Slugging a bore

[David LaPell]

Ok, I understand the concept of slugging the bore, is there an easy way to do this? I went down and tried to find egg shaped sinkers, but here in NY alot of them are not lead anymore. I don't have the room in here for any soft lead. Is there a kit to make this a bit easier, and if so, who sells one?

 

[David LaPell]

Ok, I understand the concept of slugging the bore, is there an easy way to do this? I went down and tried to find egg shaped sinkers, but here in NY alot of them are not lead anymore. I don't have the room in here for any soft lead. Is there a kit to make this a bit easier, and if so, who sells one?

 

[john traveler]

Get with one of your blackpowder shooter friends and borrow a couple lead pistol balls. They come in .375" and .380" diameters for .38/357 bores, and in .454" and .458" for .45 caliber bores. All are made from soft, pure lead. All should be ideal for slugging cylinder throats and barrels. The problem with measuring slugged barrels is that an ordinary micrometer is no good for the S&W 5 groove barrels. You need a special "Vee" block instrument and conversion formula to get the 5-groove dimension.

 

[Paul5388]

A round ball can be adjusted up for size. I used .44" balls to measure the throats on a M625. All you have to do is squeeze the ball in a vise and measure it until it gets the right amount of squeeze.

If you can measure the rifling depth, just add that amount to the measured diameter for the groove diameter or subtract for bore diameter. That will compensate for there being 5 lands and grooves.

 

[Cary]

Originally posted by David LaPell:
Ok, I understand the concept of slugging the bore, is there an easy way to do this? I went down and tried to find egg shaped sinkers, but here in NY alot of them are not lead anymore. I don't have the room in here for any soft lead. Is there a kit to make this a bit easier, and if so, who sells one?

David,
Here is a link to a Bullet Caster in our State who sells the lead sinkers for slugging your barrel. I have bought a few items from them and was pleased with the service. The web site also has some interesting reading in the tech notes section.
http://www.beartoothbullets.co...lletselect/index.htm
Cary

 

[walnutred]

Last bore I slugged was by accident. A squib load managed to push the projectile 3" down a 3.5" bore. From that point the bullet was easy to drive out with a dowel rod and small hammer.

While I was embarrassed about the powderless load the fact that the primer (Wolf SP) was sufficient to push the bullet that far was interesting. Lube was BAC and bullets cast from WW.