ASP 12G shell trimmer

[oafpatroll]

Go old school if you really need slugs ... cut away bird shot shell

No thanks. That pushes the hull through the barrel with the shot column inside of it. The combination is way over bore.

Casting slugs is a 2 banana activity and you end up with slugs. In my case those are things that I can use to make my shotty into an almost rifle within 70m or so by loading a different shell.

[zguy]

It is a German cottage industry s/s hammerless shotgun, made in 1919 as far as I can tell. It belonged to my grandfather, who brought it to SA in 1929.

Oh wow. Sentimental for sure.
I'm sure the shotgun is a well made machine knowing the Germans.

[Desperatezulu]

No thanks. That pushes the hull through the barrel with the shot column inside of it. The combination is way over bore.

Casting slugs is a 2 banana activity and you end up with slugs. In my case those are things that I can use to make my shotty into an almost rifle within 70m or so by loading a different shell.

A middleground option is to trim away the crimped section of the shell and pour molten wax over the pellets. Yes it raises the mass of the 'projectile' somewhat and the slug does disintegrate on impact so it's not an anti-materiel option. But it keeps the pellets together until impacting the target

[Vaal]

No thanks. That pushes the hull through the barrel with the shot column inside of it. The combination is way over bore.

But doesn't the shot stay in the cup till it exits the barrel, then the petals open up and the wad slows down so that the shot continue?

[oafpatroll]

But doesn't the shot stay in the cup till it exits the barrel, then the petals open up and the wad slows down so that the shot continue?

The issue is with the hull travelling down the barrel in unit with the shot/wad which is what happens with a cut shell. Makes the effective diameter of the payload much larger and the potential for a serious overpressue event greater. The 'wax slug' as described above avoids that problem. I'd be especially concerned about a stray cut shell making it into a chamber of my choked o/u bird gun by mistake.

[Desperatezulu]

The section of shell going down the barrel isn't ideal. My feeling is that the critical part in terms of pressure will be when the shell/shot mass hits the forcing cone - that's where pressures will spike.
At the choke, the gas volume has the whole volume/length of the barrel to spread any pressure spike over so I wouldn't expect too many issues there. But I agree it's probably not desirable to have a fairly incompressible chunk of shot and shell squeezing through the choke. Probably no big deal in a modern gun but dodgy in your grandad's out of proof damascus shottie.

[oafpatroll]

Turns out the ASP hull trimmer does a fine job of trimming wads too. To use them as bases for the Svarog Sveroboy slugs I need to cut the shot cup off the 28g Jannocks I use and getting the cut perfectly aligned with its base has always been a bit of a challenge. When it isn't cut perfectly level the slug sits slightly out of square and I think that makes the assembly more inclined to 'bend' on ignition. I don't know for sure that this is the cause of the occasional flyer I experience but I think it could be as I'm careful to load in large batches with matched components.