This strikes me as a dumb (Bubba) question, mostly because I have been reloading 30 odd rifle cartridges for 20 years now and I should know the answer.
But I don't. I've never reloaded a shotshell and I have a vague understanding that the powders used are very different. Also with such a big bore, pressure must work differently.

So here is my question; can I take factory loaded slugs, cut the crimp off, pull out the slug, wad and powder, put back half the powder, or a smaller part of the powder then reassemble and shoot?

My goal is simply to get a slug coming out at around 200 - 300 fps. Can I simply reduce the amount of powder until I get just enough speed?

I know well that with rifles you can run into over pressure issues with reduced loads and doing just this would be extremely dangerous.

Why would I want to do this? Well...I slaughter a hog each year and this years' hog is a big old barrow around 800lbs. I usually use a 9mm and it gets the job done. But there is a lot of bruising and the slug often ends up in the neck afterwards.
We use the head for various specialities which is why I don't want the bruising anymore. This animal is also fairly dangerous...so bigger is better.

So a shotgun slug moving just fast enough to penetrate a few inches would be ideal. I think.
This fellah won't hold still for a captive bolt gun, and I don't want to tie him up, rather just put down some feed and let him go happy.

I can see a number of defects in your plan.

1. The crimps for slugs are different than the crimps for shot but then maybe you don't intend to crimp the slug in place; another bad idea.

2. You have no idea what powder is used. Smokeless powders are meant to burn best at a certain pressure. Shotgun loads being low pressure start out with marginal pressure. I doubt your cutting the powder charge in half would increase pressure but rather would result in pressure so low that the powder would burn poorly or hardly at all. You might be left with a slug in the barrel.

3. Without testing you will not know at what velocity the slugs are exiting the barrel. Two or three hundred feet/second is also very slow so the slug might not penetrate as much as you wanted it to.

If you decide to do this, I'd have a wooden dowel handy to push a retained slug out of the barrel and would do some penetration tests on wet newspaper before trying the load on your hog.

1 to 1.5grs of red dot in 9mm 38 or 45 44 and a good heavy lead bullet will do what you want NO JACKETED bullets

What rifle calibers do you load for a lead bullet at 300 fps should be easy to do. DO NOT USE JACKETED BULLETS.

Just take a standard 12ga shell put about3 to 5 grs of Red dot in it place wad and slug on top crimp in place that well give you about 300 fps and out of long barrel it well be really quite.

I am not guaranteeing accuracy for the 12ga slug

The information below is just interesting on low powered loads


I shoot a 315gr lead bullet load out of my 416 Taylor at around 900fps that is quite. put a 20 inch extension tube on it and one can hardly hear it.

A long barreled 45 colt or 44mag rifle with velocity of 800 to 900 well be really quite too.

2.5grs of red dot and 158gr lead swc out of a 22inch rifle barrel in a 357 mag gives you 800fps and has less noise then a 22lr out of a rifle it shoots well under a inch at 50 yards.

The longer the barrel the better thus putting and extension tube on helps a lot.

The key is minimum powder charges to get the velocity needed

All these load penetrate like crazy

Or you can take the opposite approach and shoot a light hollow point at high velocity. 125jhp 357 bullet at 2500fps just blows up when it hit something not giving you much penetration but well leave a big mess

We butchered hogs at our farm and the neighbors since I was old enough to remember. Every single one of them was shot with a 22 short. Hundreds of them and never a single problem. Every now and then we had a big one. The big ones for the most part had to much fat on them for our eating so they got hauled to the packing house. Every bit of the head was used when we butchered.

A .22 LR solid brain shot will solve the problem. Brain in a pig is located higher than you would think.

I can't help with your shotgun issue since, as stated previously, too many variables without extensive testing. Don't do it.

I've killed a dozen or so cows and the 22 lr is our friend. I remember one that I hit a bit too low and gave him a nose bleed but he went right back to feeding so evidently the poor shot placement wasn't that painful. One more shot in the right place and all was right.
Good luck with the hog-zilla.
Zeke

Thank so much for the replies guys.
In the past I have used the .22lr most of the time, with no problems.
The last giant pig I shot had so much deformation and thickening of the skull that it didn't work.
Another round I used was .44 special light loads, in my .444Marlin rifle, with a Beartooth 325gn cast bullet. That worked well, but over penetrates into the neck and leave a lot of bruised meat.
The other idea I have is to try some .44 Russian laods but my real problem is that where I live I cannot get the fast powders you guys speak of, which is why I got to thinking about Bubba-ing 12ga slugs.

I have found that with rifled Bullets, when I was experimenting with .357 squib loads, it was hard to get consistency, with some bullets getting stuck in the barrel while others using the same load over penetrate.

quote:

The last giant pig I shot had so much deformation and thickening of the skull that it didn't work.

Shoot them in or tight behind ear if forehead skull seems too thick.

Alternatively, why not just use a regular shotshell, loaded with bird shot, and fire it on or very near contact with skin? Load will act like a solid for a few inches and then stop penetrating. It will be messy, tho.

...the problem with the birdshot is that it will go everywhere inside the head and we use it for making various trimmings.

I'm thinking I'll try some loads using VV N340 which is all I can get my hands on.
That powders burns a bit slower that trail boss, in a .44 Russian size case (.444 Marlin cut down to about .9") 3 - 5 grains should produce the desired effect, but I still have no idea if I can try it in the shotgun.

Nail gun?

N340 is a pistol powder and you can load it to 0 without detonation.
So use it in those shotgun shells and go for it.

How close can you get to those politicians err. sorry pigs?
A 22LR slightly from the rear into the thin back of the skull? Right where the spine enters.

You do not need to shorten those 444's to load them light! Just seat the bullet way deep with a dowel, easy peasy.

I'd try a .22 Magnum with a solid.There is a big diiffence between a 250 lb butcher pig and a 800lb old hog.You we have a hard time getting a regular .22 in from any angle.I've only helped kill one 800 lb one and it was years ago and we had a rough time.I have shot a lot of 450 to 500 lb and once In a while one of those will give you a fit.Steer is easier to kill than a hog.And I have shot more than a few hundred.

I did some testing with 12ga slugs and found that using VV N340 8 grains does the trick.

These are Remington rifled slugs that weigh in at 440 grains, so I'm confident they will do the job. As a test medium I used a bit of 1.5x1.5" timber. At 15gn the while event was far too much ado, at 5 the slug left a decent dent, while at 8 it passed through but only dented the tree behind.

I'll post a pic of the hog once he's up and hanging.

My Father and Grandfather, and various Uncles always just used a 22long.

Watched my dad kill a few hogs and steers in Ks when I was a kid. He used a 22LR with the rifle barrel very close to the animals forehead.