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Shot shells,


Slowhand Bob, 24229

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Guys, though I have been loading shot shells fer over ten years I am still a duffer as I settled on one bp load early on and never ventured. My wisdom was to use Win AA emptys for the double guns and everything worked good until! I now desire to try some smokerless loading for pumps and auto loaders, thus possibly using some of the other brand hulls that have been getting culled in the past. All the slick green Remington hulls have been going to a shooting pard and will remain so but there are a couple of others that I am curious about possibly using. What experience do you have with these and would they load like the Featherlite AAs without extra adjustments? All three have brass bases and look in very good condition. Do I throw away the silver base hulls or are they reloaded by anyone?

 

Winchester Super X

Concorde

Acmesport(?) has a base stamped Nobel Sport

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Toss the steel base hulls (silver looking). Very few folks want them. Other pards can get all they want in trash cans at Cowboy shoots.

 

If you need a "different" color for your smokeless loads, you could use the gray Win AA hulls, or the gold Rem STS hulls. THOSE will have the same volume and loading data you are used to. Buy a case of factory loads, then you have hulls to load. Or look on eBay or GunBroker, going for about 6 cents a hull or so.

 

The odd brand hulls are going to be a PAIN to get components, loading data, etc for. Especially the "foreign jobs". They will without much doubt NOT load the same as the Win AA hulls you have been using.

 

Good luck, GJ

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Good advice already about the gray Win AA hulls or the gold Remington STS hulls. However it should be noted that Remington hulls are slightly longer and depending on your press (may) require an adjustment to your crimp. That being said there are many that feel that the Remington hulls perform better in a side by side due to the slicker plastic, they just seem to shuck out easier.

 

YMMV

 

-Deadlee

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Slowhand,

 

In my experience even the "cheap" Remington Gun Club green hulls work in a sxs. Given the right load I am confident they would work in a pump or semi auto.

 

As an aside, my daughter worked at Winchester/Olin as a metallurgist in their brass foundry. Just because the metal base is brass colored does not mean it is brass, and just because it is silver colored does not mean it is not brass. To me the thickness of the plastic hull is far more important than the color of the metal base.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Smoke

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To me the thickness of the plastic hull is far more important than the color of the metal base.

It ain't the color that makes steel bases and ribbed hulls fail to shuck properly out of doubles. It's the steel that is not springy like brass. It's the ribs and the plastic composition that don't seem to release, not the plastic thickness. Thick plastic does not guarantee it will release.

 

That's why an earlier post clearly called out discarding the steel bases, not the silver ones. A magnet to the rim will quickly teach you which is which. The Gun Club hulls, with ribs, will reload and shuck for SOME doubles. For others, they won't. The BEST guarantee is the high-end target hulls from Winchester (AAs) and from Remington (STSs). All others have some higher rate of failure to shuck.

 

 

Good luck, GJ

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Howdy

 

Loading Smokeless shotshells ain't like loading BP and it ain't like loading metallic cartridges. You will never see a brand of shell specified when reloading metallic. And BP ain't too particular either.

 

ALL smokeless shotshell recipes are extremely component specific. That means the hull, primer, wad, powder, and shot weight are always specified exactly. If one does not have the exact components specified in a recipe from a published source, or a reputable online source such as Alliant or Hodgdon, then the prospective reloader should either get the correct components, or find a recipe that specifies what he has on hand. Not to panic you, but the walls of shotgun barrels are much thinner than the walls of a rifle barrel, or the chambers of a revolver.

 

My point is, stick with a hull that you can find a recipe for in an authoritative source. And I don't mean the guy at your club who loads whatever he finds on the ground.

 

I shoot a whole lot of Trap and hang out with a whole lot of Trap shooters. Frankly, everybody I know including me, reloads Remington STS huls. They are simply the best hull there is. Probably a close second would be the Winchester AA. The Winchester AA used to be the best hull, but when the STS came out, they proved to be better.

 

My advice to you is to stop giving away all your STS hulls. Keep some for your self. Or else, use your AA hulls.

 

Last advice is go to the Hodgdon or Alliant websites and check out their loading data. If the specific hull you are thinking about does not show up in their data, choose something else.

 

And for what its worth, Clays is the best powder I have ever used in loading shotshells.

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Slowhand Bob,

Not to intentionally dispute an earlier poster, but in the Remington line, only the STS's and Nitro 27'a have brass case heads. In Winchester's, only the AA's, (red or dark gray), have brass case heads. In Federal's line-up, only the Gold Medals have brass case heads.

 

To my knowledge there are NO European Brands with brass case heads sold in the USA. Many Remingtons, including the Gun Clubs and all Shur-Shot branded ammo have STEEL case heads. In Winchester's line-up, everything except the AA's are STEEL, and in Federals line-up, everything except the Gold Medals are STEEL.

 

Many of these have a brass looking wash on them, making them appear to be brass, but they are not. That wash is put on there to retard rusting. Put a magnet to the case head and you will find out quickly that they are steel.

