(23 November 2013, 17:35)Midnitemo Wrote: been and bought a lee 7/8 oz slug mould today and a cast iron folding pouring ladle....guess what i'll be casting on nights this week?
I find that is best done outside with good ventilation.
Before I bought my electric lead melter I used a cast iron pot on a Coleman gas camp stove on the tailgate of my pickup.
I have also melted lead in a big iron ladle using a propane torch for small runs.
And I have seen it done in a little iron skillet over the coals of a campfire.
Be careful with those Lee molds, they damage easily. do not smack them with anything to dislodge the slug and do not attempt to pry slugs out of the mold.
They are still a good product and I own a bunch in various calibers.
They need a bit of lubrication at the indexing points and a bit at the sprue plate hinge.
They also drop the finished slug better if you smoke coat the inside of the blocks with a sooty flame before you start casting. The carbon works as a release agent.
If one removes the shot from a 1 1/8 oz birdshot load and replaces it with the 7/8oz slug the projectile speed will increase from the 1200fps of the shot load to around 1400fps for the lighter slug. It will take down any deer, dog or dinosaur in GB that manages to get within 50 meters of you.
Here in the states we have several heavily populated zones that allow only the use of shotguns with slugs, due to safety concerns, for hunting large game. Oddly enough, the national record stags are usually taken from those "shotgun only" areas each year.
This situation has also sparked a good deal of intense research on shotgun modifications for extracting maximum potential from the lowly shotgun slug.
Some of us have come to value our shotguns as a single projectile shooter as much or more than as a small game and wing-shooting gun. Scope sighted shotguns being targeted off the shooting bench from sandbags is a common sight in my part of the woods.
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