Thread: Lee 1oz slug through a full choke.

I've been successfully firing slugs through my cylinder bore 870. I'd like to do the same through a newly acquired, full choke, single 12ga CBC gun. Reckon all will be good? Cheers.

Originally Posted by outlander

I've been successfully firing slugs through my cylinder bore 870. I'd like to do the same through a newly acquired, full choke, single 12ga CBC gun. Reckon all will be good? Cheers.

If it is anything like the old Baikal I used to have, recoil is a begar.. It worked but by hell you knew it wasn't shot going through that hole. But we used a rifled slug (Winchestor I think)

I put Eley rifled slugs through a full choke H and R Topper no problem.1oz from memorey,same shape as Lee.

Slug diameter is small enough to go throuh a full choke ok. The convention is slugs are one gauge smaller than stated ie 12 gauge is actually 13.
Lots of tests over the years have shown that best "accuracy" comes from the cylinder bored gun though.

The slug drops through the bore easily enough. Bore measures 18,21 mm and the slug with the wad measures 18,64 mm. Slug plus wad would need a fair tap to get it through the choke. They are cast with pure lead. Perhaps I'll load one at the start of the recommended ADI charge and go from there...

Slugs are loaded bare over usually a fibre wad NOT in a shot wad. You can cut the petals off a shot wad and use that if you wish. With round ball I used a cut down one with another cut to just the cup upside down that the ball used to sit in.

The lee slugs are made to go into a normal shot cup. I get pretty good accuracy out of my vepr 12 with them by just replacing the shot with a 7/8 oz lee slug into a falcon club 28 shell. They are my new 3 gun slug of choice now.

Dont use a nitro card either, i played around with the cards because my wads were showing signs of the slug embedding itself into it, i found it took 2 cards punched out of some cardboard box to stop the slug imprinting into it but because im lazy and have better things to do than punch circles out of card i stopped using them. Havnt had any flyers yet, the wad seems to seperate at about the same distance every time.

I tried putting a slug into some b and p trap stuff that was loaded hotter. I had wads doing crazy stuff like spinning off straight up into the air and out to the sides. I assume the wads were sticking to the slugs, didnt bother investigating it too much but im thinking those would have benefited from adding the shot cards. The accuracy on those were poor.

The mod choke on my vepr measures 18mm, i had some b and p target slugs laying around and they were spinning end over end and keyholing every time. I didnt measure the slug but they dont fit in the mod choke when i try and push it through, even if the slug were to squish down it was going to be tight. I tried them with cylinder bore (18.5mm) and they fit in the end of the barrel nicely and the keyholing went away. They are a brenneske? type slug. Great factory slug round at about 35 bucks a box of 25 if you can find them!

I have decided to open the mod choke up to about an improved cylinder 18.25mm. I reckon thats where i need to be with it for good accuracy. My beretta had an IC and it rocked with slugs and was a pretty good all round choke, for 3 gun anyway.

Well, I appreciate your time taken to offer advice, gents. I shall light the fuse on one this weekend. It's funny though, new gun,new load, first shot, always seems to instill a little apprehension? It does sport a new Pachmayr Decelerator recoil pad though...not that adventurous yet! Cheers.

Factory made slugs are usually made with full-choke barrel in mind, as they do get shot through such at times. I'd hesitate to try a hard lead slug in a choked barrel.

My slugs are all cast with pure roofing lead, so seem soft enough. I fired off a few handfulls, along with ten or so 00 Buck. All are loaded around one grain under max. so they left the barrel fairly determinately @ ( 1410fps). Groups were on par with the cylinder barrel 870. All loads with an undershot card in place, Winchester F114 yellow wads. Most rang the 18"x 18" gong at 40 metres. Great fun with a 60 year old gun.

If they are made from pure lead they should be soft enough to squeeze through the choke
If they are lee ones as people say they are made to fit into a shot cup so smaller in dia and shouldn’t be an issue

I'm not sure how much difference that will make at 1300 fps but as previously said the lee slugs are made to sit in the shot cup so it is the plastic that will give. Loaded for them a few times and they worked fine in a mod choke.