One of my friends just picked up a hammerless H&H 12 bore Paradox. With it is the sizer, crimping tool, and bullet mold. He is not a bullet caster so the job fell to me to help him out. Any thoughts on what the correct bullet hardness should be? I see references to "hardened" but no specifics. Seyfried's article in Handloader suggests a 20/1 alloy and I'll likely go with that unless other wisdom prevails. I have plenty of pure lead, wheel weights and linotype as well as several pounds of tin. Thanks in advance.
Marty
Lucky friend! True modern loaded Paradox ammo is quite expensive. A friend of mine had one and with a bit of experimentation we found that Sellior & Bellot rifled slug ammunition grouped perfectly. It uses the 1oz. Brenneke slug and is for 2 1/2" chambers too. Comes in packs of five and at a respectable price. Lagopus.....
Wish I could give you a direct answer. A few hardness data points. 58 cal Minnie Balls always dead soft. 45/70 40/65 for BPC Silhouette 1/25 about average. Smaller bores like 32/40 1/20.
New wheel weights worthless, most have a lot of other metals. I only cast with pure lead alloyed with pure tin.
You may already know this
Boats
I found this on another forum and went with Holland and Holland's recommendation of 15/1. I cast up one batch so far. My friend's Paradox came with a set of tools exactly like these minus the instruction sheet.
Absolutely beautiful. Thanks.
DDA
Nice, good thing about more tin is better fill out. Yours are just right.
Boats
Skeetex, the ones I got came in packs of five with a wild boar on the box. I guess they were intended for boar shooting. The box was marked 'Special Slug'. I can't recall the exact price but they were not much more than ordinary 12 bore ammo. The great thing was that they shot true. Lagopus.....
Kit is interesting, including a sizer. I guess thin at the muzzle right size bullet is essential. Lead Rifle bullets will swage as they are fired a few thousands to proper bore diameter. That's probably hard on a Paradox.
Boats
A few years ago I was in search of a 12 gauge slug to use in a Army & Navy “Jungle Gun”, the bores were ,729. H&H Paradox slugs had a cauton that they were not to be used in a bore size less than .735, so they were ruled out.
I found the S&B 12gauge 2 ˝” , they were just what I was looking for, but sorry, they were not available in the USA.
I found the “Jungle Gun” a new home and I will pass this informationon to him.