CHAPTER V

PROJECTILE

Introduction:
Early bullets were round lead balls that were loaded down the muzzle of smoothbore weapons
and propelled by the ignition of a physically separate charge of black powder. Modern bullets
developed in the 19th century for use in small arms that had rifled barrels. In these rifles, a system of
helical grooves cut into the interior surface of the gun’s bore imparts spin to the bullet during its
passage. The spin enables a bullet to maintain a point-forward attitude in flight, and under these
conditions, an elongated bullet with a pointed tip is aerodynamically much superior to a round ball; it
sustains its velocity much better in flight, thereby gaining in both accuracy and range.

PROJECTILE
- A generic term used when referring to any metallic or non-metallic ball that is propelled from
a firearm. It may also be referred to as bullet, slug, shot, or missile.

BULLET/ SLUG
- This refers to a metallic or nonmetallic, cylindrical projectile propelled from a firearm by
means of expensive force of gasses coming from a burning gunpowder. Layman’s term of
bullet is SLUG.

Origin:
- The term is from Middle French, originating as the diminutive of the word boulle (boullet),
which means "small ball".
- In government parlance, a cartridge containing a bullet is still call “ball cartridge”, from the
original terminology of the days when all bullets were balls.
- Bullets in modern concept are projectiles propelled from rifled firearm which are cylindrical
in shape. The core of the slug is an alloy of lead antimony and sometimes tin.
- Depending on the gun, the mass of a bullet usually ranges between 0.02 kilograms and 0.4
kilograms.

The First Bullets

 The history of bullets parallels the history of firearms. Advances in one either resulted from
or precipitated advances in the other. Originally, bullets were round metallic or stone balls
placed in front of an explosive charge of gun powder at the end of a closed tube.
 As firearms became more technologically advanced, from 1500 to 1800, the bullets changed
little. They remained simple round lead balls, differing only in their size.
Timeline of the First Bullets:
900: Chinese Fireworks and Fire Lance Projectiles
- Alchemists of the Tang dynasty were the first to discover the explosive effects of combining
saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal. While these were initially used to create the world’s fireworks
displays, military applications were soon discovered.
- Fire lances were gunpowder-filled bamboo tubes, attached to spears, which could spew flame
when a fuse is lit. They could also transform any objects placed inside them, such as rocks,
into potentially lethal projectiles — the first “bullets” for the first “firearm.”
1400s: The Cast Lead Ball
- With the development of armor and stone fortifications in Middle-Ages Europe, firing stones
at high speeds was no longer powerful enough. Gunsmiths and ammunition manufacturers got
creative by shaping molten metal into sphere shapes, first with iron, then with easier-to-
produce lead. These lead balls, projectiles created specifically to be shot out of firearms, were
the first bullets.
1830s: Experiments in Cylindro-Conical Bullets
- In the 1830s, a French infantry Captain Henri-Gustave Delvigne designed bullets that were
“cylindro-conical,” rather than spherical. The term refers to their cylinder-shaped body
ending in a pointed head. François Tamisier, a French artillery captain, added grooves to the
design for improved stability.
- Both inventors ran into a difficult: bullets needed to
be small enough to be easily loaded, but big
enough to line up with the barrel grooves. Louis-
Etienne de Thouvenin’s rifle, the carabine à tige,
contained a steel stem that expanded bullet bases
when the bullets were struck with a loading ram.
1841: The Minié Ball
- Despite its name, the Minié ball was the culmination of the experiments in conical bullets. It
had a hollow base and three grooves, intended to make it fit easily inside rifles. Building on
Delvigne’s work, French army officer Claude- Étienne Minié designed the bullet to expand
upon firing, grip the grooves, and spin out from the barrel, allowing for greater muzzle
velocity, range, and accuracy. The Minié ball’s design brought together and enhanced the
developments that came before it, making it the first modern bullet.
1882: The Full Metal Jacket Bullet
- The Swiss engineer Eduard Rubin decided to encase a
soft lead core within a shell made of copper alloy,
creating the world’s first full metal jacket bullet. This
practice allowed bullets to fly faster without suffering
deformation or losing too much metal while escaping
the barrel. The copper may also be substituted with
steel alloy — either way, full metal jacket bullets have
higher speeds than bullets with only lead.
1898: The Spitzer Bullet
- In 1898, Captain Georges Raymond Desaleux of
France tackled the challenge to minimize the air resistance that a bullet faces. His solution
 was to elongate the bullet even further
and add a thin cylinder atop a thicker
one. This new design allowed for high
accuracy over longer distances than ever
before. The spitzer bullet’s aerodynamic
qualities were further improved with the
development of the boat tail base in 1901. When
loaded into the first machine guns, this bullet
changed the face of warfare.
The bullet as we know it started taking shape mainly in
the 19th century. With that said, this idea — harnessing the
power of an explosion to launch a projectile faster than one
could throw it — is an old one. In earlier times, ammunition
was pottery shards in bamboo tubes, then round stones, then
balls of molten lead. In the future, it may take forms that
we cannot even imagine today.
https://shop.otmtactical.com/The-History-of-Ammunition-The-First-Bullet.html

