Home Forums Reloading 16 Gauge Society 16 gauge reload recipes for 2 1/2"- 2 9/16 shells

Hello members, this forum just came to my attention and I am sorry I did not know about it long ago, but better late that never!
I am searching for a somewhat unusual 16 ga reload recipe for an old Austrian 16 ga hammer gun with fluid steel barrels. The short chamber on this gun only supports 2 1/2" and 2 9/16" shells. Anything with muzzle velocities 1100-1200fps, 3/4 to 7/8 oz lead shot would be great.

I have plenty of Cheddite hulls and Cheddite 209 primers, so incorporating those would be nice. but not mandatory. I also have a good supply of AA hulls and wads that I can trim, as well.

Thanks for a great site!
Lyle G

The BPI "Advantage" shotshell manual has a few, I use Greendot in my target loads and Longshot in my predator loads for my drillings.

Lyle:

You may find that some of the 16 gauge 2-3/4 inch hulls are short enough that they do not open the entire length of the forcing cones in your gun and can be used unshortened. I do that in my pre-war Sauer boxlock, using low pressure 2-3/4 inch loads without any issues. I'm currently using the old Remington black hulls (Game Load), which barely measure 2-11/16, with a Remington 1-1/8 ounce wad, BP 28 gauge card fillers and 7/8 ounce of shot. The pressures are in the low 7000s and have functioned perfectly with no tearing or tattering of the case mouths, which tells me that the mouth is not extending into main portion of the bore. There has been a considerable discussion about such a practice on a number of different discussion boards (for example, Doublegunshop.com and notssmbbs.com) and several Double Gun Journal articles involving testing of this practice. The conclusion is that it has been safe and the pressure increase is well within safe range as long as you stick to low pressure (under 7500 psi) load data, provided your gun is otherwise in good condition.

It's up to you to do the research you need to make you comfortable with this approach, but I offer it for your consideration and to save you the pain of shortening shells and searching for nearly non-existent load data and hard to find components.

Rem

Good info and advice, thank you. I had heard a rumor about the Remington Black Hull Game Loads being slightly shorter. I was able to score a couple of flats of RST 2 1/2" shells and I believe their hulls are Cheddite. I'll pick up some of the Remington's when I find them and I can always trim them back if necessary.

Also low pressure 2 3/4 star crimped loads will usually fit a 2 1/2 roll crimped shell.

You mention tearing or tattering of the case mouths if they enter the bore. I see splitting case mouths on regular cases reloaded several times before they are unusable, but I am curious what this tattering might look like. I'm assuming "chewed up."

I have an old lc Smith field grade with 2 9/16" chambers . I just use the same 1 oz loads as in my other guns. Only for the lc I cut the hulls back to 2 9/16" leave the crimper height the same and use a tyvex patch over the shot so none leaks out.seems to work ok. Mb

Buy the Ballistic Products 16 guage specific manual and the short shell load manual , they are reasonably cheap .