expand...
Eh , your coating bullets get the size right and you wont really need the harder alloy.
Or grab some linotype, sterotype or monotype.
 
mac1911 said:
Eh , your coating bullets get the size right and you wont really need the harder alloy.
Or grab some linotype, sterotype or monotype.
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I'm going to try a few things for the 9mm. Another coat of HI-Tek and a harder alloy to start off will be the first few tests.

Those other things cost money and if I can bump up the hardness by just water dropping or baking, then that's going to be it.
 
ddeck said:
I'm going to try a few things for the 9mm. Another coat of HI-Tek and a harder alloy to start off will be the first few tests.

Those other things cost money and if I can bump up the hardness by just water dropping or baking, then that's going to be it.
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water drop from the mold coat and shoot.
I would be curious to see what the commercial guys are running.
 
Loaded up my remaining 230 gn RN from an RCBS mold. These are all SPP since those primers are cheaper now

With 4.5 gn of Titegroup and lube, these are like black powder at the range. No one comes near me 🤣

IMG_2398.jpeg
 
ddeck said:
I'm going to try a few things for the 9mm. Another coat of HI-Tek and a harder alloy to start off will be the first few tests.

Those other things cost money and if I can bump up the hardness by just water dropping or baking, then that's going to be it.
Click to expand...
Heat in the oven like you are curing the coating and water drop - you should see an increase
 

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