Projectiles for the Early Firearms

 The very first cannon fired arrows, simply because

the arrow was the most familiar projectile. The shaft had to be found with rags to make it fit
the gun barrel.

 Later came stone shot, since stone was freely available, easily worked into shape and did not
strain the gun.
 Stronger guns allowed the use of metal
shot. While this meant casting and more
expense, spent shot could sometimes be
retrieved and re-used. Chaining two shot
together was an effective anti-personnel
weapon.
 Langridge was the term used to describe
the collection of scrap metal, horse-shoe
nails, gravel, and anything else calculated
to wound, loaded into the gun.

 These lead bullets were made for the 19th

century percussion revolvers.
  These mid-19th century paper cartridges were manufactures by Ely Brothers, the famous
London ammunition firm.

ANATOMY OF A BULLET:

Figure 1. Parts of a Bullet

Parts of a Bullet:
1. Tip - Extreme forward end of a bullet.
2. Meplat - Blunt tip of some bullets, specifically the diameter of that
blunt tip.
3. Ogive - Curved forward part of a bullet.
4. Nose - Forward end of a bullet, including the tip, the ogive, and meplat
(if present).
5. Cannelure - Circumferential groove in a bullet generally of a knurled or
plain appearance for the purpose of lubrication or identification, or to assist in crimping a
bullet in the mouth of a cartridge case.
6. Bearing surface - Portion of the outer surface of a bullet that makes direct contact with the
interior surface of a gun barrel.
7. Base - Rear portion of a bullet.
8. Heel - Configuration of the intersection of the bearing surface and base of a bullet.
https://projects.nfstc.org/firearms/module10/fir_m10_t06_01.htm

Classification:
A. Based on Composition
1. Lead bullets – those which are made of lead or alloys of these metals (lead, tin, and
antimony) which is slightly harder than pure lead.
 Lead bullets cannot be used to shoot high velocities because their soft exterior
deforms during acceleration, which effects ballistics.
 Lead bullets may also cause jamming and can be damaged, again, because they are so
soft, by how automatic weapons load.
 Lead bullets must be lubricated to prevent the lead adhering into the bore that will
interfere seriously with the accuracy. This action is called “leading.”

2. Jacketed bullets – those with a core of lead covered by a jacket of harder material such as
gilding metal, a copper alloy of approximately 90%.
  A jacketed bullet is also called an expanding bullet because
when the jackets are stripped back to uncover the core, the
metal jacket on both ends flatten out and stays inside the
person creating internal damage when fired.

Purpose of a Jacket
The purpose of a jacket is to keep the bullet intact and from
not breaking up when it strikes a target, to prevent damage while in the weapon, and to
control expansion.

Types of Jacketed Bullets:

a. Full metal jacket - encloses the entire bullet, except for the
base. Normally used for military purposes, these bullets are
also known as full jacketed, full patch, full metal case, and
ball ammunition.

b. Semi jacketed – partially encloses the bullet except for an

exposed soft point or a hollow point.

c. Total metal jacket – fully encloses a bullet core.

https://projects.nfstc.org/firearms/module10/fir_m10_t06_06.htm

B. Based on Color and Finish

1. Armor-piercing bullets
- are designed to pierce metal. They usually contain a hardened
core or are completely composed of a substance other than
lead or lead alloy.

