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Thinking outside the box

fellmann said:
I want the shot to disintegrate at hit, avoid ricochets...
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Oh it definitely will do that. In fact, if it strikes the ground or a tree branch it is likely to disintegrate instantly.

This is basically how I make them. Except I have a 1/2" holesaw chucked in my drill press to open the top.


Here is a wax slug into ballistic gel.


And here is Paul Harrell testing wax slugs. I love all his videos. :thumbsup:


Take care. Tom Worthington
 
Is there a weight trade off between the lead and the wax? Are they putting all the pellets that they dumped out, back in? Or just enough to fill it, with the displacement of the wax? If you reloaded them with just half wax,half shot, and could keep the shot from just settling to the bottom, that lighter load weight would seem like more fun to shoot a lot of..
 
Rodburner said:
Is there a weight trade off between the lead and the wax? Are they putting all the pellets that they dumped out, back in? Or just enough to fill it, with the displacement of the wax? If you reloaded them with just half wax,half shot, and could keep the shot from just settling to the bottom, that lighter load weight would seem like more fun to shoot a lot of..
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Yes, they are slightly lighter. You can't quite fit the exact amount of shot back in that you removed. I end up with a pretty good amount more shot then I started with, after making a 100 or so of them. I prefer to have the top be completely wax, to avoid the possibility of small bits of shot fouling the magazine tube. Take care. Tom Worthington
 
Fellmann, back in my special ops days (I'm old) we built breaching rounds using 1.5 oz of metal shavings and candle wax. We used whatever we could find from the machine shop including copper, aluminum, brass or steel shavings. They worked pretty good but you needed to maintain a little stand off distance. Now days there are commercial rounds and breaching barrels available.

I see no reason you couldn't make them yourself.

Regards
 
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After I did those wax loads, I read that you can make the wax tougher by adding stearic acid to it and this will also prevent the wax loads from melting in your car on a hot day. I don’t recall the exact formula but it didn’t seem to be too much.
 
Fellmann, was out in my shop tonight and happened to noticed a roll of solder. Certainly would be easy to cut pieces of solder and in bed them with wax to make a breaching round. The roll I was looking at was approximately an eighth inch in diameter so wouldn't take much build a 1.5 oz wax inbedded round. Solder should be available at any hardware store.

Might also consider copper or aluminium electrical wire cut into pieces.

Just an idea for your consideration my friend.

Regards
 
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The other old trick is taking ordinary field loads and making cut shells. Take your knife and cut through the outer cover in a circle about half way down the shells length. When fired the separated wad and remaining outer cover become the projectile. This was used years ago in place of slugs.

Cheap but very effective.

Regards
 
Ernst said:
The other old trick is taking ordinary field loads and making cut shells. Take your knife and cut through the outer cover in a circle about half way down the shells length. When fired the separated wad and remaining outer cover become the projectile. This was used years ago in place of slugs.

Cheap but very effective.

Regards
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Cut shells actually scare me. Since the outside of the round passes all the way down the barrel, I can see the potential of a high pressure spike. No slug is the same diameter as the bore. It's always a bit smaller. But I've seen folks have good luck with cut shells, and I've never seen one blow up a barrel. You pays your money. you makes your choice. :idk: Take care. Tom Worthington
 
Tom, understand your concern however the key is where you cut the outer covering and to make sure you only cut the outer covering vice cutting the plastic wad. That wad maintains your pressure seal. Like I said above the plastic wad and separated cover becomes your projectile.

And, like you, I've never seen a case of over pressure.

Agree that no slug is the actual diameter of the bore but smooth bore shotshell have the slug "in cased" (so to speak) inside the plastic wad so again the wad is providing the seal and exiting with the slug.

And with all weapons the user must be careful and take responsibility.

Regards
 
If the pressure gets high enough it should push through the crimp. Never worried about cut shells.

And I've shot slugs through turkey xfull tubes with no issues. Not that i recommend it but its not catastrophic ss many suggest.
 
That was pretty fast. The order for the 1-ought steel shot came in today.

I haven't had a chance to test any yet, but I used the same general recipe as I do for some of my other handicap loads for buckshot.

I weighed the shot, and it took 14 pellets to equal an ounce of weight.

And I ended up fitting 12 pellets into each shot. So, that was 3-4 more pellets than I was able to get with 2ought depending on which recipe I was using.

3 of the pellets sit above the wad in this load, but shouldn't be an issue. I don't plan on shooting a steady diet of them through the gun, and I also ordered a NEF steel shot rated modified choke for the old mossberg so the constriction wouldn't be too tight. I'm looking forward to trying a few of these out to see how they pattern but will probably be a week or more due to another winter weather front coming in the next few days and I'm not certain exactly when I may get the choke I ordered either.

DrTs3pF.jpg
 
John A. said:
That was pretty fast. The order for the 1-ought steel shot came in today.

I haven't had a chance to test any yet, but I used the same general recipe as I do for some of my other handicap loads for buckshot.

I weighed the shot, and it took 14 pellets to equal an ounce of weight.

And I ended up fitting 12 pellets into each shot. So, that was 3-4 more pellets than I was able to get with 2ought depending on which recipe I was using.

3 of the pellets sit above the wad in this load, but shouldn't be an issue. I don't plan on shooting a steady diet of them through the gun, and I also ordered a NEF steel shot rated modified choke for the old mossberg so the constriction wouldn't be too tight. I'm looking forward to trying a few of these out to see how they pattern but will probably be a week or more due to another winter weather front coming in the next few days and I'm not certain exactly when I may get the choke I ordered either.

DrTs3pF.jpg
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I like it! :thumbsup: I am assuming you already had stockpiled those primers before the **** hit the fan? Take care. Tom Worthington
 
Yes, I had some primers. Though I don't have as many as I would like of course. You can never get too many.
 
steel balls are better than no balls

:)

I haven't had the chance to test the shells I loaded the other day because I'm waiting for the weather to break. I was able to find a modified steel shot rated choke the other day for the 500 on ebay, so I'm looking forward to seeing how they pattern.
 
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