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New to the group and forum. Reloading for my new to me Armas Garbi 16 ga.

I use cheddites with my 7/8 oz loads. Very soft and better patterns than a 20 gauge. Using several different wads dr16 the Italian 16 can’t recall the designation right now, universal powder since PB is no longer available.

Another new guy here, I took a break from reloading for a couple years but getting back into it again, using a PW375C. I’m a hobby machinist and have an old PW600 and 600B that I might get spruced up and modernized with some help from my lathe. I was part of the yahoo group years ago, not a very active part but everyone over there was very helpful!

I have a Remington 11 that gives me trouble with Cheddites, Rem hulls shoot fine in it. Gave up a long time back and just shot Remingtons, but the Cheddites are so much nicer to deal with on the reloader so I’m diving in again. If I succeed I’ll start a new thread on my long road of trial and error. If I fail then I guess I’ll just have to buy a double gun to digest the extras and feed the 11 what it likes!

Thanks for hosting us, I’ll admit it threw me into a mild panic when I couldn’t get into the yahoo spreadsheets anymore!

coolp51d, I have that problem with my 1946 Browning Auto 5, it will not cycle any European brand of shell. Winchesters, Remingtons, Federals and Activs cycle flawlessly but Fiocchi and Cheddites will fail to extract or eject every time

It may help to polish your chamber. Some older guns have really tight chambers.

The "brass" head on modern shells is actually brass plated steel. True brass expands and returns to almost the same size as it was unfired. Steel "brass" does not return to original size as much. Fiocchi and Cheddites "brass" doesn't seem to return to original as readily as US made ammo. A tight chamber or a little roughness in the chamber allows the "brass" to grab and prevents proper extraction.

Michael

Rick and Michael, thanks for the input. Good to know other long-recoil actions suffer this problem too. I polished my chamber a little in the past, but I did not have the measurement tools back then to really go for it, more of a deep clean than anything. This weekend with gauges and mics in hand, I went for it. I’ll start another thread with details so I don’t derail this one. Thanks again!

-Thomas

New to the group. I am just getting into reloading and started with the 16a. I have a 2.5” chamber fox sterlingworth, AYA #2, and merkel O/U, as well as a few other 16 ga guns to feed.

Looking forward to going down the rabbit hole!

My first post in the shotgun forum. I just acquired a Browning A5 16 gauge, 16/65 barrel. Thinking I may have to start reloading if I want to shoot it. Can't seem to find any 2.5 in shotshells.

Never reloaded shotshells before. Not sure I want to get into into it. What do you recommend to get started reloading? As simple as possible setup.

THanks,

Perry

MEC single stage reloader. I think it's now called the 600. They sell a short kit, which raises the portion of the reloader that holds the shell base by 1/4 inch so you can get a good fold crimp using a 2-1/2 inch shell. If you find only 2-3/4 inch hulls (likely, as 2-1/2 inch shells seem to be completely missing from the market, particularly in 16 gauge), Ballistic Products sells a kit that allows you to shorten the hull to 2-1/2 inches. Or, instead of the short kit, you can trim a fired hull to 2-1/2 inches, which will leave a bit of the crimp, and use an overshot wad (available from Ballistic Products) that you insert before crimping the hull using the standard 2-3/4 inch setup. The crimp won't close the mouth of the shell completely (hence the need for the overshot wad to keep the shot from falling out) but will crimp sufficiently to hold the overshot wad in place. If I recall correctly, this is called a Hardin crimp.

If they will feed through the action, you may find that low pressure loads in 2-3/4 inch reloads will work safely in the gun. There are a lot of opinions pro and con on this issue, but starting off with a low pressure load (something in the 8000 psi or less range) will not normally create excess pressures when fired in a 65mm chamber.

