Home Forums Reloading Shotshells Quandry Cure

Well, I appreciate the replies and due to the success with this adventure I’ve decided to load all of the available brass. That is about 100 12 ga and slightly less that a full box of both 20 & 16 ga. Boomers gotta boom ya know.

Dan take a dozen of your filler wads(under shot) put them in a heavy duty ziplock with some bp bullet lube and microwave them several times for short intervals to melt the lube.leave them in the bag moving the wads around to soak up the lube. When you shoot the loads this will leave your fouling moister and easier to clean with better patterns. Just a thought,of course still yours to use or lose. MB

MB, I will give that a whirl, thanks.

Discovered an oddity today in the Lyman BP manual. Same charge weights, only difference being the wad style, gives a minor increase of pressure with paper wads and a significant velocity increase in comparison to plastic shot cups. It’s more prevalent with lighter loads that heavy, but is found across the board in the 12 ga data.

Have just about finished priming the brass, all gauges. Next comes the loading. All of the 12 will be loaded with BP. I’m puzzling about going smokeless for the 16 and 20. Haven’t found any load data for smokeless/ brass shells and card wads. Another adventure in the making!

I suspect that smokeless load data with plastic shot cups will translate without a lot of hysteria. My WC Scott 12 is damascus and will receive BP only. The 20&16 are newer kids on the block and I likely won’t let them smoke.

I was recently blessed with background info re: one box of 12 ga Rem-UMC brass. It was purchased as military surplus in the mid 50’s and was almost certainly manufactured during or perhaps slightly prior to WW 2. Buckshot loads fired in the ‘70s and tucked away. It arrived with scant evidence of having been fired and in excellent condition.

So, I loaded up 3 dozen with buckshot. Birdshot and balls next. Mr. Scott is unhappy in the safe and demands relocation to the Group W Bench.

It’s amazing how fast this process eats up lead and powder.

A few pics of the endeavor

dan are you casting your on buckshot ?

No sir. I do a lot of 8-ball stuff, but casting buck ain't one of them. Stuff in the pic was manufactured by Hornady. Funny thing about this is the geometry of the case and buck. It's #4 buck which is not wildly popular amongst 12 bore shooters with conventional cases. With the brass wall being quite a bit thinner however, 5 pieces of shot nest perfectly in each layer. 4 layers to an ounce. Looking at the Lyman BP manual a fella would swear than nobody shoots anything but 00 in 12, #1 in the 16 and #3 in the 20. And #6 shot in all. -phffft-

"Balls!", said the Queen....

Your mention of mil-sup brass shot shells reminded . My Uncle worked at an Army Ammunition plant back in the '60s. One day he was tasked with destroying dozens of cases of brass cased buckshot. Ran them over with a bulldozer.

Little bit of poking around leads me to abandon the smokeless powder idea. Pressure runs about 2X higher with smokeless than black and I don’t need the bother or expense for sizing equipment.

Back to the bench! I will load balls today. And maybe some 16 bore buckshot.

i think lord black is the most appropriate for them brass shells in my op.

The Scotts have balls, 25 more loaded today. I hope the queen is jealous and I am smiling.

Well, another box of miscreant virus vaccine has been assembled. 16 ga; 2-3/4 dram; 1-1/8 #4 buck. This is getting way too easy.

I have no empty brass. -sniff-

Guess I have to amuse myself counting rain drops?

Rough count: 4 boxes of 12, mixed loads of Ball/#4 buck/#8 shot. 1 box of 16, all #4 buck and 1 box of 20 ga, all bird shot. It all cycles normally thru a variety of guns, including a pump and an auto.

Shot shells have an amazing appetite for powder and shot. . For example, I loaded the powder by volume rather than weight which is how it sells. Ballpark 1-3/4 pounds by weight found a home in 6 boxes of shells. Roughly 3# of roundballs. 4# each of buck and birdshot.

That is all,

DD

go shoot something then

With any luck at all....