2. Exploding bullets
- contain a primer or other explosive and are designed to
explode upon impact.

3. Frangible bullets
- are designed to disintegrate upon impact with a hard surface
in order to minimize ricochet.

4. Incendiary bullets
 - contain a chemical
compound that ignites
upon impact, starting a fire.

5. Tracer bullets
- contain a burning
compound in the base to permit observation of bullet flight.
https://projects.nfstc.org/firearms/module10/fir_m10_t06_08.htm

A. Bullet Base Construction

1. Solid base bullet – composed
of one material with no
jacketing
2. Open base - jacketed bullet
with the core exposed
3. Jacketed solid base -
jacketed bullet with the core enclosed
4. Gas check bullet - composed of a lead bullet with a shallow copper alloy cup fitted
to the base

Solid base Open Base

Jacketed solid base Gas check

https://projects.nfstc.org/firearms/module10/fir_m10_t06_09.htm

 Bullet Base Shape

Bullet Bases can be made in the flat (FB), dish base (DB), cup base
(CB), hollow base (HB), heel base (no abbreviation used), boattail (BT), and
the superior rebated boattail (RBT). Corbin does not make the standard BT but only the RBT, which
offers about 15% better accuracy due to less muzzle blast induced dispersion, better barrel life, less
gas cutting in some loads, and far longer tooling life.

1. The Dish Base (DB)

 - Generally used to provide a very slight outward expansion of the bullet during
firing, by vectoring a small component of the gas pressure at a slight angle to
the bullet centerline.
- This can help "seal" the bore when the bullet is used in undersize or unknown
size barrels and prevent gas cutting.
- It seems to have little or no effect on accuracy
other than improving it in an oversize barrel.

2. The Cup Base (CB)

- Typical of paper-patched lead bullets but can also
be used with a jacketed bullet. It has a radius
cavity that is less than half a caliber deep, starting
after a margin of from .010 to 0.030 inches
(typically about 0.020) from the edge of the bullet.
- The margin gives the bullet edge greater resistance
to expansion at the muzzle and is designed for the range of muzzle pressure
expected.

3. The Hollow Base (HB)

- Typically has a conical or combination radius and conical cavity shape, but it
may be made with a truncated conical cavity.
- The difference between hollow and cup base is the depth. Hollow bases are
almost always made a half caliber or deeper. This shifts the weight considerably
forward on the bullet. Hollow bases are generally impractical to use with
jacketed bullets, as the jacket will be penetrated
and cracked by the amount of force needed to draw
it into this conical shape in a simple one stroke
operation.
- The HB shape is typically used on lead handgun
bullets, or on large calibers where the weight
would be excessive if the bullet were very long
with a solid base.

4. The Heel Base

- Made to fit into the cartridge case up to the base
shoulder and is used in certain very old calibers
where the original size of the bullet diameter was
the same as the chamber.
- Conversions of black powder cap and ball
revolvers to shoot cartridges meant that the
chambers usually fitted the ball or bullet diameter,
so inserting a cartridge meant the cartridge case
diameter needed to be the same.

5. The Boat Tail Base

- Boat tail bullets have a tapered base that helps
smooth the passage of air over the base and
reduces base drag. This is true at any speed,
but it has a small fraction of the total drag at
supersonic speeds.
- The nose drag becomes so much greater that
the base effect is largely buried in the
improvements that a nose design can make. At
 subsonic speeds, the reverse is true. A blunt bullet can be made to fly further
and with less drop below the speed of sound if
the base is streamlined, compared to making
the nose more pointed.

6. Rebated Boat tail (RBT)

- First introduced in mass production by the
Finnish Ammunition concern of Lapua
(controlled by the Finnish government).
- The design provided a solution to the problem of muzzle gas focusing itself
in a ball in front of the emerging bullet, which takes place with a boat tail
design. Flat bases, and rebated boat tail, deflect the laminar flow of muzzle
gas that wishes to follow the smooth outline of the bullet and then break up
right in front of it. The gas is forced to flow off in a ring, with a clear area in
the center through which the bullet passes.

7. The Flat Base (FB)

- The most common and is the "default" design
when no other design is mentioned for a jacketed
bullet.
- With a lead bullet, the Base Guard (BG) and the
flat base (FB) are ballistically identical: they
perform the same way and you can use a BG
punch without the copper disk with no ill effect
(a tiny bump appears in the exact center of the base).
http://corbins.com/design.htm

B. Bullet Tip Construction

1. Soft point bullets provide for exposure of a portion of the core at the nose of a
jacketed bullet.
2. Jacketed hollow point bullets have a cavity in the nose to facilitate expansion.
3. Semi jacketed hollow point bullets have an exposed portion of the lead nose that
contains a cavity.
4. Metal point bullets (capped bullets) consist of a standard lead bullet with a harder
metal jacket over the nose to enhance bullet penetration.
5. Solid nose constructed of a single metal or alloy.

