Guys who shoot .30 slugs..

Been playing with .177 cal slugs for few months now .... crazy accurate and flat shooting. ( have .177 .22 .25 & .30 cal slugs and guns that can shoot em !! )

Easiest slug caliber I've found is .22



Now as too the .30 .... have some NSA 43's that shoot only @ 20 fps slower than 44.75 JSB's and while they have better BC and don't drop as much, there still a short and fat projectile and really IMO no where as good a long range slug as a longer and lessor frontal area .25 or .22 and no where near as slippery as a .177

Retained energy nearly always goes to heavier weights no matter caliber .. so pending what your trying to do, game size etc .... Sometimes less caliber is more.

It's just fun playing with differing calibers just like it is with powder .... Same applies, sometimes you need more gun, sometimes less is good enough.

I have a rainstorm.30 that I bored to .203. It shoots the Nielsen 50,55 .. Rick Morrill 67 grain bbt and his 52 grain eppug.. all accurately. I never could get the lighter slugs to shoot well but upon reading Scott's post on the speed he’s shooting them at, I may have been pushing them way to fast. I think the barrel twist is a huge factor in this shooting the slugs well. I recently acquired some 61 grain bbt hp, that I’ve not had a chance to try yet. No difference that I’ve noticed in difficulty shooting slugs than my 22 jkhan, .(24 grain vk slugs) , 25 armada (33 grain vk , 36 grain bbt, 37 grain nsa) . My aces shoot slugs well but those barrels are fitted inside the tubes so no flex or vibration to contend with. 

What speed did you have to dial the 33 grain down to for accuracy??

Very nice! That’s good speed and accurate at that speed makes a great bullet. I’ve got to try some of those. Wonder what the bc is? 

30cal is a tough slug caliber (presuming .300). It takes a lot of air for generally not a super high BC. I personally like 62gr Varmint Knockers (BHN-7, BC 0.131) and NSA 65.5gr (BC 0.128). They both shoot well in every 30cal that I have shot them with out to 200m.

Also agree that the bang for the buck is 22cal. The Griffin 40-44gr have shot really well for me to around 1015FPS (0.155 and 0.16 BC respectively). I can push the 40's supersonic with my Taipan, but they get really weird above 1015 (I believe the lead is too soft).

The 24.8gr NSAs shot surprisingly well around 1200FPS with my 600mm barrel in my Veteran. I thought they would be all over the place, but they can manage 1.25-1.5" a little over 100m. 

I really believe that 25cal could outperform 22cal though. Late last year, I had spent some time with 43.8gr NSAs with my MKII, and when I had it properly tuned for them - they were extremely accurate no matter how far out that I wanted to shoot them, despite the wind and weather. That rifle was just way too difficult to tune and was setup for pure BR.

Anyways, I would like to see more options for high BC ammo and harder lead. I just chatted with Dale Riggert, and he seems to be on board with using his harder lead alloys with his newer ammo. I really cannot afford the time to be making my own swaged airgun slugs lol. I'm cool with casting for powder calibers and all, but a man only has some much time to invest in hobbies!

I think that maybe .25 is or could be the sweet spot for air rifle slugs. My current project gun is a used .30 Impact PP that I want to turn into or tune to be a long range .25 caliber slug gun, mostly ground squirrels. I thought about leaving it a .30 but as Ghost says above the juice doesn’t seem to be worth the squeeze. I’m also not looking to make it a 100+ FPE in .22 caliber since I’d like more than 5 or 6 shots per fill and need it for hunting not tethering on a bench. My initial thoughts are 36 to 38 grain NSAs at between 950 and 1000 FPS. That will give me in the 70 to 80 FPE region and with decent BC slugs out to around 250 yards. I’m not really interested in playing the 100 slugs for $20 game, since I shoot a lot and am not made of money... So mass produced slugs such as NSA, JSB or H&N are the direction I am heading...

Mtnghost, what twist were you shooting the 65.5 nsa?

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Primarily with 1:26" (TJ). They were also very accurate with the 700mm FX slug liner that I had (900-925FPS), and they were equally accurate under 900FPS with the Edgun R5's choked LW barrel (17" twist if I remember right). I would still own the R5 (long) had the bolt design not have been as abysmal as it was.

I think that maybe .25 is or could be the sweet spot for air rifle slugs. My current project gun is a used .30 Impact PP that I want to turn into or tune to be a long range .25 caliber slug gun, mostly ground squirrels. I thought about leaving it a .30 but as Ghost says above the juice doesn’t seem to be worth the squeeze. I’m also not looking to make it a 100+ FPE in .22 caliber since I’d like more than 5 or 6 shots per fill and need it for hunting not tethering on a bench. My initial thoughts are 36 to 38 grain NSAs at between 950 and 1000 FPS. That will give me in the 70 to 80 FPE region and with decent BC slugs out to around 250 yards. I’m not really interested in playing the 100 slugs for $20 game, since I shoot a lot and am not made of money... So mass produced slugs such as NSA, JSB or H&N are the direction I am heading...

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In a slightly orthogonal direction, I would love to try a couple of different 22LR & .224 barrels. There are a lot of possibilities out there for matching them up with casting dies and/or premade projectiles. I'm generally good with 10 full power shots per fill, but there are always tradeoffs with power vs. shot count vs. the overall weight and length of the rifle. I have also reserved myself to discounting any PCP airguns that are over 30" long, super bulky, and heavy (i.e., non-hunter friendly) - so I wind up trading shot count to run shorter barrels that require higher air pressure to compensate.

Cool, im running a 1:26 tj. I’ll try them out. Maxxed out at 160bar I can squeeze 120fpe so they hopefully should run good.

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I know that they have good precision with that TJ to at least 1010FPS in calmer winds. I've all but given up on the standard science around stability factor when it comes to twist rates with airguns though. 

I cast these for my 700mm .30 cal Impact. They average 47.30 grain and hit like a brick at 90 FPE.

What mold is that for the 47.30 grain?

What mold is that for the 47.30 grain?

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I used the NOE 300-46-RF-CC4 4 Cavity Brass mold with a BC of 0.0442

Where else can I get the NOE 300-46-RF-CC4 4 Cavity Brass mold with a BC of 0.0442 cause I checked there website and there sold out

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Being a NOE product, I do not know of anywhere else to get these. Just keep checking the site for restock...That's what I did. They run batches from time to time.

If you have one of the tj barrels designed for .30 pellets by bob sterne.. it will also shot slugs quite well from what I’ve read. I have a .308 tj barrel on my Cothran and it will shoot .30 pellets as well as bullets very accurately.

vmaxpro said:

Do you feel this is a difficult caliber to shoot slugs? Ive been playing with a .22 slug shooter and wow is it way way less hold sensitive. Just curious on what others feel is the “ easiest” slug caliber to tune. My .30 slugs are deadly accurate, but they will let you know in a hurry if your not doing your job.

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vmaxpro said:

Do you feel this is a difficult caliber to shoot slugs? Ive been playing with a .22 slug shooter and wow is it way way less hold sensitive. Just curious on what others feel is the “ easiest” slug caliber to tune. My .30 slugs are deadly accurate, but they will let you know in a hurry if your not doing your job.

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