In addition, you'll find some nominally 2-3/4 inch hulls are not actually that long. I've measured nominal 2-3/4 inch hulls as short as 2-5/8 inches and a number of different makers at 2-11/16 inches. If your chamber is a true 65mm (some of the earlier guns actually have shorter chambers, which helped to form a gas seal when firing paper shells using paper or cork wads instead of plastic shot cups) and there is a forcing cone, you should be ok.

Hope this helps.

My first post, just joined forum yesterday. Am a upland bird hunter that uses side by sides and pointing dogs. Also shoot recreational skeet once a week using my upland guns.

I have had several 16’s over the years, now have a 6lb 1 oz A H Fox. I shoot 3/4 oz in my 12’s & 20’s for skeet. Plenty of recipes for those. But, I am having trouble finding reasonable velocity 3/4 oz 16 loads. I would like to stay under 1200fps. I have loaded from BP’s 16 manual, but the slowest load is 1230. My goodness, most of those loads are 1300-1800.

My 12 and 20 loads are less than 1200. Why not the 16 (for 3/4)? What am I missing?

Don't really know why you want to shoot 28 ga loads in your 16ga. A 1oz load at 1165 fps to 1220 should work for targets with nothing to adjust moving to light upland work with 7 1/2's...mb

I've been reloading 12/20 ga for years but have never owned a 16 ga until now. Just picked up a new MEC 600 Jr Mark V in 16 ga. I'm looking forward to loading for this gauge and particularly in non-toxic steel and bismuth. Would love to hear details on good steel recipes for Dove and also one for Ducks.

I'm glad that I found the forum. I was a member at the old 16ga board, but sadly as we all know what happened there and over time it just fizzled and I only learned about this one the other day. I'm glad to see some recent posts and topics that aren't many months old.

With that said, here's my introduction.

My first gun was a 16 ga stevens single shot that my Dad gave to me when I was 13 years old. It's been a great gun (still is) and that old gun and I have walked many miles through the woods together over the decades.

So, needless to say, I will always have a sweet spot for it.

So much so, that a little while back, I was able to get an old Noble pump shotgun for $95 that was needing a bunch of TLC and cleaning. It didn't look like it had been cleaned since the day it left the factory. It has one of those old adjustable chokes on the end of the barrel that I'm wanting to swap out with either a modified or even full choke barrel soon. I've found one of each that I'm deciding on which I'd like to pick up. I'm leaning towards the full choke because my old stevens has a modified in it and it has all of that covered.

I have some factory loads for it that I have squirreled away over the years because I have a tendency to buy a couple of boxes per pay day when I can find them, but also bought about 5 or 6 bags of rem wads when they were going on clearance during their bankruptcy stuff, so I have some wads for them.

I generally load on my little Lee Load-all press because I'm not a high volume shooter so the mec just didn't make sense for me even though I know they're good loaders. I just used the extra money I saved getting dies and molds and stuff for other things.

Thanks for hosting the forum and the great atmosphere here.

Bob, I like to load 3/4 ounce for several reasons. I usually shoot 3-4 rounds of skeet, I don’t like repeated recoil in light side by side guns. The cost of shot keeps going up. 3/4 ounce works well for me on the skeet field. Why use more?

I guess I understand that easy enough what wads and powder for your light 16 loads?..mb

I reload for my Fox Sterlingworth 16ga circa 1914. Would love to see some bismuth load data for something other than Longshot and Rem SP16. Thanks for all of the great info in this forum!

Loading for 1932 Browning A5. Love that gun.

New to the forum. I have 4 16's that I reload for, 2 sweet sixteens, a standard A5 that has been converted from 2-9/16 to 2-3/4 and an 870. With the availability of components now days it is getting harder to keep them in the field. Joined the forum hoping to learn some new recipes for these old 16's.

New to the group and forum. Some great information here! Thank you!

Not an active reloader, but may have to revisit it. Started buying 16 gauges ( 870 wingmaster, Winchester model 37) and soon to be Fox SxS. Looking at ammo available is disappointing.