Home Forums Reloading Shotshells 16 ga 2 1/2” hulls?

I am desperately searching for 16 ga 2 -1/2” hulls. Ballistic Products and Precision Reloading are out. Does anyone have any they want to sell, or any advice?

Ballistic Products sells a cutter than will shorten 2-3/4 inch hulls to 2-1/2 inches. It's about $30, if I recall correctly.

I've had success with low pressure 2-3/4 inch loads in a 2-1/2 inch chamber if the forcing cones are relatively long. I've also measured fired shells and discovered that many 16s, particularly European hulls, are in the 67-68 millimeter range in length, which is slightly longer than the 2-1/2 inch (65 mm) but not so much so as to give problems.

Cut a 1/4" off a standard 2 3/4" hull. Cheddite and Fiocchi seem to be the most commonly used but those I know who do this are also looking for the lowest pressures too, and these hulls help provide that. If these can't be found, any hull can work but one may have figure out a load on their own. I used Federal hulls as they were the most common back then.

At the time I used a piece of 2"x3" drilled with 12 ga diameter holes drilled in the wide side of the board to use as a jig to make my own 2 1/2" hulls. I used my table saw to cut the hulls to size. The board I used fit a dozen hulls so what I needed could be cut pretty quickly. I used a star crimp so I had to skiving the mouths but that wasn't difficult to do. I would cut down hulls that were beginning to get ragged at the mouth as this would give them a little longer usable life. When I lost any it wasn't the heartbreaker of losing once fired hulls as they were living on borrowed time by then.

The current, black colored Remington Game Load hulls are less than 2 3/4" and worked fine through my pre-WWII A-5 shotguns which utilize the 2 9/16" chamber. They are what I used in my A-5s of that vintage. If you roll crimp your hulls you probably wouldn't need to trim these hulls at all.

Fo 12 and 10ga I've made tubes that are the correct length and stick the shell in and cut off with a razor knife. You always get the same length, the cutters that go inside the shell depend on base wad height.


For 10 ga I had to solder two couplings together to get the right diameter.


For 16ga I drilled a 16ga hole though a 2x4 ripped to 2.5" and mount it in a vice, stick shells in and cut off the excess sticking out. Sorry no pic. I needed shells one day and did the 2x4, haven't looked for the right tube yet, it's only been about 10 yrs so one of these days.

I do the same as Erich, except mine is plastic. Cheddite is roll crimped for BB, 6 point for #6, Fiocchi is 6 point for #8, never get mixed up, and that's all the loads I need. Brenneke slugs from the 70's and 80's were 2 1/2 if you can find them.