Soft point bullets Hollow point bullets Semi jacketed hollow point
 Metal point bullet Full metal jacket

 Open point bullets (soft point, hollow point, and semijacketed bullets) offer
opportunities to identity the manufacturer or source based on the construction of nose
cavities. The details of the interface between jacket, core, and cavity are often
proprietary in nature and readily observable.
Nose Cavity Details of Open Point Bullets
Details Type
Serrations in the nose portion of the bullet jacket. Silver tip
“Petals” of jacket material folded into the cavity to help Hollow point
retain the core within the jacket even after impact with a
target.
Center-post design Hydra shock

Serrations Folded hollow point Hydra-shock

https://projects.nfstc.org/firearms/module10/fir_m10_t06_09_b.htm

6. Pointed type – Spitzer bullets have a sharp point and a long ogive.
7. Conical bullets/conoidal bullets have a cone shape
8. Wad cutter Shapes- A cylindrical bullet design having a sharp shouldered nose
intended to cut target paper cleanly to facilitate easy and accurate scoring.

Spitzer bullets Conical bullets Wad cutter

 Rifle Nose Shapes

1. Tangential ogive or spitzer
 - are a special case of secant ogives where the
angle joining the nose and the shank is zero.
- A spitzer is designated in calibers of radius, such
as 2-S, 6-S, or 10-S.
- The larger the ogive number for a spitzer, the
more pointed the bullet becomes.

2. Secant ogives
- are just like tangents except the junction of the
ogive and shank makes an angle other than
zero.
- A secant ogive has a bit of a discontinuity or
non-smooth change from ogive curve to shank.

3. Elliptical ogives
- have a constantly changing radius about two loci
or focal points.

 Bullet Tip Styles

1. Open Tip (OT)
- is the result of seating the core below
the jacket.
- match bullets that have a small hollow
point or tip that is the by-product of the bullet making
process.

2. Lead Tip (LT) bullets, also called "soft points"

- are made by seating the core so it is longer than the
jacket, or at least so that when the ogive is formed the
lead extrudes out of the jacket to some extent.
- This bullet is made entirely of lead. There's no copper
or hard-metal jacket of any type (like you'd expect
from a full metal jacket bullet).

3. Open Tip Hollow Point (OTHP)

- are made by using a special core seating punch that
fits the jacket ID but has a conical projection. The
OTHP core seating punch forms the cavity in the core
while it is seating the core in the jacket.

4. Lead Tip Hollow Point (LTHP)

- tips are made by using a core seating punch that fits the die bore, rather than
the jacket ID, and also has a conical projection on the end. The LTHP core
 seating punch forms the cavity in the lead while it compresses the lead core
into the jacket.

5. Ballistic Tip
- The main purpose of these typically polymer tipped hollow point rounds, is
to increase the coefficient of the bullets ballistics.
- One of the first tipped bullets was the Remington Bronze Point, first
introduced over 80 years ago.
- Because of the bullets ability to stay uniform for longer periods of time
down the bore and along its more aerodynamic trajectory, the design enables
a stable flight path leading to improved accuracy.
- Also popular within hunting applications, upon impact with a soft target the
polymer tip is forced into the core of the bullet, thus creating a rapid and
uniform expansion with maximum takedown power.
- This design enables a projectile to have the best of both worlds by
combining the efficacies of soft point reliability, hollow point lethality, and
unparalleled ballistic performance.
http://corbins.com/design.htm

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS

The solid bullet or bullet core
The two most common bullet-forming methods are casting and
swaging. Hollow points can be formed by either method. Hard (harder than
lead) solid bullets can be stamped (a metal punch cuts a bullet-shaped piece out of a bar or sheet of
softer metal) and machined from metal stock. Machining includes any process where a machine is
used to shape metal by cutting away portions. A typical machine used for bullets is a lathe. A lathe
rotates the bullet metal against steel chisels to gradually cut away material.
CASTING A BULLET
1. Casting is pouring molten metal into a mold. This mold is hinged and when closed has a
hollow space that is the shape of the bullet. The metal is melted in a crucible (a metal or
ceramic pot that can hold molten metal safely) and then poured into the mold.
2. After the metal has cooled, the mold is opened and the bullet falls or is knocked out. Any
imperfections are removed by cutting or filing. If the bullet is extremely deformed, it can be
melted down and the process repeated.
3. To cast a bullet with multiple sections of different materials, the first material is poured into
the mold to partially fill it. After this material has cooled and partially or completely
solidified, the second molten material is poured into the mold to fill it partially or completely.
This can be done several times, but most often is done twice to create a bullet with a heavier
section (for penetration) behind a softer section (for expansion).

