Have you ever made them and are they safe? I see a bunch of youtube postings and they look like a cheap fun day of shooting.

For shotgun?

yes, for shotgun

I actually made some shot them they worked fine I used my sons crayons for the wax! I copied a youtubers instructions

My grandfather and father told me about using paraffin or beeswax years ago, but I never attempted to make any. (Not many people remember, but this was the illegal way to make slugs in New Jersey if one chose to. It wasn't until 1974 that slugs were allowed to deer hunt with in the state and prior to 1974, the game laws made mention of "no waxed loads.") CO's had a habit of "squeezing" your 00-buck loads to make sure they weren't waxed.) We've come a long way baby.

 

I did see the YouTube video on wax slugs and it piqued my interest. I made a small batch last summer and got to test them. Ingredients included 7/8 oz.of #8 shot, and a bit of Crayola crayon melted to make a combined 1 oz. load. I used a moderate charge of Hodgdon's TiteWad. Anticipated MV with this one-ounce load is rated at 1235fps. (Very slow when compared with the standard velocities of modern Foster slug loads today.) I tried a few with the melted Crayola as a "topping" but didn't like that idea, as running an exposed wax nose through the magazines on my pumps or semi-auto's didn't thrill me. How I changed the recipe was to leave enough room at the top of the trimmed hull and then seated a 20 ga. Alcan .135" cardboard Nitro-Card into the still-hot mixture. (A 16 ga. nitro card would be ideal but I had none on hand.) Once cooled, it seemed solidly set in place.

 

In the beginning there was some trial and error finding the right length to trim the hulls so everything seated flush with the trimmed case mouth. Of course, using different wads compounded my dilemma. As the last step to the load process, I ran the hulls through the final crimp operation on my MEC loader just to put a small inward curl on the case mouth. The best hulls to use are the compression-formed type with inner taper in the combustion area. (If you heat the crayon/lead mixture too much, it will melt through R-P ribbed SP hulls!) I used three different wads; Winchester's pink WAA12SL, Claybuster's version of the old Windjammer (CB4118-12B) and Remington's TGT-12. Of the three, the Remington TGT-12 wad stayed together with the waxed shot charge, proved the most accurate in 25 yd. testing, never yawed or keyholed at this short range. On occasion, the Windjammer-style wad would separate from the waxed load. On more that one occasion at 7 yards I noticed the top nitro card separated from the lead/wax mixture and impacted itself somewhere on the wood.

I folllowed instructions on a a youtube posting and made some slugs using Elmers "school glue" and I wouldn't recomend this method. It's been almost a week and they have not fully dried. Im gonna try using hot glue and see how that works.

The melted Crayola crayons worked as expected first time out for me. Loads performed flawlessly. The crayon hardens quickly and I had no pressure issues. All of the spent hulls I have from my first outing can be used again.

 

The only downside with the processing was that it was tedious and messy. I tried a few in my workshop and crayon is damn stinky and a bit smokey when melted. I moved my production outdoors after that.

My only reserve with using wax is if it gets warm and starts to melt. I don't want the slug sliding out of the wad and getting logded half way down the barrel. From what I can find online, glue slugs seem to perform just as welll as the wax but no heat related issues.

Wax is relatively soft, and will melt at lower temperatures than crayon. Crayons are a bit harder, just test one by scratching it with your thumbnail. I tested my rounds in July, in eighty degree temps that day. Nothing softened being out in the heat. As I said in an earlier post, I was surprised how well they shot.

 

If you use a shot cup that forms a tight gas seal in the hull, nothing is going to slide down the bore. I further ensured mine would go nowhere and no loose shot would infiltrate by cutting the hull to allow a nitro card to sit in the hot mixture to cover it and seal it, then curled the edge of the hull inward with a crimp operation.

 

Note: Perform any of these examples at your own risk.

I second your note

You can get a ton of wax cheap from candle supply places. My wife makes them. We have a 50LB bag of soy wax in the garage. Paraffin is even cheaper.

 

Link : http://www.peakcandle.com/category/Waxes/Paraffin-Wax.aspx

You can get a ton of wax cheap from candle supply places. My wife makes them. We have a 50LB bag of soy wax in the garage. Paraffin is even cheaper.

 

Link : http://www.peakcandl...raffin-Wax.aspx

Thanks, if the hot glue dosen't work for me I'll check them out. I can buy 250 rds of # 8 2 3/4" 12 ga for around $65 and make then into glue slugs for a tolal cost of less than .30 cents a rd.. If your shooting factory slugs it would cost over $200, so Im gonna keep trying until I get it right.

I made about 40 hot glue slugs and took them to the range last week. I shot them from my 870 and a friend shot some from his 590 a1. We were both impressed with the performance. They functioned flawlessly and were accurate at 25 yds .I definitely will be making more. I also made a few using Elmers School Glue, these did not perform well and I don't recommend this method.

Hate to be that guy reviving a dead thread but how did your slugs come out? Which method has worked best