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Tequila Shooter

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What recipe do you use with the Estate hulls,    mostly which wads do they take?   Tapered or straight.     Thanks    GW

Claybuster CB0178-12, 7/8 shot, 12 to 14 gr Red Dot. Have to play with crimp starter depth a bit.

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That wad is equivalent to WAA12L grey.

So we are going to load them like WW hulls     Thanks   GW

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Good luck with that.

 

I shoot Trap at my club every week, and I am one of the 'managers'. We actually call ourselves Openers because we are the guys who show up early to set up the field, take the money, and then put the equipment away at the end of the day.

 

I can tell you with authority that neither Remington STS hulls or the gold Nitro hulls ever wind up laying on the ground to be picked up, or dumped in the trash. All our regular shooters know they are the best hulls for reloading, and if they don't take them home themselves, somebody like me will be hovering behind them as they dump their empties into the trash barrel. Plenty of Gun Clubs and Estates to pick out of the trash barrel, but never any STS or gold Nitros. Don't find many Winchester AA hulls in the trash either, they get snapped right up too.

 

Yes, the Remington STS hulls are the best, particularly for Black Powder loading. The plastic is the same as the gold Nitro hulls, just a different color. The plastic these hulls are made from is very slippery, and ejects the easiest out of a SXS, even when the chambers are cruddy with BP residue.

 

I usually buy a few cases of STS hulls when they go on sale, which is not very often. I empty them once at the Trap field, then load them with BP until they are too cruddy to reload any more. Usually get four or five BP loadings out of them.

 

 

Might be the case at your range but when I inquired here at our range the owner took me to a 55 gallon  drum and gave me 500 STS hulls to get me started. 

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Might be the case at your range but when I inquired here at our range the owner took me to a 55 gallon  drum and gave me 500 STS hulls to get me started. 

 

We dump a 55 gallon drum of empties into the dumpster every week or two. All different brands.

 

As I said, there are almost never any STS hulls in there, they either get taken home by their shooters to reload, or snarfed by guys like me.

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My press required no adjustments when I switched to the STS or Nitro hulls from AA hulls

My question pertained to loading Estate's,  but Thanks  anyway.      GW

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Am I the only one who still shoots and reloads AAs?  {When not using all brass that is.}

I "mine" the trash every chance I get for AAs, red and gray.  They work fine for BP.  Once the folds are burned, I cut them down and roll crimp them for one more round.

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6 hours ago, H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619 said:

Am I the only one who still shoots and reloads AAs?  {When not using all brass that is.}

Nope      Have good supply of old AA's        Get more than enough new AA's every shoot to load once and discard        GW

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Am I the only one who still shoots and reloads AAs?

 

I will use them in a pinch, but Remington STS hulls really are better for Black Powder. The plastic is more slippery and they pop out of a sooty chamber more readily than AA hulls do. So I only use AA hulls when I don't have any STS hulls.

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Not to let this die, I want to Thank Yusta B and others for replies.    Just rain a couple of boxes of Estates thru the P/W and the loaded nice.  Good crimp, only point would be they do not drop into Lyman shell check. They stop just short of flush but they drop into my 97 fine. Did not want to dig out SXS but guessing will be OK.   Now just have to wait  till temp gets to reasonable level to try them.       Thanks  GW

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Well my take from the replies on the post is that I'm going to have to continue to get used hulls.  I thought I would've gotten lucky and have gotten info on primer size, if any could be used on a MEC loader, how they crimp, and how they hold up with BP subs. 

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5 hours ago, G W Wade said:

  Good crimp, only point would be they do not drop into Lyman shell check. They stop just short of flush but they drop into my 97 fine.      Thanks  GW

 

My bad - I didn't mention I always run any hull through my MEC Super Sizer.

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10 hours ago, G W Wade said:

they do not drop into Lyman shell check. They stop just short of flush but they drop into my 97 fine.

