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Pard and a Ponsness Warren 800+


Captain Bill Burt

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Through the generosity of a good friend I’m the new owner of a PW 800+, preset for my loads and materials.
 

What a press! The first twenty five came out flawless. I test fired a few with no problems. Then I loaded for five minutes and made 34 shells, all perfectly in the round.

 

At that rate I can reload a month supply in an hour!

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Nice press.  I'm sure you'll put it to good use.  

 

I hate reloading shotgun shells and long for the day when I can buy decent quality shells at a reasonable price.  Until then, I'll just keep reloading my old STS hulls with my Mec 600 jr.   Did I mention that I hate reloading shotgun shells?  I seem to be getting more uses out of the hulls than I do the original boxes they came in.  

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Great machine.  By the way your stack height is off.  The shells are dished and have holes in the middle.  With a little adjustment they can look factory.

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m y friend has one of these - he has a motorized action because he is a quad in a chair , he shoots trap and loads about 10,000 a year i set up the motorized actuator on his unit  , it really works great , these are a really fine reloader 

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I noticed the press felt like it was dragging a bit and took a fair amount of effort to work compared to my 650. I tried resizing my gun club hulls first and not only did that make the press easier to work, the small holes in the crimps went away.

 

I think the steel base of the hulls was making it harder to resize them and preventing the hulls from getting seated all the way in the die. That caused them to drag on the plate and also affected the stack and the crimp.

 

Resizing the bases seems to have fixed both issues, though my stack height may still be just a smidge low.

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Gun clubs do size a little harder on the pw as it is pressing them into a steel sleeve vs the mec which uses a collet to resize.  Brass base hulls size easier.  If it hasn’t already been updated, pw offers a newer style powder seal for the hopper.  Much better design.  

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I have an 800 cvt (convertible) and a 800 plus,  they are great machines.  Currently setting up another 800cvt for a friend.  The best thing I can advise is to get ahold of Jim at http://www.jimsearneye.com and order his pdf on how to adjust a PW 800.  I think it cost $5 but it is the best $5 I have ever spent.  He goes over adjustment of every stage on a PW 800.  He approaches it from the stand point of you just got a used 800 from your buddy and it doesn't run right.   He is also a good source for PW parts if PW is out of stock or really behind.  You will love that machine!

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1 hour ago, Jack Spade said:

I have an 800 cvt (convertible) and a 800 plus,  they are great machines.  Currently setting up another 800cvt for a friend.  The best thing I can advise is to get ahold of Jim at http://www.jimsearneye.com and order his pdf on how to adjust a PW 800.  I think it cost $5 but it is the best $5 I have ever spent.  He goes over adjustment of every stage on a PW 800.  He approaches it from the stand point of you just got a used 800 from your buddy and it doesn't run right.   He is also a good source for PW parts if PW is out of stock or really behind.  You will love that machine!

I do love it.  I think it set it up for me pretty well.  He set it for STS Hulls, which dimensionally are pretty much the same as GC, but that steel base evidently made a difference. 


This is what they look like now.

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Most stack height problems are corrected by changing components and often do not require changing the machine settings.  Just some examples.  Titewad is much denser than Clays.  So if your stack height is too short you can change to a powder that takes up more space.  Wads come in different lengths.  Wads also come for straight and tapered hulls.  Remington STS and Gun Club are tapered.  (They have the same internal volume so load data is the same.)  Stack height can also be changed by changing the volume of shot.  Machine setting changes might also be made.  For example, if most or all of the hulls have holes in the center it might require more pre-crimp, changing the depth that the wad is inserted or changing the center punch depth.  I you are loading only for cowboy and have a load you like stick with it.  What recipe are you using?  I.e., powder type, charge weight, type of wad, amount of shot.  I got tired of changing settings so I have a Spolar for my Trap loads.  I have a Mec Sizemaster for SASS smokeless loads and a Mec Junior for BP.  These STS's have been reloading several times but are still holding a pretty decent crimp.  I ran out of Titewad and had to switch to Red Dot.  This required a few machine adjustments.

 

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11.3 grains is super light.  Try using the WAA12L (the grey wad) with your same 9/10 shot charge.  That is what I had to do with my SASS loads.  With the grey wad you might have to adjust the wad insertion depth just a bit.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The three of us shot a match yesterday with the shells from the original pictures. Just over 75 rounds and zero issues. Before the match I did toss two rounds that had leaked a small amount of shot. 

 

On the advice of the Pard who gave me the press I backed the precrimp off a quarter turn and loaded a few.

 

Thoughts? @Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933?

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The 800 is a great press, in a deal I did it ended up costing me nothing  for  2 PW 375's & an 800..a mate now has the 800 & loves it..turns out a beautiful shell, the single stage 375 ain't bad either.

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