I’ve recently had a lot of bad influence and developed somewhat of a warm fondness for 12ga slugs. Slugs are expensive though.
I do have a Lee shotgun shell all in one press thing. However, that requires individual components and I just can’t be bothered… Soon, soon. Not yet though. Then Bentaz and someone else (my apologies, I don’t remember who it was) suggested that I can just swap shot for slug in sporting shells. And really, I don't even need to crimp. Though in a tube mag, I thought I would.
I’ve already shot it all and it works very well, but I thought I’d share the road to Sluglife.
Purchased a roll crimper from Mother Russia. It got lost in mail and I got a very prompt no questions asked refund. However, disappointed, I liked that one. Plan B – ordered one locally. This one is plastic, one from RU was alloy, which I thought was very cool. Anyway...
These are my first attempts. Basically, cut the top of the shell off, pour out the shot, pop a Lee 7/8 slug in and roll crimp on drill press at 500RPM. This is as low as I could go, however instructions suggest lower.
f***ed up bad, but as Homer would say, it's still good, it's still good...
Too much friction, I am like that... Melted the top pretty bad.
Getting there, but very messy and doesn't look good at all.
Melted the thing again, still not sure why this is happening...
As you can see, YouTube is not always correct. I watched a few videos and I just couldn't put my finger on it.
Upon inspection, his excellency Bentaz the Shotgunner saw my handy work and after a few adjectives it was suggested that I am going in dry and need to lubricate. So Innox to the rescue. Sprayed a little on the base of the drill press (also acts as rust inhibitor for the press), dipped my finger in it and rubbed some on the mouth of the shell, before it went into roll crimper. Or as Myth Busters would say, "with enough lubrication, you can achieve anything".
Took it a lot slower this time… I also knew how the resistance on the handle should feel at certain points of the crimping process and the 'wrong' and 'right' sounds. I suspect lack of lubrication (above) is responsible for most of the mess.
And here they are, slugs v2.0. Pretty happy.
I made about 50 of them (new) and made sure to grab a random sample, so I am pretty happy with consistency. Not a bad way of turning a $7 box of sporting shells into slugs.
Interesting observation... I held the shell down with pliers. I also considered making a jig, but after pliers that went out the window. It's very hard to 'feel' what's going on, when I wasn't holding on to the shell. Once I just held on to it, I knew exactly when I needed to stop.