#1 Buckshot load

I have been thinking for awhile that it would be good to have some 12 ga buckshot shells handy. Of course I could buy some but that would be too easy. So after some extensive Internet research I decided that a 12 pellet load of #1 Buck would be ideal.

My thinking was that the 1.09 oz weight of the pellets keeps the recoil at a manageable level that would allow practice if desired. A typical commercial load is either 9 pellets of #00. My load has 3 more pellets that are slightly smaller but should be adequate.

Also, I wanted to use up some clear hulls and wads that I had gotten some time ago. So I ordered a Buckshot manual and a bottle of #1 buckshot from Ballistic products. After reviewing the Buckshot manual, Lyman’s manual, and Hodgdon reloading data I saw that there were some similar loads but nothing quite like what I wanted. So I ended up doing a conversion of a typical target load using Clays powder and combining it with the STS wad that I had on hand. The STS was designed for high capacity steel loads and so the #1 buck fit well into it.

So here is the final recipe. (Please note that it has not been pressure tested, and as always with these sorts of things, use at your own risk.)
· 19.0 Grains of Clays
· STS wad from Ballistic Products (44.1 grains)
· ¼” fiber wad, 28 ga to fit into the STS wad and space up the first row of #1 (4.5 grains)
· 2 ¾”, primed 12 ga Multi-hull from Ballistic Products
· (12) #1 buck, placed in 4 layers of 3 balls each
· Over shot card OS12

The overshot card makes for a good crimp surface. An 8 point crimp worked better than a 6 point since the plastic folds were not as deep on top of the card. Without the card the fold went down into the buckshot and did not look as good. I got two velocity readings of 1112 and 1157 fps off this load. This velocity seems adequate after reviewing ballistic tests shown on www.brassfetcher.com that showed results from a slower load that had a reported muzzle velocity of 1040 fps. I suspect that my velocity would be higher if I was not using an 18” barrel.
The pictures below show the materials that I assembled and a final product. Plus I have included the shot pattern at the following yards: 5, 7, 10, and 15. To the right of the first picture below is a fired wad with one of the broken off pedals. The pedals break off as the wad exits the barrel. Also this load seems to generally follow the rule of thumb for a cylinder barrel that it spreads 1" for each yard of travel. The 7 yard and 15 yard pattern match the best.

It looks like these shells cost me 60 cents each, not including shipping of components. On the other hand the hull, wad, fiber, powder, and overshot card were all on hand from other projects. The only component I bought was the Buck. However, the Buck was the biggest cost at 35 cents per load with about another 15 cents each in shipping. The cheapest commercial buckshot shells that I have seen were 50 cents each.

I do most of my deer hunting at the Fort Knox Military Reservation in Kentucky. The Fort Knox reservation is mostly wooded. They require us to use either a shotgun slug or muzzle loading rifle.

I had done some extensive looking at slugs last summer to pick the best one and finally settled on a Federal Barnes Expander. I wanted to be able to take shots out to 150 yards and that shell seemed to give me the best combination of low recoil, good trajectory, low velocity loss, and high energy impact. Unfortunately at the end of the season prices had gone up and I was paying about $3 per shell. That was too much for me to be able to afford to practice.

Also, during my one weekend at Fort Knox I was only able to take one shot at a deer and missed. So I certainly need to be able to practice if at the end I will only have one shot.

So after that weekend I started looking around again to see what I could get for less money that would still be a good slug. I have had bad experiences with the standard rifled slugs giving eratic performace so that at 50 yards a group had a 12" spread.

What I finally settled on was spending about $200 to buy a slug mold and equipment plus components to be able to assembly my own sabot slug shells at home. I bought the Lee 7/8 oz slug mold. So far it seems to work pretty good. I have not yet taken it to a range to see officially by at about a 30 yard distance it has about a 3" group. Also the cost is very affordable. I will be able to load about 230 shells with my initial investement of $200. Future shells will be reloaded at an average cost of thirty-four cents each including sales tax and shipping. I may be able to get that cost down further if I find a local source of cheap lead or buy lead on e-bay. To start I bought certified pure lead.

I was not sure how the drive key was going to work. The drive key is a solid bar cast across the bottom of the slug. The slug is loaded into a standard plastic trap wad. What happens upon firing is that the plastic wad is pushed up around either side of the drive key to lock the wad and slug together as they go through the rifling.

I'll do a later post after I see what the range results are.