Am I expecting too much from slugs?

[Roachcreek]

I started shooting slugs 9 years ago because I wanted to shoot Uber long range, 500-600 yards. I made a few video’s with my wife running our Handycam of me breaking 12 oz cola cans with my Haley Scandalous at those ranges and many of you have seen them. The tube video’s are still out there.

I also ran iinto the usual accuracy problems and inquired online on the yellow forun where the so called experts said that Airguns barrels are all wrong, then I met Jack Haley’s son-in-law, John Bowman and he gave the information to make it all work

I have been casting for 50 years, 57 if you count me trying to pour lead down a old Crosmn 101 barrel to make slugs to penetrate bobcat sckulls that my Airedale kept treeing on my fathers ranch, needless to say that was a failure. If it means anything, I taught Knifemaker to cast Airguns slugs 9 years ago. Mike took the science further than I could dream of.

At the time. ToofSfou, Credric Sophus, was shooting eggs at 200-300 yards with slugs using Doug Nobles’ creations and was going to try 400 yards, I talked him into 440 for a full quarter mile and to use 12oz cola cans as they could be purchased anywhere and were uniform in size, he did and we called it the “Pepsi Challenge”.

I had a 1100 yard range on my old mountain place and a 300 yard range on the vineyard I was living on and working as a pester. I used to post groups at 300 yards that were moa for 100 yards, meaning under an inch on the old Yellow Forum. My wife and I made the video’s on my 1100 yard range.

So it can be done, I preached the technique here, on the yellow forum, TAG and GTA, however most slug buyers did not want to go to all that trouble, but without doing the homework your wasting time and money.
Now once more, the twist has to be correct, for me and my 25’s it is best at 1-14, but my Kral Bighorn is 1-17 and works fine but I would not go slower in twist.

You need the exact groove diameter, the cuts made while rifling make the barrel is groove diameter of you barrel, only correctly found for me by driving a oversized slug, at lest tight enough fo fill the grooves completely,NOT a pellet, down you barrel from the CHAMBER TO THE MUZZLE, not the other way around. I prefer that barrel to be a uncooked barrel.

Without this step your wasting time and money.

I size to .001 over that groove diameter, Airguns can’t bump up the bullet diameter like smokeless and black powders do upon ignition, so that .001 over groove diameter is the key.

I polish my barrels and cut the lead slowly to the slug shape that I am using with a craytex bulb until I get a fit only described as a cork in a wine bottle fit.

Many commercial casters and swaggers make slugs for 25’s at .249 as they are easy to chamber, but if you shoot them in a .251 or larger barrel the accuracy suffers. I use only the NOE sizing system, I size .252 for my .251 Bighorn and .258 for my .257’s.

If you do not follow these steps it will be as successful as purchasing a single MeganMillion lotto ticket.

As I said, I am a caster with 50 years of experience, as a result, for me a slug is a solid projectile and not a FX or JSB folded creation, yes they shoot well for some, but weight makes FPE and FPE equals range, folded slugs In my jaded not so humble opinion don’t.

I am computer challenged so I have no link to the videos above, but they can be found by searching Roachcreek 615 yard Haley Airguns 12 oz cola can shot.

Regards,

Roachcreek

 

[Roachcreek]

Erratic slugs that are properly fit are usually caused by voids or bubbles underneath the surface of your slug. It is hard to catch these as no visual defect can be seen.

I am going blind so visual inspection for me is difficult. As a result I weigh every slug, then I measure the diameter of every slug. I use 2 to 3 cavity molds as they are far more accurate than 6 and 8 cavity molds, a single cavity is best, boys a big pile of cast bullets that are mot accurate is a pile destined or should be destined for the remelt. I have a 8 cavity MPmold that if I use a slightly different alloy or pure lead instead of 40-1 or 20-1 they are undersized.

Remember nothing is killed by only a quick loud bang.

Roachcreek

 

[LDP]

I started shooting slugs 9 years ago because I wanted to shoot Uber long range, 500-600 yards. I made a few video’s with my wife running our Handycam of me breaking 12 oz cola cans with my Haley Scandalous at those ranges and many of you have seen them. The tube video’s are still out there.

