20 ga. Thumper Slug

[johnly]

I picked up a .536" 550 grain NEI paper patch mold off eBay for a song.
I put it in the four jaw chuck, dialed it in, and turned it into a heavy 20 bore bullet
for my 1/24 twist 20 ga. Encore slug barrel.

The rear band of the bullet is .628", the mid band is .627",
and the forward band is .623" and weigh 700 grains when cast from wheelweights.






I'm going to machine some brass cases, but I might just try some Fiocchi hulls
just to see if they work.

Anyone care to suggest some loading data?
I was thinking that 577 Snyder data might be somewhere to start.
I have a bunch of 7838, and might give that a try as well.

I suspect the recoil in the Encore is going to become brutal well before the strength
of the action will come into play.

[lifeon2]

I dont even have a 20 gauge and I think that is awsome

[only1asterisk]

According to Ed Hubel 7838 should work and the new RL 17 is even better.

[johnly]

Is there a URL you can point me to?

John

[Blammer]

Awesome!


I've got a 560gr full bore slug and am working up some loads for them.

[only1asterisk]

This should get you started:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ighlight=hubel

[Blammer]

Well I shot a few that johnly was kind enough to send.

I used my NEF slug brl 20ga.

Fiocchi Hull
W209 primer 13gr of Longshot
20s1 with petals trimmed off
1; 1/4 nitro card then the slug with just the bottom lube groove filled
Star crimp

got 887fps out of it.

Will try some more loads working up in powder charge.

The reason I went DOWN to 13 gr is because my initial trial of 17gr (that I thought was low enough) WASN'T!

Hull was stuck in case the primer fell out of the hull.

I'm also going to try 15gr of bluedot as a starting point too, with the above load combo.

and looking through the scope I see that I broke it again.... dang.. this sucks.

[Blammer]

ok, follow up, 14gr of longshot produced 952 fps and sticky hulls
15gr longshot produced 986 and sticky hulls.

I have concluded that this is not the powder I want.

[johnly]

You are making far more progress on this than I am. I weighed the slugs again and they weighed 640 grains w/o lube. At 940 fps, you're generating about 1250 fp of ME. Not a huge amount, but the load generated the same Taylor KO factor as a full house 458 WM load.

I was going to try 7383 in my loads, but purchased the wads I need to load.

John

[johnly]

I finally got out to the range with my 20 ga. Encore to try these out at the range. In reality, it was just a feeler load session to figure out some loading data.

I was using 3" Fiocchi primed hulls, the BPI 20 gauge Brush wad, and fine sawdust as a filler between the wad and bullet base. I decided to try IMR 7383 as I have several jugs of it, it's slow burning, and is bulky.

I started off at 25 grains and got bloopers. Better than than some of the alternatives. Bloopers continued until the was charge increased to 40 grains. By the time creeped up to 60 grains, I needed to cut the was cushion section out of the wad, and just use the gas seal. I worked my way up to 80 grains of 7383 before I ran out of components. By that time ignition was consistant, but still a fair amount of unburned powder in the barrel. Extraction was easy, primer pockets were still tight in the plastic cases, and the recoil was on the rise. My PACT chronograph died a couple months ago, and I haven't yet replaced it. Need to do something about this before I continue much further.

John

[turbo1889]

Keep us posted --- this thread is on my watch list.