Thread: Lead Cast sabots / solids

does anyone cast there own and what are the better recipes, any tricks with reloading solids???

Im considering getting a rifled steel barrel, can i still utilise this barrel with say a 00 buckshot load?

Hey mate, cant help with reloading solids, but fired a few hundred factory solids and I liked the federal the most.
Used to reload 00 by pouring out the shot from geese load and refill with close to original weight of home made 00. Probably not the best way to do it.

Not sure if you suppose to shoot 00 from rifled barrel, but I did and in my gun the pattern opened up quite a bit compared to normal cyl.

Page 3 here:
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Ha reminds me of the early years of experimentation with a barely legal sawn off single shot I had.
I've still got a very rough home made solid mold as a momento.
15mm socket with a nut welded on the back
Used to cut the crimp on the cheapest duck rounds I could buy, melt it all down, spray some crc as a release agent, pour the lead and wind the bolt into the nut push the newly made solid out of the mold, then just hand pushed it back into the cartridge.
Brutal, and tumbled over long distances, but pretty devastating short range - good bail type gun.
Then came the wax/lead solids, and the hot melt glue rubber rounds.... had a lot of fun.

Ahhh the silly things we do when younger!

[QUOTE=Boar Freak;544011]Hey mate, cant help with reloading solids, but fired a few hundred factory solids and I liked the federal the most.
Used to reload 00 by pouring out the shot from geese load and refill with close to original weight of home made 00. Probably not the best way to do it.

Not sure if you suppose to shoot 00 from rifled barrel, but I did and in my gun the pattern opened up quite a bit compared to normal

Paradox guns were made for the cape and india, a smooth bore with light rifling just at the muzzle. Gave enough spin to stableise a solid but not enough to interfere with good shotgun patterns. Typical twists were 1: 70 or 80 similar to the snider. Faster twists open the pattern too quickly.

im guessing that the spin that the rifling would impart on the wad would cause the shot to open up even quicker than normal, I've seen chokes that have rifling, but i would have thought it would have been too short a length to really work, but could be very wrong?

I will go look online re some molds and see whats available

I have done some casting with the Lyman Sabot mould casts a mean slug around 535 grains, have not fired any so can't help with reloading info,

If you wnat to shoot slugs , there are 2 options that I know of , one a fully rifled barrel , or a smooth bore with a rifled choke , I think rem make one .

Both of these I would not run shot thru .

A friend had a Beneli M2 that he had threaded for Rem chokes , and used a rifled rem choke ? , and hand loaded slugs for it , it was quite accurate at 50-100 yds .

If I recall correctly , the rifled rem choke was quite long , Im thinking around 4 inches ? , what ever the lenght was , I can say it worked well , I shot a 3 shot group that was a cloverleaf at 50m , standing using a red dot sight .

I have a 12 gauge cape gun, normal rifling RH barrel for .577 cartridge and straight rifling LH for shot cartridge, straight rifling holds the package together? 2-1/2" shell RH 3" shell LH, brass cartridges
Saw a short sxs 12gauge the other day very light twist rifling firing solids, for shooting tigers from the back of elephants, lovely gun all over built! 3-1/4" shells from memory, not a paradox gun, but similar. It's for sale if your keen with deep pockets, one of 4 made!

There are a few tricks to loading shotgun slugs but the main one is to use the right wads that suit the slug. I nearly blew a barrel and maybe myself one day testing a mates loads for him, after two shots i could taste blood in my mouth and declined to shoot the third.
There are many different mold types, some for use with cardboard wads, some with plastic and some use shotcup wads that the slug sits in.
I have shot truckloads of pigs and a more than a few deer with shotgun slugs, they kill like a son of a gun but accuracy is the biggest hold back. A duckgun with a bead sight should be saved for may. An open choked smoothbore with opensights is the min and if you are really keen to play with slugs a fully rifled scoped set up would be key.
Every shotgun is a law unto itself so try different loads until you get the accuracy you want and stick with that. In my smoothbores the Brenneke has been the best and in my fully rifled setup both the winchester and federal sabot loads shoot good. Lead slugs shot better out of the smoothbore than the rifled.
Once you get set up you wont need to shoot 00 buckshot, at buckshot ranges you can head/neck shoot with slugs.
Factory sabots through my rifled barrel shoot 3" groups @ 100 and Brennekes in the smoothbore shoot 1 1/2 " @ 50.
Now that ive finished rambling.
I cast 485gr slugs from a lyman mold. They are a plain roundnose, hollow base slug. I full the base with wax to stop the wad from pushing in. I use shotcup wads with the petals cut off and this works very well.
Normal cation applies. My load is 20grs of 700X for 1318 fps. These will touch shots forming big clover leaf groups @ 50

Left-right Winchester sabot and recovered slug from a sambar, Brenneke from a big boar, recovered homemade, cast homemade

Have any of u played around with cut shells

Originally Posted by FatLabrador

Have any of u played around with cut shells

Yep but had bigger balls in those days, love the whistle!

Hahahaha, the old ringer. they were a great party trick but not that osh approved and no good for shooting at critters.
For a laugh i shot a goat at 35yds with one and it dropped on the spot, so thinking i was the man i walked up to it for a selfie but the thing jumped up and pissed off. I should of given myself an uppercut for being a dickhead

Good for firing at geese and swan when they're out of range and your needing to get them in the air!