I also ran iinto the usual accuracy problems and inquired online on the yellow forun where the so called experts said that Airguns barrels are all wrong, then I met Jack Haley’s son-in-law, John Bowman and he gave the information to make it all work

I have been casting for 50 years, 57 if you count me trying to pour lead down a old Crosmn 101 barrel to make slugs to penetrate bobcat sckulls that my Airedale kept treeing on my fathers ranch, needless to say that was a failure. If it means anything, I taught Knifemaker to cast Airguns slugs 9 years ago. Mike took the science further than I could dream of.

At the time. ToofSfou, Credric Sophus, was shooting eggs at 200-300 yards with slugs using Doug Nobles’ creations and was going to try 400 yards, I talked him into 440 for a full quarter mile and to use 12oz cola cans as they could be purchased anywhere and were uniform in size, he did and we called it the “Pepsi Challenge”.

I had a 1100 yard range on my old mountain place and a 300 yard range on the vineyard I was living on and working as a pester. I used to post groups at 300 yards that were moa for 100 yards, meaning under an inch on the old Yellow Forum. My wife and I made the video’s on my 1100 yard range.

So it can be done, I preached the technique here, on the yellow forum, TAG and GTA, however most slug buyers did not want to go to all that trouble, but without doing the homework your wasting time and money.
Now once more, the twist has to be correct, for me and my 25’s it is best at 1-14, but my Kral Bighorn is 1-17 and works fine but I would not go slower in twist.

You need the exact groove diameter, the cuts made while rifling make the barrel is groove diameter of you barrel, only correctly found for me by driving a oversized slug, at lest tight enough fo fill the grooves completely,NOT a pellet, down you barrel from the CHAMBER TO THE MUZZLE, not the other way around. I prefer that barrel to be a uncooked barrel.

Without this step your wasting time and money.

I size to .001 over that groove diameter, Airguns can’t bump up the bullet diameter like smokeless and black powders do upon ignition, so that .001 over groove diameter is the key.

I polish my barrels and cut the lead slowly to the slug shape that I am using with a craytex bulb until I get a fit only described as a cork in a wine bottle fit.

Many commercial casters and swaggers make slugs for 25’s at .249 as they are easy to chamber, but if you shoot them in a .251 or larger barrel the accuracy suffers. I use only the NOE sizing system, I size .252 for my .251 Bighorn and .258 for my .257’s.

If you do not follow these steps it will be as successful as purchasing a single MeganMillion lotto ticket.

As I said, I am a caster with 50 years of experience, as a result, for me a slug is a solid projectile and not a FX or JSB folded creation, yes they shoot well for some, but weight makes FPE and FPE equals range, folded slugs In my jaded not so humble opinion don’t.

I am computer challenged so I have no link to the videos above, but they can be found by searching Roachcreek 615 yard Haley Airguns 12 oz cola can shot.

Regards,

Roachcreek

Yes you can be successful with slugs and I have been around long enough to remember reading the different topics from the different forums you mention. Like you said to be successful you have to build it for shooting slugs and get it all correct and size the slugs accordingly. People want a plug and play easy slug setup and you just cant get the consistency and good results that way. People post slug groups and get all excited and talk about how good they are but in reality to me the groups are horrible. I have yet to see a slug group that is "good" from these types of setups, I am not lumping cedric and other slug pioneers into that statement since they have made slug setups that work. I am talking to the youtubers using impacts and other people trying to do the same with rifles not truly setup as slug shooters. I am sorry if I hurt some peoples feelings with this but anything consistently over .5 moa at 100 yds isnt accurate at all and not what I consider good shooting when talking slugs no matter what propelled the slug down the barrel. From my perspective based on videos and pics taken it seems the slug groups are not all that much better than allot of pellet groups I see posted at 100 yds or further. It also seems that average slug groups at 100 yds hovers around 1.2 moa. Sorry that doesnt impress me and thats why I say its going to take more time and effort in making dedicated slug rifles from a manufacturer to get consistently good results. Until you can buy a slug setup and get .5 moa consistently I wont be impressed. These slugs shooting over 1 moa dont cut it imho.

 

[Roachcreek]

You sure did not hurt my feelings, for me it’s the casting and getting them to shootb well, but store bought dedicated sluggers like my AF Texan LSS 257Bulldog carbine did not need replacement barrels, they came with slug barrels, It would take a lot to get me to trade my Texan less 257, Bulldog carbine or even my Kral Bighorn and my casting equipment for a Impact shooting light weight folded slugs. But most young shooters with fancies don’t have the time.
-
I got my choked Kral Bighorn to shoot slugs but first…..