 

That quite commonly means the brass head is not resizing down small enough.  If you have access to a Mec Supersizer 777, you can try collet sizing the finished shell heads using the 777.   If this corrects the shell checker tightness, you are golden for most double barrels.  If I remember right, the PW loaders do not use a collet sizer which usually is tight enough for any gun.   The Higher end MEC loaders all use the collet sizer.

 

Same as what Yusta B is suggesting!

 

Good luck, GJ

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Your right GJ.   P/W does not have a collet sizer.  I do not need any cases, was just a experiment.   Until it warms up I won'y know but the Estates loaded nice with a great crimp. and no change in settings on my machine.   The only reason I even had the Estate hulls was for making dummy rounds for myself and others in need.   I try to provide practice dummies that are different than the shells they normally use.   Found some orange Fiocchi at a cowboy clays match that followed me home for so lucky pardner.       Thanks guys     GW

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16 hours ago, Tequila Chase said:

Well my take from the replies on the post is that I'm going to have to continue to get used hulls.  I thought I would've gotten lucky and have gotten info on primer size, if any could be used on a MEC loader, how they crimp, and how they hold up with BP subs. 

only thing I can answer on that is standard 209 shotgun primers. I dont run plastic hulls or have a MEC so I dont have any good answers for those. Nothing holds up or shucks as nice as brass hulls IMO. The other upside is no need to keep different primers on hand. The magtech brand uses the same large pistol primer that I use in my 44/40's and 45 colts. The downside is it takes a bit longer to load them. 

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Primers are different sizes.  Win primers some times don’t fit well in rem hulls due to a ring of plastic.  This can be removed with a drill bit as a one time operation.  For me I just use rem primers, but I have not found them at a reasonable price recently.   Still working through a few sleeves of them I bought a while ago.  
 

euro primers like cheddite tend to be larger and using win or rem primers after euro primers can result in loose primers.  My solution was just use win or rem primers.  Cost is a little more but then it’s not an issue.  Besides I shoot so few hulls compared to other shotgun sports it really a non issue.   

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To try to guess what the OP really wants to know :blink:

 

It's not trivial to buy new hulls the way that you can buy new cartridge brass.   A new unloaded hull is only available from European suppliers through suppliers like BPI, etc.   And they usually need some preparation steps done like skiving the hull mouth and paying close attention as you crimp the first load.  So, loading new shells is left to advanced shotshell loaders.   Probably not for you.

 

Yes, that leaves you using used hulls.  At least once fired.   Unless you can stand firing factory loads in cowboy matches.  Win Low Noise Low Recoil (used to be called Featherlites) are used by lots of pards, and reload OK.  But quality control on the size of factory rounds is poor, and have to be checked and sometimes adjusted.

 

The easy source for used hulls is to fire a high quality shell that you can get a good price on, perhaps one intended for shotgun target sports or bird hunting where lead shot can be used.  

 

A less consistent  and more laborious source for used hulls is to scrounge locally (at shotgun clubs, for example) or buy used hulls over the internet, but shipping jacks up the cost on those.

 

Primer size - there's two main sizes.   American, and European.   Euro primers are about 1 to 2 thousandths larger than an American primer.   Euro primers are a little cheaper than American primers.   American primers can be loose in a European hull.   Not usually loose enough that it causes problems, but if fired primers fall out of the hull, it is getting to be a problem.  A European primer used in an American hull will expand the primer pocket slightly.   Then loading an American primer may mean the primer is going to be loose in that pocket now.  Bottom line - use American primers that work with your load data in American hulls, and Euro primers in euro hulls.    If you must go cheap and load Euro primers in American hulls, keep on doing that.  You may see a little smudge ring around the primer pocket after shooting even those "tight" Euro primers, indicating the pocket is now a little loose. (I toss a hull that shows that)

 

Will any particular shell load well in a Mec Loader?   Well, there's bunches of shells and about 7 Mec loaders, but in general, yes, all the hulls available today can be loaded in any Mec loader.   My advise is PICK ONE HULL type and stick with it, as there usually are loader adjustments (and recipe adjustments) needed if you change from one hull to another.   Will all hulls crimp well?  Yes.  I'd advise using hulls that have an eight point crimp, not a six point, because the higher quality hulls are loaded as target loads having 8 point crimps, better plastic and they will last longer and shuck better, as well as make a nicer crimp.  

