Home Forums Reloading Shotshells Active steel

Went snow goose hunting yesterday and a guy was shooting actives. He had got them cheap at a gun show. Imagine my amazement when those started landing in front of me. He wasn’t a reloaded so had to do my part and clean them up.

Were they the original, all plastic (at least on the outside, there is a steel washer underneath for the extractor to grip) hulls or the later version that had the traditional brass/plastic design? The first has a larger internal capacity than other hulls which made them well suited for bulky loads using steel shot or large lead pellets. The actual Activ wads were the best fit but with a bit of thought and familiarity of components one could finagle a well fitting load using commonly available components. This hull was originally designed as a reloading component rather than for factory ammunition. Sales were pretty poor so it's use for factory ammo was initiated to promote the hull. It was the most successful of the various "all plastic" hulls produced. Kind of makes sense as the company produced lipstick containers as its main product.

The latter is basically a standard Reifenhauser hull and I load them no differently than other hulls of that style. This occurred after the original manufacturer sold the name and line and it was moved from France to America. It was rather short lived and was eventually bought by Kent. Which also soon went away.

Long time back i had a flat or so of 2 3/4" active all plastic empty hulls. BP gave them a thumbs up for reloading. I used Alliant Steel powder and BP CSD 118 wad with 1 1/8 oz of zinc plated #3's for just under 1400 fps. For a steel load they sure put the hurt on ducks and specs as well as snows / blues. Mb

I loved them out on the salt bays for waterfowl. Too much work to keep brass washed steel based shotshells from rusting. Some complained that semi auto extractors would rip through the rim, I shoot sxs so not anything I experienced. I used to shoot Herters all plastics and Wandas before the steel mandate.

They were origonal all plastic hulls
The guy bought them at a gun show just to burn on snow geese. He didn’t reload and had no idea they were a desirable hull
I remember when they were new. We all turned our nose up at them. AAs blue manic and rxp were so good for loading the actives looked cheep and poor quality
But after using some I was surprised how nice they cycle through a pump