I amputated that insidiously tight choke. Then I polished the barrel with #7 using a jag and patch on a box Smooth stainless ball bearing handled rod from the chamber. Then I reversed the barrel and polished to make a full barrel length taper, but just 1-2 thousands. I then used up a pile of bullets as single use go-no go gauges to get the lead perfect for that one slug. Finally, I finished the polish with Flintz, then crowned.

The Kral barrel with the exception of a way to tight choke, was one of the smoothest most consistent barrels I have worked on, the TJ barrels were one of the roughest. The Bighorn shoots 44.2 grain MPmold .252 hp’s from a 3 cavity mold dropping 44.2 grains with 20-1 at 966 fps. It shoots touching at the limited ranges My only remaining eye with a Dying optic nerve will allow me to shoot which these days is 35-40 yards.

But most of you young studs can probably do better with darts at the local gin mill on Saturday night.

Airguns do not lead up in the same way PB barrels do as they vaperize then deposit the lead fouling. Airguns barrels give transfer leading like I used to look for in hit and run investigations. A unpolished TJ is good for about 35 shots with silicone weight lube before cleaning if shooting at 1100 fps. Still TJ’s, originally designed to be replacement liners in corroded barrels are very accurate, they just need cleaning. My first one on a XP Ranger 45 Very rough and I had it replaced immediately. But I still clean with a patch on a jag using silicone oil.

Good luck,

Roachcreek

 

[Vetmx]

Roachcreek, thanks for posting about TJ barrels. I built them for several of my guns. The one gun that was intended to be a slugger wound up shooting pellets so well with the TJ, I opted to not stress the gun and quit shooting slugs out of it. It doesn’t need cleaned often. On the other hand, the TJ’s I shoot slugs out of only received one polishing session and need cleaned way before I suspected. This caused me to waste slugs and tuning time. It also caused me wasted time on the lathe chasing my slug jump numbers. My question is should I go at the barrel again polishing. Is it worth it or will it always be a frequent cleaner? The TJ I’m shooting now is a .25 and my speed is 975-980fps.

 

[Vetmx]

Sorry for the mini hijack getting slightly off topic and not contributing. All I will say about slugs and videos is this. Any one of us that has a semi decent slug tune can video a hunt, take 200 long bomb shots then edit it down to the 12 that we actually hit something. Don’t believe what you think you are seeing because you’re not seeing everything. Yes pellet guns can shoot slugs pretty darn good. I just don’t think that most guys realize the fine line you’re walking when you nail a tune. Depending on the gun, one tiny little thing changes and your whole slug tune can go to crap. And I mean tiny. What most would consider insignificant. Your velocity could still be the same as yesterday but the tune is junk now. If you are bored, love a challenge, don’t mind feeling stupid at times, have a little casino blood in your veins and love to chase your tail, slugs are fun. I have one gun that’s an exceptional slug shooter. I won’t touch it. One day it seemed a little off so against what I lived by I had to take it apart. Did one upgrade, then some polishing and used my choice of lube. The gun got way faster when I reassembled it using my old numbers. Took me probably 4-500 slugs to find it’s new tune but at a higher velocity. Very sensitive. If my standards were lower, I probably could have found a good enough tune in 1-200 shots. But for me, if a slug won’t shoot as good or better than a pellet at any distance, they are worthless.

 

[OldSpook]

one ought to be able to call the manufacture to hear if their guns are set up for this. Don`t tell me the manufactures don`t test with every possibly pellet/slug out there!.
To this day its still the consumer who has to experiment whether what works or not.

Really? When was the last time you called Remington about a bullet you were going to use?

Of course they don't test with every possible barrel combination (neither does Remington, Winchester, Nora, or any other PB bullet house). The amount of time that that would take would prevent them from even getting anything to market.

 

[Roachcreek]

Vet is,

I never got mine to give me much more than 40 shots. I just accepted that at the time as I had spent decades casting and shooting for firearms, and they do lead up more than air guns, My Kral barrel has been the best so far as far as leading. My Sharps rifles which had button barrels, ie Douglas were the best for not leading as the black powder fouling coated the barrel interior, however that black powder fouling was another matter. Once you have had to blow down your barrel to moisten fouling so you can chamber another round while a wounded bull stood in front of you, 45 shots without cleaning is not too bad.

