Final Report S&B 1 1.8th ounce 2.5 inch Tactical Slugs.

I was sent this ammo by Eric from Ammoman to test on my blog and YouTube page.

It feeds properly in my High Standard Flite King and my Maverick 88.

I tested this ammo through 4 different barrels in my Maverick 88

A 18.5 inch Cylinder Bore barrel
A 24 inch Rifled Barrel
A 28 inch Ribbed Barrel with a Carlson Rifled Choke
A 28 inch Ribbed Barrel with a Mossberg Accu-choke Modified Choke

Surprisingly, the 28 inch barrel with the rifled Choke gave  the best accuracy out to 100 yards printing a 6 inch 5 shot group.

The Rifled barrel grouped 10 inch  5 shot group at 100 yards

The 28 inch with modified choke barrel grouped 19 inch 5 shot group at 100 yards

The 18.5 inch cylinder bore barrel only placed 3 out of 5 shots on the 2 foot target at 100 yards.

I also fired it out of my 26 inch NEF top break with a modified barrel and at 50 yards it grouped 7 inches with a 5 shot string.

And last I fired it out of the left barrel Improved Cylinder of my Amadeo Rossi Squire 12 ga SXS  28 inch barrels.  It grouped 10 inches at 50 yards.

I recovered several of the slugs after firing them into buckets of water and the held together and were almost whole.  Compared to the Remington Slugger Foster style slugs they looked almost unfired.

After seeing that type of performance I'd really like to take them and see how they work on a deer or a wild hog.

The BIG surprise was in my High Standard, it is a pistol grip shotgun with an 18 inch barrel and I was hitting the 100 yard target 7 times out of 12.  The recoil is a bit stout, more than the Remington Sluggers, but it is easily dealt with.

I still have some of these slugs left, if there is anyone near Corpus who would like to try them for hunting, please send me an e-mail.  As long as you send me pics and a brief report on how they worked for you, they're yours for the taking.

Getting ready for a Range Day

What you don't see is the 3 camera bags or the small tripods/camera mounts.  All this to test the S&B 2.5 inch Tactical Slugs from Ammoman.com and the Tactical Industries .22 LR AR Conversion, that I bought from CTD, who I won't link to, and I also got 2 additional Black Dog X-Form 26 round Magazines with the steel feed lips, also from CTD.  I'm still a little mad at CTD, so while I will buy from them personally I won't link to them.  Sometimes they have the best bargains for my budget, but after what they did following the Newtown Murders, I refuse to link to them.  Maybe they can change my mind if they posted a public apology from the owner.  And I'd prefer it to be a video apology so I can see the owner admit what he did was wrong.

Pretty soon, I'm going to have to buy a new battery for my Sony Camera.   I bought 2 extras to augment the original battery that came with it, the extras are fine, but the original battery is on it's last legs, and I always prefer to have 3 fully charged batteries when I take the cameras out.  The old saying, One is None and Two are One, comes to mind.

So you should see some video and a new post from me, hopefully Monday, on this range trip.

Now where did I put that staple gun?

OH!  I almost forgot.  You can see my new Blackhawk Sportster Rifle Rest that I got from Lucky Gunner thanks to the Gift Certificate they sent me for Christmas.  You can also see my standard shooting bags I got off of E-bay.  This will be the Blackhawk's first Range Day outing, so I hope it meets my needs better than the regular sand-filled shooting bags I've been using.  Maybe my cheek will hurt less from recoil while testing the slugs.

And I have an idea for testing the Aquila .22 LR 60 grain Sub-Sonic rounds, but I need someone local to help me build some target frames to my standard.  I'll pay for the materials.  I just need someone to measure/cut and screw them together.  My plan is to make 4 frames that are 16 inches wide and 5 feet tall, but have no cross beam supports in them except at top and bottom so a piece of butcher paper can be stapled to the frame.  I'll set them up at 10 yard increments to determine just how much of a drop the Aquila actually has over 50 yards.  I'll use my laser collimator in the chamber of my AR to be sure that all of the frames are level to each other and the target with the aiming point marked on all of them.  That way I can determine just how much drop the Aquila has over the 50 yard range in 10 yard increments.  Just another wild and crazy thought I come up with from time to time.

