Just a thought about home made ammo.

G

g.willikers

New member
I just finished reading a novel about old time Texas.
One of the characters needed a shotgun load that was more powerful than the birdshot he had.
So he emptied cartridges of the birdshot and filled it with coins instead.
Supposedly that gave him ammo like a shotgun slug round.
Hmm, wonder if that would really work.
 
It can be done and there was even some specialty ammo about a decade ago featuring flat disk projectiles for the 12 gauge.

But why bother? Yes dimes will fit down a 12 gauge barrel, they might even make it past the choke without bulging your barrel then again they might not.
 
There stil are factory loads in .410 that have flat discs combined with some round pellets. They are made specifically for the .10 gauge pistols like the Judge and Governor. Back in the day there is a legend that Billy the Kid used such a load during a jail break. His was Nickels in a SxS 12 gauge I think.
 
His was Nickels in a SxS 12 gauge I think.
Click to expand...

PURE B.S. Legend. Nickels measure .835"... won't even fit down a 10 guage.

Only a dime will fit and even then a tight choke will be a problem.
 
What do you think will happen when those flat disks hit the air at 1200 fps?
They spread out and sail all over the place. You would be lucky to hit anything. If you glued them together you might get something that would sort of work like a light-weight slug - if it stayed together. If you want to be able to anger a crowd a stack of coins or washers fired into the middle of them will do that but buck shot and a diverter will do a better job of deterring them.
 
Yes dimes will fit down a 12 gauge barrel, they might even make it past the choke without bulging your barrel then again they might not.
Click to expand...

You can balance a dime on the muzzle of a full choke 12ga, IF the gun was made before the advent of modern shotshells. IF the gun is modern manufacture, and full choke, a dime will fall right through.

IF you fire dimes from an 1899 full choke, after the shot, it won't be full choke any more, and that's if the barrel doesn't burst at the choke...

A cylinder bore gun will fire dimes, though why one would want to is beyond me...
 
kozak6 beat me to the article on box 'o truth


Basicly the dimes are gonna cost quite a bit.. that's assuming at that moment cost was a concern.
If you wanted to make some up you could try flat washers for cheaper.

they're not particularly powerful.. and surely not like a slug, They will separate in the wind, maybe if they was epoxied or something

they will be lighter then the heavier LEAD shot I do know that if you have to light of a load you won't get the velocity you need.. so you can't just willy nilly swap load weights or think lighter load is going to make it super fast or something.. apparently it's something to do with compression of the load..
Powder / Payload Weight ratio.. sorry maybe not the correct technical term but you know what I mean.


If you've not heard of wax slugs check them out, all you need is candle wax, heat source and the original birdshot.

The wax binds the lead till it hits the target and is actually QUITE devastating.
Kinda like frangible shotgun rounds.

There is a down side though.. candle / parafin wax has a low melt point so these are not a thermally stable round, so a warm gun might have too hot a chamber and make a mess after a while, also storing in the car for example would probably turn to goo.

Try youtube there are many video's on making these rounds, iraq veteran has quite a few I know.

You most certainly would have access to candle wax in the old west.

Another option is the cut shell, these generally will not feed out of anything other then a break action.

all you needs is a knife you cut the shell just under the shotcup, but not all the way thru.
The idea here is the top half of the shell will separate and leave as one solid chunk of plastic/lead creating a slug like effect.

out of the two the wax slugs look the most effect imo.



another thing you might consider, I currently do not reload, I do want to in the future, but I also want to get into casting.

Probably my first step into casting will be to take cheaper birdshot value packs and then melt and cast into larger shot.. #4 buck, #00buck, and also lee key-drive slugs, which are designed specifically for this task and will fit in shotcups and take a fold crimp rather than traditional roll crimp for slugs.

I've seen youtube videos that show the 7/8oz slugs work best (1oz seems to tumble a bit).
Since you're already starting with "good" lead quality should be a simple melt/mold situation.. no real prep or purification needed.
 
Flattened round shot and square lead sheet have long been used for "spreader shot" which was used when a tight choke barrel was to be used for close in birds. The shot does give a open pattern.
 
Is there anything those guys at Box O Truth won't give a try?
Bless their adventurous hearts.
The results were about what I expected.
Fiction is fiction.
Thanks for the replies.
 
In one of or two of the resident evil movies the lead character uses this coin trick it shows it being massively powerful, then again that whole series pretty out there to start with.
 
In the movie The Crow, the main character dumps a bunch of dimes, (and I think some rings) down the barrel of a sawed off pump gun, then shoots the scumbag pawnbroker, with movie devastating results.

Other than in the movies, its a rather poor idea.
 
Whether it's was slugs or coins or anything else, if it's not tightly in the shell, or fails to pass through the choke, you risk the gun blowing up in your hands.

The crow scene is definitely a good case of likely blowing up the barrel. There is a YouTube video where the guy remote fires a 12 guages after pouring about a pound of bird shot in the barrel. OMG. Good thing it was remote fired.

Any movie scene involving guns is likely to be 90% bs, or worse.
 
His was Nickels in a SxS 12 gauge I think.
PURE B.S. Legend. Nickels measure .835"... won't even fit down a 10 guage.

Only a dime will fit and even then a tight choke will be a problem.
Click to expand...

An 8 gauge has a .835 bore.
 
The good old "dime shot" of western lore is supposed to be not very good. A dime has about the worst ballistic coefficient of anything, and the tests I've seen on dime loads are extremely unimpressive.
 
"...fire dimes from an 1899 full choke..." Dimes are not harder than steel. Even the steel used in 1899. 89.24 percent silver and 10.76 percent copper until 1837. 90.0 percent silver until 1891. All silver removed as of 1965. 75 percent copper and 25 percent nickel from then. Might damage a Damascus barrel.
Mind you, like an animated cartoon, you can do anything in a novel about old time Texas. Recall reading that one myself.
"...those guys at Box O Truth..." Bunch of guys playing with their toys. Makes me insanely jealous. snicker.
 
Yeah, flat discs don't fly well at all. Look up "wax slugs" on Youtube. That is a pretty simple and somewhat effective alternative.
 
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