Shotgun Slugs in .69 Smoothbore, we have a winner :)

[Stantheman86]

Ballistic Products .678 375 grain Foster Slugs are a near duplicate of a Nessler Balle. I'm not sure what the "Oz" equivalent of 375 grains is.

Tracing paper cartridge, lubed with Wonder Lube 1000. 60 grains of Old Eynsford 2f.

Loaded like a Pritchett, they glided down the bore until the top half of the bore got "crusty" . Maybe Swiss 3f next time?

At about 40 yards , I fired 5 in the paper then decided, the paper was kinda shredding in the fouling......I loaded 2 with no paper over 60 gr of 2f, with a smear of lube on the bullet. Accuracy was identical with no paper, in fact those two shots fell right into the existing cluster of 5 from the wrapped slugs.

I have a rear sight on my .69 1816 Springfield that is roughly at a 150 yard "zero" so I was playing with half sighting , quarter sighting , etc. If I had just picked one and went with it this group would be tighter. In fact I was going to , but ran out of time as I had to do other things today. I'm thinking these will group at 50 and might even hold up for hits on man sized paper targets to 100, and maybe even decent hits at 200.

Some were knocked out of round in shipping but nothing a push through the .680 sizer won't fix.

Some may say "I can do the same with roundballs" but bear in mind, originally the Nessler Balle was a bit less accurate than Round ball but after 100 yards or so, the Nessler retains accuracy while the round ball sharply declines. I'll have to get these out to longer ranges. I'm thinking that the paper may be an unnecessary thing and maybe hindering the loading process. Historically these were kept in paper but at .678 - .680 they were probably made for a .70 or .71 bore French or Austrian musket . I feel a hot dip in SPG lube and a push through my .690 sizer will put a nice layer of hard lube on the slug and I can use them like a Minie.

Or, give running them through a .670 sizer a shot , and use the paper. My goal is to find a slug that works and start casting them myself at some point.

Results with the Fury Custom Bullets .680 slug were less encouraging but I only fired 2 of them...the first one , wrapped in paper, sounded like a blank and hit way off point of aim, the second one a loaded bare and it tumbled into the target . I guess they just don't stabilize , the center of gravity is off......or he uses an alloy and they don't obturate. He says they're pure lead though but maybe different people's opinions of "pure lead" is different.

 

[Eterry]

FYI, 1 ounce is 437.5 grains, so 375 grains is .788 of an ounce. Roughly 3/4 ounce.
Impressive work.

 

[Stantheman86]

3/4 oz , OK that makes sense, Thank You

I found a Lee mold for .681 3/4 oz slugs but I don't want the Drive Key.

I can't find a .678 or .680 Foster mold that casts standard Foster slugs. I'm sure something exists somewhere .

 

[Billy Boy]

I pulled and used Federal ‘Tru ball’ slugs from 20 ga. shells and fired them in my 62 cal, underhammer smoothbore. 90 gr RS, nitro card wad tumble lubed slug and an over shot card. Shot as well as anything I have cast for it.

 

[Stantheman86]

Some things just work really well for an intended purpose.

 

[hawkeye2]

Looking at the Lee mold it might be possible to fill the slot that makes the drive key by filing a piece of aluminum to fit and pinning (with aluminum pin or screw) it in place. Of course you could also turn a new base plug and even modify the cavity at the same time too.

 

[Stantheman86]

The 3/4 oz Lee with no Drive Key would be pretty much ideal. Maybe a little thicker skirt.

 

[excess650]

Lees are available in 3/4oz and 1oz. My 3/4oz measures .670" around the skirt and tapers to .686" at the ogive.

 

[RAEDWALD]

Nicely done Stan. The cartridge is a good match. Those Foster slugs are somewhat Nesslerish although they are a gnat's long and lack the central internal nipple whose purpose I do not understand). Sterling work there. Enterprising lathe owners might make a base pin to include the Nessler internal nipple for a Lee mould.

The Nessler being a touch shorter than the Foster and masses in the 450-480 grain range so an ounce or so.

Those who are familiar with the Brenneke slugs will see a similarity on the cross section but they come with a light drag stabilising tail screwed into the central nipple. The ribbing on the Brenneke is for a breechloader to swage down through a modern choke.

 

[Rich]

3/4 oz , OK that makes sense, Thank You

I found a Lee mold for .681 3/4 oz slugs but I don't want the Drive Key.

I can't find a .678 or .680 Foster mold that casts standard Foster slugs. I'm sure something exists somewhere .

lee can most likely machine a die for you.

 

[Stantheman86]

Thank You for the encouragement, hopefully you guys are enjoying my oddball testing

I asked Ballistic Products if they make a mold for these .678 slugs , they are proprietory cold-swaged slugs. Only they offer them.

If Lee made a custom mold that would be great.

I was at a little mini mart and picked up some rolling papers.....a 1 1/4 wrapped around the slug and a Double Wide as a tube , slides nicely down the bore. A lube should act as a "glue" and stick the paper to the slug. Then I can use regular printer paper with a powder chamber for the powder tube portion.