First Report - Ammoman.com - Sellier and Bellot 1 1/8th 2.5 inch Tactical Slugs

If you remember in an earlier post I told about how my new Chronograph came with a broken sun shield.  Well I set it up and on my first round of testing the S&B Slugs I shredded the front shield.  So I only got one good reading on the velocity of these slugs.  My Maverick 88 using it's 18.5 inch cylinder bore barrel fired that round at 1061 fps.  And it shredded the front sun shield on my chrono, so I need to contact Battenfeld for a new one

Now on to some pictures.  these are screen grab from my Sony DCR-dvd650 Camera.

First up photo of the group from the 18.5 inch barrel.  My first round, the one that shredded my sun shield, Sprog #4 said hit about 8 inches over the target.  The remaining 4 hit in a line about 5 inches above the point of aim which is the target sticker on the top left.

Next is 5 rounds with a 24 inch rifled barrel.  Total group size is right at 5 inches

This is 5 rounds using a 28 inch barrel with a Carlson's Rifled Choke  Groups size 4.25 inches

This is 5 rounds 28 inch barrel with a modified choke.  Group size 6.75 inches.

I'm going to head back to the range later this week and try these at 50 yards and see if I can possibly improve these groups with the rifled barrel and the rifled choke.

So this is the first part of Range Day.  I will tell you, that my cheek is bruised since the Mav 88 has a folding stock to fit behind the seat of my truck.  I don't think I would have bruised my cheek with a regular stock.  I was surprised how accurate the slugs are, using the center bead on the 28 inch barrel with the Carlson Rifled Choke.  With various reports I've read, a Rifled Choke doesn't offer enough engagement time to put proper spin stabilization on a slug.  Now these are Brenneke style slugs, so that may be the deciding factor as compared to Foster Style.

I'll dig out a few more boxes of Remington Slugger Slugs to compare.

All of the S&B Tactical Slugs were provided to me by Ammoman.com.  That link goes to their listing of these slugs.  They're $7.00 per box of 10 currently.  If you get some, please let them know you heard about them from me.  That way they'll keep sending me more interesting ammo to test  I've still got over 50 rounds of this, so I will be doing more testing with these.

Thank you to Travis B for the loan of the 24 inch Rifled Barrel.

You can see the first test of these slugs for penetration in water, as they compared to the Remington Slugger at the following link: Remember that Ammo I was given to test

Next test from Range Day is the Aquila 60 grain Sub-Sonic .22 LR rounds.

Also does anyone know where I can get my Century Arms. C91 which is a HK91 copy, re-barreled?  It has a shot out 18 inch barrel and I want to replace it with a 20 inch target barrel.  I bought this several years ago and have had nothing but issues with it and Century has refused to honor their warranty on it.  PTR Industries has said they only work on their own rifles, so I'm kinda stuck now.


EDITED TO ADD: Video of the test.

Remember that Ammo I was given to test?

In particular the S&B 1 1/8th oz 2.5" Tactical Slugs?  Here are some pics from the first test Sprog #4 and I did up in College Station at Gunsmoke Shooting Range. (If you go there, let 'em know you heard about them from me, Thankee)

On the Left the 2.5" 1 1/8 oz (Brenneke Style) S&B Tactical Slug, on the Right 2.75" 1 oz (Foster Style) Remington Slugger

This is the recovered S&B Slug after going through 3 gallons of water and hitting the ground.

Here is the Remington Slug after going through 3 gallons of water and hitting the ground.

I'm going to re-do the water test as soon as I get access to the local range.  I've been putting it off because it's $75.00 a year and I've always had other things, (kids, groceries, gasoline, electric bill, car insurance) that I needed to spend the money on.  However if I'm going to get serious about this, I'm going to have to fork out the $$.  As such, I've made a deal for another camera through one of my E-bay suppliers.  I'm getting a "Sports" Camera with protective housing external battery charger and 2 extra batteries, basically for the price of the camera with 1 extra battery.  Hopefully it will be here before the end of the month.  No guarantees though.  But it does record at 60 FPS, which coupled with my video editing software means I should be able to show some halfway decent slow mo shots.  Again No Guarantees though.

I'm still playing with the videos I took of the water test, that I took up in college Station.  I'll upload a few to YouTube and post them here after I get them looking halfway decent.

If anyone has a decent Chronograph that works that they would like to sell inexpensively, (like $40.00 to $50.00) please let me know.  Unless you are a manufacturer and wouldn't mind loaning me one for an extended field test.

And I still need to find someone with a GOOD Decibel Meter in the Corpus Christi area, so I can cross check the one I got from my E-bay Supplier.

