Home Forums Reloading Shotshells Your Knowledge Wanted

I have a very old (35 Yrs ) Pacific DL-105 shot shell re-loader my father bought for me when I was just a pup. I would like to set it up for my son to start on but I have not re-loaded shot in many a year. He will be loading for my old 870 Wingmaster and a 1100. Both are 20 gauges.

What components do I need? Primer types? Hulls? Wads? Powders? Load data? I have a local shop that can help me with the parts for the re-loader. He says that I can use Hornady parts. True? False? My son will be loading for some hand thrown clays and dove.

I load for my rifles, but I can not remember anything about loading for shotguns. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Any help is appreciated.

Thanks .. BP...

Buy the current Lyman shotshell reloading manual. It's all in there.
Use your powder scale to find the correct bushing, they seldom drop the powder charge that's stated.

Thankyou sir.

Best to ya .. BP...

Win AA hulls, Win 209 primers, WAA20 Wads, ~12 gr/International Clays powder, 7/8 oz of 7.5s or 8s works pretty good for me. Burns clean, and fair patterns in my gun.

FWIW

tq

Boilerpig1,
Odd coincidence but I was given a Pacific 105 just this summer. It has 12 ga and 20 ga dies for it. I reload in 20 ga, 28 ga and .410 for skeet shooting and the loader will find some use for me for 12 ga hunting loads.

I would suggest you look also at the hodgdon powder web site at http://www.hodgdon.com/data/shotshel/index.php and select a load you like. It is of course not necessary that you stick with just their powder, you might just want to peruse it for information. Alliant also has one that displays the use of their powders.

The best 20 ga hulls today are the Remington STS. Winchester "improved" their once great AA hull and the competitive shooters flocked to the competition in 12 ga and 20. The Win 28 ga AA HS hull and the .Win 410 AA HS is still the better one for reloading life.

That said the will all reload. The most economical hull to acquire IMHO, is the Remington Gun Club hulls. You can buy loaded boxes for around $3.50 and shoot you way into a supply of loads.

I would suggest that you look for a powder that will serve a number of loads for you. Wads are often specific to the load or at least for a small range.

I use Universal but the International Clays mentioned is also a very good powder. There is a wealth of information out there for you.

Clays powder is a bit more flexible than international clays in my opinion.

Also you can buy clay buster wads to replace the more expensive AA wads from winchester.

Spot

Yes the claybusters are cheaper, but one word of warning, check the choke area and barrel as claybusters tend to deposit plastic in the choke area.
For that reason, I went to PC wads, they cost just a few dollars more per case, but I don't get plastic build-up.
I reload Rem. primers, Rem STS hulls, PC wads, and Inter. Clays powder, 7/8 oz #9 shot.
Oh one thing you may want to use Clay powder, as Inter. Clay will not give you enough presure to opperate the 1100.