 

For CAS use, the only hulls I would recommend are the STS's, Nitro 27's, and AA's. You rarely see Gold Medals.

 

For hunting and target use, you will have good luck with the Remington Gun Clubs and the Shur-Shot branded hulls. Of course the STS's and AA's are fine also. The Federal promo load cases are ok for 1 or 2 reloads, and then should be discarded.

 

I agree completely that Hodgdon's Clays is one of the very best powders for 12 ga. reloads. Alliant's Clay Dot is just as good, and in fact it mirrors the performance of Clay's grain for grain. Both powders are excellent.

 

RBK

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Thanks for the replies, what caught my attention with the hulls I listed above was how good they looked. They actually looked better than a large number of the AAs but there just might be a reason for this. Pick-ups from the cowboy match will probably yield a lot more AA hulls that have been loaded a time or two while not so for the competitions. The high end Remingtons are actually in much shorter supply ,to the point that I would not mess with them for my personal use.

 

The smokeless load that I am looking at is the light Clays load I have seen on the Wire frequently. With this my greatest concern (question) revolves around wad pressure settings and how this will relate to my current bp settings?

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I have successfully reloaded Remington Gun Clubs for years. They are plated steel bases but work fine. I have gotten up to 12 loadings per shell, no less than 9, and they use the same load data as STS hulls.

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I have successfully reloaded Remington Gun Clubs for years. They are plated steel bases but work fine. I have gotten up to 12 loadings per shell, no less than 9, and they use the same load data as STS hulls.

 

 

You are very correct, IF they are properly resized, they should work OK, especially in pump and lever guns. With doubles, where the shells have to esentially fall out, brass case heads are far and away the most reliable.

 

RBK

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C-mon J Bar, I need all the insight I can get. I had intended to do a real big loading session for the black powder shells, my new lite load, but the PW has balked at taking new settings. I guess she were happy with the old rusted in settings and didnt want to change. If I can get one more good marathon run of bp loads out of her, then I will shift over to the smokeless loads next. Shux, looks like I am going to need to load half a box of shells one at a time through her just to shoot tomorrows match!

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The smokeless load that I am looking at is the light Clays load I have seen on the Wire frequently. With this my greatest concern (question) revolves around wad pressure settings and how this will relate to my current bp settings?

Most light Clays loads, with the gray Win or CB wad, don't have the ability to take much wad pressure, since the load column is a little on the short side due to light powder and small shot volumes. I load a recipe that has been posted several times in several forums for Clays that needs almost no pressure.

 

The best thing for wad pressure is to start loading a few, using maybe 20 pounds of pressure, and see if you can get the crimp to form nicely and close so it is level and no hole appears in center. If you have sunken centers, then lighten wad pressure even more. If you have raised centers, increase pressure a little. If slight tweaking of the wad pressure won't straighten out your crimp, then you usually have to start adjusting final crimp die, and perhaps the crimp starter.

 

I'm sure you would really like to keep the crimp height and the final crimp setting height the same as what works for your BP load. Well, you really have more flexibility with the BP load, because you can raise or lower a few grains of BP with almost no bad effect. What this means is you may have better luck getting the smokeless load tuned right FIRST, so you can load a great shell, THEN slightly adjust your BP powder weight (or even the wad) so, without changing crimp starter or final crimp, you also load a great shell. Make sense?

 

Since you are not finding many Rem STS or Nitros anyway, I'd suggest you standardize on Win AA red for your BP, and Win AA (handicap) gray for your smokeless, as there is a slight adjustment needed to switch from Win to Rem, but none needed for Win red to Win gray.

 

Good luck, GJ

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...Since you are not finding many Rem STS or Nitros anyway, I'd suggest you standardize on Win AA red for your BP, and Win AA (handicap) gray for your smokeless, as there is a slight adjustment needed to switch from Win to Rem, but none needed for Win red to Win gray.

 

Good luck, GJ

Hi Joe,

 

Hubby loads just the opposite for me. Gray for BP and red for smokeless.

 

Regards,

 

Allie Mo

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Since they are easier to get I load Estates a lot they reload beautifully the first two or three loadings with fewer rejects than AAA. I load the same recipe with slight tweeks in Estates, AAA, gun club Remingtons and STS's. The tweeks are limited to the crimp settings for the hulls memtioned. My reloads are always run though a gauge and I have been maintaining about a 1% reject rate but they are used in a 97 rather than a SXS. I load at the bottom end of the chart and have found that at least for me any hull that is in good condition is a canidate for the reloading room I may have to tweek the load a little to get what I want but I am willing to do that.

12

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You are very correct, IF they are properly resized, they should work OK, especially in pump and lever guns. With doubles, where the shells have to esentially fall out, brass case heads are far and away the most reliable.

 

RBK

 

 

I load on a MEC 77 Sizemaster. It resizes the bases. The Gun Clubs actually fall out easier than Winchester AA's with heavy Black Powder loads.

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