 

How long do plastic hulls last with BP loads?   Remington STS will give you the longest life.   Hands down.  With BP, that will probably be 4 reloads.    Winchester AA hulls only about 2 or 3 loads.  Most other (especially cheap "promo" loads) - you may only get one or two loadings.  Smokeless powder gives a lot more life on all hulls, but the STS hulls still last longest for me.

 

So, bottom line, pick a good hull, stick with it, and be ready to replace hulls when they won't crimp anymore or split at the mouths or even in the body.    To me, the only hull that makes sense for an American cowboy double barrel shooter loading BP,  is the Remington STS, with American primer, loaded with a plastic wad, shot four times and discarded.  Buy 'em while Walmart still has them at $6.97 a box.   Shoot them once (or let a clays or trap or skeet shooter shoot them and give you the hulls back) then you can load them.

 

If you wanted to go all old timey, buy paper hulls at a premium price, load with fiber wads, roll crimp them, and you might get three loads from each hull.  But you won't use a Mec loader for all of the steps needed - you'll need more equipment.

 

Getting setup with PRECISELY what you want may take a month or so.  Shotgun loading is safer, but more complicated and easier to make purchases that don't work well, than cartridge loading.  If you have a pard who loads BP like you want to do in your area, it's well worth taking him to lunch and writing down exactly how he does it.   Loading BP is actually easier than smokeless in shotshells, because you can select exactly the right amount of powder to bring the internal stack up to the right spot to make a good crimp, especially if you use a short enough wad (like the Winchester Red 1 and 3/8 ounce wad (WAA12R or Claybuster CB1138-12) for the Remington or Winchester tapered wall hulls.

 

Good luck, GJ

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On 12/29/2019 at 2:09 PM, Hollifer A. Dollar said:

I have been using the 8 mm base Cheddite hulls from Ballistic Products for a couple of years, loaded with real BP & roll crimped.  They don't work very well with star crimping as the crimp tends to mushroom after a few days.  We use the virgin roll crimped Cheddites exclusively at big matches, because they shuck reliably & you can throw them away (roll crimping a hull more than once is problematic at best).

 

BPI runs the primed Cheddite hulls on sale pretty regularly.  The cheapest are here - https://www.ballisticproducts.com/Cheddite-VALU-HULL-12ga-275-8mm-tin-plated-head-case_2200/productinfo/1391272SHC/

 

This is the hull we use for "big" matches - a little more expensive but shuck more reliably than the red hulls - https://www.ballisticproducts.com/Cheddite-12ga-2-3_4-8mm-brass-primed-and-skived-100_bag/productinfo/1391272/

 

 

 

Holler

I've been using the red 8mm base Cheddites for a couple years. Before that it was the clear ones. I've had no problems shucking out of my SKB. To overcome Hol's crimping problem I use Ballistic Products Super Crown Crimper (https://www.ballisticproducts.com/Super-Crown-Crimper-Large-Bore-6-Point/productinfo/0740006/) it works great on new hulls.

 

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20 hours ago, Riverboat Red, SASS #71733 said:

I've been using the red 8mm base Cheddites for a couple years. Before that it was the clear ones. I've had no problems shucking out of my SKB. To overcome Hol's crimping problem I use Ballistic Products Super Crown Crimper (https://www.ballisticproducts.com/Super-Crown-Crimper-Large-Bore-6-Point/productinfo/0740006/) it works great on new hulls.

 

I have used that special crimp starter on Federal hulls that came skived but wound up using a shot card to secure the shot on the first load (crimp). Finding a wad that worked for 7/8 (with data) was the hard part.

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