If you have the time and considering your skills, I say go for it. Most shooters probably should leave that task to folks who have the skills as it can get expensive if it all goes wrong. What polishing compound are you using?

RC

 

[Vetmx]

Just the standard JB then finish with Flitz polish job.

 

[SpiralGroove]

Yeah Roachcreek & LDP,
For all the fiddling with store bought slugs (ZAN the best so far), my RAW HM1000x LRT is challenged to consistently best 1.2" at 100 yards.
I have done nothing to my (poly) barrel except polish it with 400 clover and JB embedding paste ..... and routinely shoot pellets too.

Sounds like to get impressive results, you have to be all in setting the gun for slug shooting - period. Otherwise, you're just pretending

 

[OldSpook]

Yeah Roachcreek & LDP,
For all the fiddling with store bought slugs (ZAN the best so far), my RAW HM1000x LRT is challenged to consistently best 1.2" at 100 yards.
I have done nothing to my (poly) barrel except polish it with 400 clover and JB embedding paste ..... and routinely shoot pellets too.

Sounds like to get impressive results, you have to be all in setting the gun for slug shooting - period. Otherwise, you're just pretending

I think you should go find me ten PB rifles that consistently best 1.2" without busting your arse tuning handloads.

You guys are asking for levels of accuracy that AT BEST 1 in ten shooters can consistently achieve and that is in the PB world. In the AG world where velocities are subsonic and time of flight is nearly an order of magnitude larger than PB rifles, MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, one in 20 shooters can even dope wind well enough to consistently "best" 1.2" at 100 yards. I, for sure, am no longer in that group.

Get real.

 

[LDP]

Yeah Roachcreek & LDP,
For all the fiddling with store bought slugs (ZAN the best so far), my RAW HM1000x LRT is challenged to consistently best 1.2" at 100 yards.
I have done nothing to my (poly) barrel except polish it with 400 clover and JB embedding paste ..... and routinely shoot pellets too.

Sounds like to get impressive results, you have to be all in setting the gun for slug shooting - period. Otherwise, you're just pretending

Also to be clear theres nothing wrong with the people who are satisfied with the current expectations that slugs offer. I am not trying to tell anyone they should not shoot or attempt to shoot slugs I personally just cant get on with them when thats the level of precision thats common. Here is an example of how my brain works: I see people post often saying they got a new rifle and shot jsb and cheap crosman pellets. Then go on to say that jsb gives them consistent .4 - .5 inch groups at 50 yds and the cheap crosman consistently give them .6 - .7 inch groups so they will be shooting the cheaper crosman pellets. For me I could never do that knowing the jsb did better even tho its a small difference and probably wouldnt matter all that much in the field. I am fine that the person whos using them is ok with the small decrease in performance and saving the money but my mind wont let me sleep if I know I am not using the best combo no matter how minute the difference is. I know my mind is weird but thats just me

 

[SpiralGroove]

Yeah, unless you shoot a ton, forgoing JSB's or the best pellet to save a few bucks isn't for me.

Kinda like the stock I'm refinishing ... spending whatever time it takes to get it right for me - otherwise I'm gonna be thinking about it ....

 

[LDP]

I think you should go find me ten PB rifles that consistently best 1.2" without busting your arse tuning handloads.

You guys are asking for levels of accuracy that AT BEST 1 in ten shooters can consistently achieve and that is in the PB world. In the AG world where velocities are subsonic and time of flight is nearly an order of magnitude larger than PB rifles, MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, one in 20 shooters can even dope wind well enough to consistently "best" 1.2" at 100 yards. I, for sure, am no longer in that group.

Get real.

Are you saying at 100 yds? If you are talking 100 yds then its childs play besting 1.2" with a pb and not even busting your arse to do it tweaking loads. I have multiple pb that easily best 1" at 100 yds that didnt require time building a perfect load. They are rifles I have built but I do have many production rifles that easily beat 1" at 100 yds. I do agree with you on the airgun side that moa accuracy at 100 yds is the holy grail and not as easily achieved or consistently achieved as people like to think or say.

