I need a light recoiling 20 gauge load that would work for pheasants for my 50 pound 8 year old daughter. I know different powder and wads can make a difference and I'm thinking somewhere in the 3/4 ounce 1150 or so fps would likely be max. Suggestions?
I have a sizemaster 12 gauge press and the conversion dies for 20 gauge but it looks like a pain to convert so I'm considering a 20 gauge Lee load all press or just dropping enough coin for another sizemaster in 20 gauge. I typically only load my hunting loads and specialty loads and buy factory stuff for target practice. I'd like to start loading 20 gauge steel too because it's hard to find right now and I'm starting to carry a 20 when I hunt with kids so we only have to take 1 gauge of ammo. Most of my steel is factory 12 stuff but I'm light on 20.
Bb
Fiocchi 20 ga Training Loads are the huckleberry for a low recoil load. They have 3/4oz of 7.5 shot at 1075 IIRC. I’ve had lots of newbies use them with no problems. Always on targets. Not sure how they’d do on pheasants. The problem our kids had was that I wanted to start them before they they big enough to properly handle a shotgun. Best of luck and enjoy the upcoming years. They pass too quickly.
Herco is a nice powder to use for this. I use 16.4 gr, 7/8oz and CB1078-20 wads. Use in AA old style or Rem hulls. it's at 1150 or so. The AA Light Recoil loads are great but I'm not sure how large of shot they offer. What gun does she shoot? Thanx
Darrel
Fixed breech gun: Rem STS or GC hull, Green Dot or Hodgdon International, mint 3/4 oz CB wad, 3/4 oz Pb.
For gas gun cycling you'll need a slower powder burn rate. Suggest Alliant 20/28, Unique, or Universal Clays.
Recoil guns - whether inertia or long-recoil - are tough. You'll probably need 7/8 oz Pb.
There is abundant data in the Alliant and Hodgdon online data manuals.
3/4 oz is all I use in the 20, even at shoots, and have gone through 50k of them. Conservatively, very. But at 50#, your daughter may need further recoil reduction. Have a MEC 5/8 oz bar for really small kids. Green Dot is certainly OK, but I prefer Promo/Red Dot for this. Will not cycle an autoloader.
Messed with 1/2 oz 20s some, but velocities have been inconsistent.
We'll just be using her brothers little maverick 88 Jr. It's basically a short mossberg pump with a 20" barrel. I'm thinking I'll start with a 3/4 ounce load over universal because I have that on hand. I'll try for about 1150 fps.
The Lee IIRC doesn't come with anything smaller than 7/8 ounce bushings but I know how to modify the 1 ounce bushing down to whatever I want. If I see some 20/28 powder I'll pick up a can of that.
Bb
I use the Lee load-all for assembling 12 and 20 ga non-lead hunting loads where I have to weigh all the charges and powder. This is a low volume set-up as I'm loading only 10-25 shells per session. For ~$70, the Load-All works fine. Claybuster makes a 3/4oz wad, too. Good luck! Mark and Belle
3/4oz .. universal & international are your friends
I use to load in STS hulls, international Clay, with a CB wad 7/8 oz of shot. Very soft recoiling, but as was suggested above 3/4 oz would be even less.
Go to this guy's site as he has the best collection if shotshell loading info available.
https://pipesf16.wordpress.com/
Look on Shotgun World reloading forum under the "20 gauge 3/4 oz Thread of Justice". Lots of tested light loads there.
I bought another even smaller mossberg 510 pump in 20 gauge for my now 9 year old daughter and 8 year old son to use. I loaded some 3/4 ounce loads in aa cases with 12.5 g of ww super handicap with clay buster mint color wads. They clocked around 1150 fps but still have a bit of recoil in the newer tiny 510. They aren't too bad in the slightly bigger 88 Jr.
I decided to try one step lighter so I got a 5/8 ounce bushing and some 28 gauge fiber wads. I also went down from a mec 13 powder bushing to a 12A. I put the 28 gauge fiber wad that's about 1/8th inch thick in the bottom of the mint cb wad and top with 5/8 ounce 7.5 shot. The crimp nice so tomorrow I'll go clock a few and see how the recoil is.
It shouldn't be much at all and the kids did ok with the 3/4 ounce at 1150 but my 9 year old daughter is only 50 pounds so she wanted to see if we could go a bit lighter. I hand weighed some 5/8 ounce loads and used a cheerio as a spacer before ordering the fiber wads and 5/8 charge bar. She seemed ok with those so hopefully they shoot ok.
I also got some bpi long 20 gauge wads for lighter loads. The 28 gauge fiber wads don't fit in them but they seemed to crimp pretty well without a spacer. I loaded a few of those to check too. If they do ok I may just move forward with it and eliminate the spacer. I think they'd be better with a bulkier powder like green dot taking up a bit more space.
Bb
The 32 ga felt wads work much better.
The Ballistic Products manuals have a GreenDot load that is really light recoiling and runs about 1250 iirc. Have shot a lot of quail with that load. The Universal loads are great too, prefer the GreenDot tho
Good on you for doing this the right way with your girl. It’ll pay back in spades. I know it did for me. I started mine at six. She’s a 25 year old lawyer now and loves hunting and shooting.