Thread: Lead Cast sabots / solids

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