Rio shells are one time use?

[Tackleberry41]

I have several cases of Rio in 20ga. Never owned a 20 for a long time. Well I have an old stevens bolt gun but did not see a whole pile of use so a box of cheap wal mart tended to last a while in it. Now I have 5 20ga. Place near me gets $60 something a case for 20. Was getting the 1 1/8 shells, but guess cant get them anymore. So I have plenty of Rio, so will invest in a tool to fix them. Dig around for the proper primers.

I am not sure why the 2 3/4 Rio version of BPI is nearly half the cost of a US spec 2 3/4 BPI hull. Unless they are not made by BPI. And I thought Rio was made in the US anyways, as they had that plant here in TN that blew up and cut into the supply.

It would be nice if we could say for certain what we were buying. I was reading how many shells are made by a single company, just with different names stamped on them. And I bought some of the cheap bulk pack winchester a while back, 12ga, said 1 1/8o load. Only they werent. I was peeling them open to melt the shot down and put Lee slugs in them. Seemed odd another box of the same winchester, they fit different. When I weighed them, they were in fact 1 oz loads. Guess they didnt figure anybody would ever know as being cheap nobody wants to reload them, and whos going to peel them open to check. Those cheap winchester crimped like ****.

[runfiverun]

I think the other hulls are cheddite.
cheddite are made in France.
Rio is made in spain, they also use maxam powder.
I see they have a place in Texas but I think they might only make their 20ga stuff there.
Rio uses a pretty clever wad system it is a series of flat discs separated by round circles of plastic.
4 circles and the wad is taller for the lighter 1-oz charges, 3 sets of circles and it sits lower for the 1-1/8 charge, 2 sets of circles and it's lower again for the 1-1/4 charge.
somebody put some thought into their load and wad design and really simplified everything.

[Randy C]

I talked to BPI a couple weeks ago and they said there was only two company that make shotgun hulls left. They make them for everybody go figure.

[runfiverun]

after looking at federal and estate hulls side by side I could see the differences I noted earlier.
I treat the two types the same [one one way and the other the other] and they take the same loads and primers.
win in the paper base wad and Rio in the plastic base wad.

[Tackleberry41]

I would almost put money on there being only 2 places making hulls for everybody. Thats the way things are anymore. Probably cheaper for Remington/winchester etc to simply place an order with someone else. They make them to whatever specs you order, and say they made them. Funny how some winchester are premium hulls, and some are junk. Makes you wonder is that part of the specs or just say cheap as possible?

The Rio I have taken apart have a conventional wad in them.

Did have a look at that tool, see how it works, I was picturing some sort of reamer.

[rking22]

If you want an inexpensive shell with a good hull for reloading, get Rem Gun Clubs. They are very near the price of RIO with a hull better than any Winchester still made(12 ga). Picked up some thursday for 52$ a flat. I save the Win AA hulls to sell, won't load them because the lengths are different from batch to batch, and they split after 3 or 4 loadings. I take a clay box of gun clubs and 5000 noblesport primers , when the primers are gone I pitch the hulls and start another cycle, that's 10 loadings!

[runfiverun]

I see the new G/C's have gone to a non brass head.

a little update on the Rio's in 12 ga.
I just loaded a couple hundred for their third firing.
i dunno if they'll go much more but they ain't crunchy just yet, so I'm thinking 4-5 loads on them.

[Copper75]

FYI
Rio does make their own hulls in their Marshall, TX plant.


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[Tackleberry41]

its an odd thing, BPI sells I guess you could say 'US spec' and 'Rio spec' hulls. The Rio spec were considerably less for what ever reason. I bought that BPI tool, havent had time to mess with it. Salvage my old hulls, and any more I use.

[Boolit_Head]

Another consideration is to choose one without a separate base wad. Than you don't have to worry about it coming out and getting lodged in the barrel.

[fecmech]

The ranges in this area are awash in Remington Gun club hulls and also Federal/Estate hulls. I cannot imagine actually "buying" hulls in the 12 or 20 ga. The 28 and .410 are another matter.

[Tackleberry41]

The range a guy I knew worked at had piles of hulls to, the ones nobody wanted apparently. His boss did try to sell them, but no takers. I am going to imagine the guys who reload dont leave their hulls, and the ones left behind are the cheap ones nobody wants.

[bdicki]

well things get murkier and murkier.
I have 2 types of Estates here, one with the paper base wad and one with the plastic base wad.
the plastic takes the rio Primer and the paper takes the Winchester just fine, you can tell them apart easily by the base because the paper have a tin plating and the plastic are brass.

The plastic base wad hulls are Cheddite.