SWAGING A BULLET
1. Swaging is a cold forming process, which means that it involves shaping metal without
heating to soften or melt it. The appropriate amount of material to be swaged (measured in
grains) is placed in a die. A die is a harder metal container with a cavity (an empty space)
shaped like the bullet without the back end. The die is part of a larger stationary object or is
held in place on a platform.
2. A metal punch that fits into the open end of the die is forced into the die to the appropriate
depth. As the punch forces the bullet metal into the die cavity, the material takes the shape of
the cavity. The pressure can come from a manual or hydraulic press, from repeated hammer
blows, or from a threaded punch that is screwed on. Excess metal is squeezed out of bleed
holes.
3. The punch is removed from the die and the bullet is pushed or pulled out of the cavity. Any
imperfections are removed by cutting or filing.
4. Multiple swaging steps can be used to insert partitions, to create a bullet out of multiple
materials, and to further define the shape of the bullet. Sometimes several steps are necessary
to add features such as a hollow point.
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-7/Bullet.html
MISCELLANOUS TYPES OF BULLETS:
1. Baton Round/ “Rubber Bullet”
- also known as kinetic impact projectiles, are a less
lethal alternative to traditional bullets, typically
used for riot control.
- a non-lethal projectile fired from a specialized gun.
Although designed as a non-lethal weapon, they
have caused several deaths when used incorrectly.
- Plastic bullets were invented in 1973 by British
security forces to replace rubber bullets in an
attempt to reduce fatalities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baton_round
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bullet

2. Compound Bullet
- A type of bullet that has a dense metal core covered with a jacket of lighter metal
which does not bring lead into contact with
the rifling of the weapon.
- This was designed by Major Rubin of the
Swiss Army in the 1880’s (7.5×55mm
Swiss).

3. Discarding Sabot
- A type of bullet designed for greater
velocity. It has a ball covered with light
metal which separates when fired. The
Remington arms has its own version called the
accelerator bullet.

4. Expanding Bullet (“dum dum”)

- are projectiles designed to expand on impact. This
causes the bullet to increase in diameter, to
combat over-penetration and produce a larger
wound, thus dealing more damage to a living
target.
- Expanding bullets were given the
name Dum-dum, or dumdum,
after an early British example
produced in the Dum Dum
Arsenal, near Calcutta, India
by Captain Neville Bertie-Clay.
- Dum dums consist of an ordinary
copper jacketed lead bullet with
the lead exposed at the nose, usually through a deep x-shaped cut in the nose.
- The theory is that upon impact, the lead slug expands and mushrooms to a much
wider diameter than the bullet itself.
- The mushrooming also generates sharp points that cause grievous wounds passing
through human flesh.
- They are sometimes called flower of death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanding_bullet
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/these-5-deadly-bullets-are-important-guns-fire-them-111666
 5. Frangible Ball Type
- Frangible ammo is a training round designed to
disintegrate into dust when they strike a hard
target.
- It is a tool for close-quarter trainings.
https://www.ammunitiontogo.com/lodge/what-is-frangible-ammo/

6. Flechette Rounds
- A flechette round contains hundreds
of small, needle- or razor-like
projectiles designed to penetrate
armor and inflict painful wounds.
- They have been used as ballistic
weapons since World War I.
- Flechette rounds were particularly
useful against human wave attacks,
although they do cause higher than
normal wear and tear on barrels.
- This rounds would send a high speed cloud of deadly
darts downrange.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/these-5-deadly-bullets-
are-important-guns-fire-them-111666

7. +P ammo
- is simply regular ammunition made more
deadly by increasing chamber pressure.
- The gunpowder burn rapidly builds up
pressure inside the firearm, sending the bullet
out of the barrel at hundreds if not thousands
of feet per second.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/these-5-deadly-bullets-
are-important-guns-fire-them-111666

