Casting and Reloading 12 Gauge Slugs

Starting to mold slugs. The mold is a Lee 1 ounce drive key. It is a cross between a foster
and a sabot and is refered to as a wad slug. It can work in a rifled or smooth bore. The key
in the base is supposed to engage riflings. People have good results through smooth bore
because it is a foster as well, nose heavy hollow expandable base. I need to get out and
shoot them but here is the start. I will be putting these in AA hulls at 1580 fps and in
Remington Gun Club/STS/Nitro hulls at 1450 fps.
Here is how the Lee slug engages
the wad. The idea is the wad
catches rifling and the key of the
slug digs into the wad there for
imparting spin on the entire
payload like a sabot. The slug and
wad separate and the slug flies off
spinning.

Here is a recovered wad showing

how the bottom of the slug engages
the wad.

The Lee slug is more interesting

than you would think at first
glance. You can see how one could
think it is a sabot….but it is not. It
is a nose heavy foster slug. Why?
This is the genius of the
design….you can get good results using it in a rifled or a smooth bore. It is called a wad
slug.

One of the tricks to accuracy out of a smooth bore is a clean separation of the slug from the
wad….enter the nitro card. The card is very hard and will not dig into the slug or the wad.
So you are just using the wad to transport the slug through the bore and take up room as the
slug is only .69 cal.
Smoothbore set up

The trick to adding the card is that you have to make room in the hull by either a shorter
wad or less powder. I have been playing with this and had good results doing both. This
plays with pressures but ultimately cutting down on charge is safe and shorter wads are
working for me as they weigh less than the wad called for in the recipe…..one could nitpick
this to death though.

One of the advantages I am finding is no leading of my barrel like I had using full bore size
foster slugs

Went out with 8 different loads to try. I found the lowest grain of Herco and the highest
grain of Accurate #5 to be the best grouping. I shot 5 of each totaling 40 rounds theses were
the best groups. Just went 25 yards for the testing.

5 shot groups

Shot from a Mossberg 500 with a Vang Comp barrel 20" smoothbore

30 grains Herco, WAA12R 1/4" card 1 oz lee slug, AA hull

38.5 grains Accurate #5, WAA12SL no card 1 oz slug, Rem. Premier hull

They all shot well and I had 32, 34, 36, gr Herco with different card thicknesses. Accurate
#5 in 36, 34 and 32 gr. The 38.5 gr Accurate #5 loads felt about like a 300 win mag in
recoil….bear loads. The 30 gr Herco loads were stout but felt mild compared to the rest.
After I shot the groups at 25 yards I started going for the 100 yard gong and was hitting
more time than not so I am thrilled.