I've got to shoot some of these out to 100 and 200 yards, hopefully this week.

 

[Eterry]

Lee will make almost anything you are willing to pay for...I understand the set up charge is around $80, which includes the first mold. The price comes down considerable for subsequent molds as I understand it. You might wanna see if others would like a similar mold and make a group purchase.
I know this is done on other sites.

 

[Stantheman86]

I think this is what the Eras Gone gentleman did , or does , he has Lyman or Lee make the molds , to his specs . Like the NC Nessler mold.

Maybe when I get to it I'll contact them about an altered slug mold, it seems less than likely a bunch of other people are going to suddenly decide they want Nessler Ball molds

I have to shoot more of them to decide if it's worth it, if they hit a big piece of sketch paper half the time at 200 , if they hit 100% of the time at 100....I'm not expecting "rifled" accuracy just the same as they worked originally.

I'm going to have to "flex" a little , away from the historical cartridge to make these work in .69's. I think wrapping them in one piece of rolling paper to hold lube, then using them that way is the best bet. Too much paper , and it just sheds the paper halfway down the bore anyway. I've found that these need a thick skirt and to be at least .020 under bore size to even mess with thicker paper. The vellum (tracing) paper seems like the way to go.

Ironically I found an almost 20 year old thread on an obscure hunting forum where a guy did the opposite I'm doing.....he found a schematic for a .678 Nessler ball and made his own mold , to use in modern shotgun shells. Weird, but somewhere out there , in 2001 or so , some guy was making clones of French Nessler balls and shooting them out of 12 gauge pump shotguns.

 

[Maven]

Thank You for the encouragement, hopefully you guys are enjoying my oddball testing

I asked Ballistic Products if they make a mold for these .678 slugs , they are proprietory cold-swaged slugs. Only they offer them.

If Lee made a custom mold that would be great.

View attachment 18839

View attachment 18840
I was at a little mini mart and picked up some rolling papers.....a 1 1/4 wrapped around the slug and a Double Wide as a tube , slides nicely down the bore. A lube should act as a "glue" and stick the paper to the slug. Then I can use regular printer paper with a powder chamber for the powder tube portion.

I've got to shoot some of these out to 100 and 200 yards, hopefully this week.

Stan, I'd look into NOE ("Swede" Nelson of Night Owl Enterprises) or Tom at Accurate Moulds before Lee Precision as they're likely to be less expensive and certainly will be of the highest quality (not trashing Lee here).

 

[Stantheman86]

Thanks for the leads on those businesses, I'll definitely check them out.

If I could get this translated from whatever units of measure this is or find a schematic that's in millimeters at least so I can convert it to English measurements.

 

[Billy-by-gosh]

Stantheman86,
Those appear to be European-style metric notations. The stylized "1" has a wide left arm in somewhat of a downward pose. The "7" is crossed thru the middle, and commas replace our dot for separation of tenths designation. Thus, the very last notation is for 17.2 MM; the note above that is for 11.2 MM, and so on. Hope this helps some.
[BTW, a single millimeter is translated into inches as .039375"]

 

[Maven]

Stan, Why not use the dimensions of the paper-patched slug in your post (above) as the basis of a custom mould? Can you send that slug to either Accurate or NOE after you've contacted them?

 

[Stantheman86]

The .678 slug from Ballistic Products is good, it's real good......but it can be better. The skirts need to be thick on these . Ballistic Products did a good job and they obviously work well. The paper is turning out to kinda be a wasted effort in the .69 bores available as reproductions, any rough fouling and it impedes loading and tears away half the time. This seems to be why the Pritchett bullet for Enfields was taken way down to .550 with the paper patch. You would need a .660 Nessler, in my opinion, to use paper of any workable thickness in a .69 bore.

I have a .690 shotgun choke, I'm also going to try hot dipping these and using the choke to leave a nice layer of lube on the bullet.

The ones Fury Custom bullets made have too thin skirts . They made a weird "pop" when fired pointing to skirt seperation. Might try those with 1f?

If someone could take this schematic and I tell them "make me a mold that will drop this" with today's CNC stuff it should be easy.

BP slugs vs real Nessler

 

[Stantheman86]

Stantheman86,
Those appear to be European-style metric notations. The stylized "1" has a wide left arm in somewhat of a downward pose. The "7" is crossed thru the middle, and commas replace our dot for separation of tenths designation. Thus, the very last notation is for 17.2 MM; the note above that is for 11.2 MM, and so on. Hope this helps some.
[BTW, a single millimeter is translated into inches as .039375"]

Looks like 17.2mm equals a .677 outside diameter, I'm guessing the Nessler in this schematic was made for a .70 French musket , used in a paper cartridge.

 

[Grenadier1758]

Looks like you broke the conversion code. I get the same result (17.2/25.4 = 0.677)

25.4 mm per inch