8. Spitzer Bullet
- A spitzer is an aerodynamic bullet
design used in most intermediate and
high-powered rifle cartridges. The name
derives from the German word
Spitzgeschoss, literally "pointed bullet".
- A pointed bullet whose base has been
angled and tapered, so as to even better
resist air drag.
https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/6107300

SHOTGUN SLUG

- A modern shotgun slug is a heavy projectile made of lead, copper, or other material and fired
from a shotgun. Slugs are designed for hunting large game, self-defense, and other uses.
 - The first effective modern shotgun slug was introduced by Wilhelm Brenneke in 1898, and
his design remains in use today.
- Most shotgun slugs are designed to be fired
through a cylinder bore or an improved cylinder
choke, rifled choke tubes, or fully rifled bores.
Slugs differ from round-ball lead projectiles in that
they are stabilized in some manner.
- A shotgun slug is typically more massive than a
rifle bullet. As an example, one common .30-06
bullet weighs 150 grains (0.34 oz; 9.7 g).

Types of Slugs
A. Full-bore Slug - use a shuttlecock method of stabilization by placing the mass at the front of
the projectile.
i. Brenneke Slug
- was developed by the German gun and
ammunition designer Wilhelm
Brenneke (1865–1951) in 1898.
- The original Brenneke slug is a solid
lead slug with ribs cast onto the outside,
much like a rifled Foster slug.
- There is a plastic, felt or cellulose fiber
wad attached to the base that remains
attached after firing. This wad serves
both as a gas seal and as a form of drag stabilization. The "ribs" are used to swage
through any choked bore from improved cylinder to full. The lead swages and fills
the grooves.

ii. Foster/Rifled Slugs

- A 'Foster slug, invented by Karl M. Foster in 1931, and patented in 1947 is a type
of shotgun slug designed to be fired through a smoothbore shotgun barrel, even
though it commonly labeled as a "rifled" slug. A rifled slug is for smooth bores and
a sabot slug is for rifled barrels.
- The Foster slug was designed to enable
deer hunting in the Great Depression using
smoothbore, choked shotguns.
- The Foster is the standard American
domestic shotgun slug; they are sometimes referred to as "American slugs" to
differentiate them from the standard "European slug" design popularized earlier by
Brenneke.

B. Saboted Slugs - are shotgun projectiles smaller than the bore of the shotgun and supported by
a plastic sabot.
 The sabot is traditionally designed to engage the rifling in a rifled shotgun barrel and
impart a ballistic spin onto the projectile.
C. Wad Slugs - This is a type of shotgun slug
designed to be fired through a smoothbore
shotgun barrel.
 a wad slug additionally has a key or
web wall molded across the deep
hollow, spanning the hollow, which
serves to increase the structural
integrity of the slug while also
reducing the amount of expansion of the slug when fired, reducing the stress on the shot
wad in which it rides down a barrel.
 the wad slug is shaped with an ogive or bullet shape, with a smooth outer surface. The
wad slug is loaded using a standard shotshell wad, which acts like a sabot.

i. Plumbata Slugs
- A plumbata slug has a plastic
stabilizer attached to the
projectile. The stabilizer may be
fitted into a cavity in the bottom
of the slug, or it may fit over the
slug and into external notches
on the slug.
- commonly known as an “Impact
Discarding Sabot” (IDS).

ii. Steel Slugs

- Made of non-deforming steel, these slugs are
well-suited to shooting in brush, but may
produce overpenetration.
- They also may be used for disabling vehicles
by firing in the engine compartment or for
defeating hard body armor.

D. Improvised Slugs
i. Wax Slugs
- These were made by hand by cutting the end off a standard birdshot loaded
shotshell, shortening the shell very slightly, pouring the lead shot
out, and melting paraffin, candle wax, or crayons in a pan on a
stovetop, mixing the lead birdshot in the melted wax, and then using
a spoon to pour the liquified wax containing part of the birdshot
back into the shotshell, all while not overfilling the shotgun shell.

ii. Cut Shell Slugs

- These are made by hand from a standard birdshot shell by cutting a ring around and
through the hull of the shell that nearly encircles the shell, with the cut traditionally
located in the middle of the wad separating the powder and shot.
- They can be handmade on the spot as the need arises while on a hunt for small
game if a larger game animal such as a deer or a bear appears.