Now if the idiots would quit setting off fireworks I should be able to get some sleep.  It sounds like the 4th of July around my house and the scanner has been going nuts ever since it got dark with calls of people complaining about all the fireworks.  (And it's NOT me)  I didn't buy any this year.

Raw video of S&B Slug test

I'm up in College Station visiting my eldest daughter and her fiance, and I've got some ammo to test.  Luckily, there is a shooting range nearby.

I called and talked to the owner and explained about how I had some ammunition that I needed to test and I was looking for a safe place to do so.  I explained what I wanted to do and he agreed to let me do so at his range.  Normally, they don't allow having stuff down range as they get people wanting to be ridiculous about some of the things they want to shoot.

However he gave me permission to use his range and do the tests I wanted to do.

The following two video's are the raw unedited footage.  This netbook doesn't have the memory to do proper video editing so that will have to wait until I get home to do proper editing.



This is from my cruddy camera.  It was supposed to be a good HD capable camera that could record at 720p, but as you can hear from the sound it makes a bunch of extraneous noise and no matter how I set the resolution, it comes out grainy.



This is from my decent Nikon, but still not the camera I really need for this, but I'll work with it until I can afford better.

Now if you are in the Bryan/College Station area and would like to do a little bit of shooting, I can highly recommend Gunsmoke Shooting Range in Snook, Texas about 10 miles west of College Station off of Highway 60 just about 100 yards west of Highway 50.  They have Rifle, Pistol and Shotgun Ranges in addition to Trap Shooting.  And trust me you will really like the 100 yard Rifle Range.

I'll be doing some more testing with these shells as I have been loaned a rifled Mossberg barrel for my pump action, and we will be putting these slugs to the test even more.

Oh and my lovely assistant is Sprog #4 aka my youngest daughter.  And NO you can't have her e-mail address or her phone number. 

Ammo Test for Ammoman

Eric over at Ammoman contacted me about an e-mail I sent him several years ago about testing ammo for him.

He is getting ready for 2015 in a big way and is making some changes.

So be on the lookout for good deals to go up over there soon.

As part of that he sent me some ammo to test and I just got it in today. (Note this is Monday the 15th when I write this, but it is scheduled to post Sunday the 21st )

I asked Eric if they still had the wooden ammo crates that a lot of Eastern European ammo comes in., and if they did could they send the ammo in one of those as I find those crates very handy and sturdy for storage.

You can see how the ammo was packed in the crate

Ohh and what cool ammo did I get to test? This special pack of .45 ACP ammo, with 100 rounds of 230 gr FMJ for practice and 20 rounds of 230 grain Hydra-Shok JHP's for self defense carry.

http://www.ammoman.com/45-automatic-federal-american-eagle-230-grain-jhp-fmj-combo-pack-120

And 100 rounds of 2.5 inch 1 1/8th ounce Brenneke style slugs.

http://www.ammoman.com/12-gauge-sellier-and-bellot-slug-sb12hvs-10

I am going to have a lot of fun testing these and comparing them to some of my other ammo.

Not sure if you can see but those slugs are very similar to Brenneke slugs in appearance. I WILL be cutting one up so show exactly how it's put together.

I"m going to have to get or borrow a rifled barrel for my Maverick/Mossberg 12 ga, or borrow a rifled choke for it to test how these do at 100 yards against Remington and Federal Foster Slugs.

As you can see the .45 ACP Combo pack has 2 50 round boxes of FMJ's and 1 20 round box of JHP's for self defense.

Now one of the reasons I asked for the wood crate from Ammoman, is they are handy for storage.  My Coleman Butane Bistro Camp Stove fits almost perfectly after taking out the corrugated cardboard in the bottom of the crate.  It is a lot better than the thin plastic case it came with which my boys destroyed less than an hour after I bought the stove.  I will have no worries now of my stove getting damaged in the toolbox of my truck.

I think I'll ask Eric to always send my orders in these wooden crates, I might have to pay a little more for it, but it's worth it to me.  The crates already have a handle at each end and the lid has a small lock on it.  The only weak link I think is the thin metal "hinges" on the lid.  I'll hit the hardware store and grab 2 small cabinet hinges so I won't have an issue with the lid.

So hopefully after Christmas Vacation I'll have a good post up with the results of testing all this neat ammo.

And if anyone local to the Corpus Area has a Rifle Barrel or a Rifled Choke for a Mossberg/Maverick please hit my E-mail over there on the Right under where it says Send a Missive.