Thats the burner for slugs for me. It appears that using data thats not cherry picked shows slugs to basically be on par with pellet's at 100 yds for accuracy. That data also shows slugs to be inferior under 100 yds to pellets and thats the nagging issue I have with using slugs. Sure at 100 yds a slug gives half the wind drift but even that amount of improvement still causes a miss at 100 yds on a vital zone thats under 3" in size with a small error in wind call. Running the numbers on a 34 gr. .22 cal patriot slug @ 1,000 fps at 100 yds you get 1" of drift in a 90 degree 3 mph wind at 4 mph its 1.5" of drift at 5mph its 2" of drift. A miss calculation of a 3 mph when its really a 5mph wind doubles the drift and its enough drift to miss vitals that are 3" in size when you factor in the typical 1.2 moa accuracy. So pellet rifle slugs at least the type from fx and jsb are not some kind of magic wind bucking projectile that allows ignoring even minor wind differences. Those are pretty mild winds that still cause the slug to miss the target with a minimal wind error on the shooters part. Then take into account at 60 yds I am getting larger groups with slugs than pellets just makes slugs that much less appealing. Slugs do not improve wind drift enough at 100 yds to make a bad wind call a clean lethal hit unless the vital area is larger than 3". So you ask what do slugs offer over pellet's? Energy! Thats what slugs offer enough advantage over pellet's to merit using them. At 100 yds the slug has more energy and as the distance grows to 125 or 150 yds the retained energy gap grows further in favor of the slug. If you need that extra energy slugs start looking better. Thats my take on slugs and why I dont use them but also why I would if I didnt have a rimfire or centerfire to use along with my airrifle.

I agree with oldspook on the airgun side of the expected versus reality of accuracy at 100 yds with pellet's or slugs.

 

[OldSpook]

Good points. Sadly I must admit my PB handloading experience is about 30 years out of date. I will defer to your more recent experience. I haven't worked up a new load in 20 years or a bit more. I did have one for my K-hornet that would shoot about half or three quarters MOA... Then I cleaned the rifle...

I still maintain my assertions about the ability of the average shooter to dope wind, in particular at AG velocities.

I agree with your points regarding pellets vs slugs and am almost exclusively a pellet shooter for those reasons. That and the fact that my pesting is often in residential areas and pellets are much safer.

Good discussion.

 

[LDP]

Yes I agree wind is a tricky mistress and just when you think you know how to handle her she changes it up and you realize you will never control her or know the answer to her riddle pb tech has grown rapidly the same way air rifle tech hasi with tighter tolerances and the ability to repeatedly hit and maintain tighter tolerances in parts like receivers and components like brass and bullets.

We all love to shoot and push boundaries and having a discussion over what we each feel is important is good and needed. Arguments not so much and its nice to have discussions like this one and no arguing.

 

[Vetmx]

I’ve said it a bunch of times in quite a few topics. Would you rather dope for wind with a accurate consistent pellet or dope a little less for a kinda accurate semi consistent slug? That’s why both of my slug only guns each have a rival pellet gun that they must beat. My .22 slugger has my Taipan to best and my .25 has my RTI shooting King Heavies to beat. Right now the .22 slugger will match the Taipan out to 80 and spank it past that. Right now the .25 slugger just can’t quite match the consistency of the RTI pushing those heavies when we get to 75 and beyond. Because my slug standards are like LDP’s pellet standards, my .25 slugger will not be the first gun I grab when I have to shoot a living creature over 60yrds right now. I will keep working towards something that just might not be there with this slug, barrel and caliber possibly. Then I will switch back to my other barrel and try to find what I once had with it. Lots of lead, shooting and chronograph batteries. I occasionally take a couple week hiatus from slugs just to shoot pellets and enjoy what these guns were truly designed for.

 

[Roachcreek]

Don’t get me wrong, TJ barrels are great barrels.

Polishing them will make them easier to clean, and cleaning is something that you need to do for best accuracy. My T J barrels were fire-lapped, I suspect an experienced modder using a ball bearing handled solid rod, may improve upon my experience with fire-lapping.

Good luck,

Roachcreek

 

[castbulletsupply]

I have found Airgun Nation members to be very helpful with saving time and money testing. when I plan on getting a new gun. I post a question of what shoots best in that model/caliber. and it easily gets me down to 2-3 choices.

 

[Dwight66]

I have tried lots of slugs and none would group better than 1 inch at 25 y , I tried so many speeds and weights , I have 2 guns and just could not get any nice groups out of any of them

Which guns are you shooting them in. I’m shooting slugs out of all my airforce Airguns with great success! Form .177 to .30 cal modified condor.