Tmi?

[Ginsing]

Centershot:
That approach can work however I wouldn't advise buying the exact same components as your trap loads. If you are loading buckshot you will run into issues with stack height. Buckshot takes up more volume than does birdshot in any given weight. I ran into this problem when I first started loading buckshot. I ended up just buying wads with the shortest cushion leg and a set of gasket punches. My suggestion to anyone starting buck and slug loading is to have a good selection of card wads, fiber wads ect to adjust load column height. Or better yet just a selection of hollow punches that way you can punch your own wads.

[RogerDat]

It is common knowledge that a single ball/slug will generally produce less pressure. As a consequence, it is common to take equal weight shot loads and use that data and components for ball/slug. Been discussed in many threads over the years. Another good reason to have a lot of load data. I have a lot of different wads, cards, hulls, whatever.

I only have a single full manual for shotgun the Lyman. Rest of my load info is looked up online from powder manufacturers or things such as the Lee Load All sheets linked to in prior post. My Blue Dot load for 20 gauge round ball is based on that less pressure for weight minor variation of load from Ajay.

I don't want to have a good selection of wads, cards and hulls. I would like to ideally find light, regular, and heavy capacity wad for 12 and a light, and regular wad for 20. nitro card one gauge under to beef up wad for slug. Maybe gas seal in 12 and 20 gauge. Over shot card in those two gauges. Buying for slug or ball loads. While doing lots of lookup to see if I can find matches between shot and slug wads. I may have to choose a brush wad for buckshot in the 20 gauge or resign myself to cutting petals off of Trap Commander WAA clone to fit 8 .310 balls. made up 2 shells and can't wait to try those.

Six bags or so of wads will fit in my storage drawers for wads. And a couple of drawers from a small of plastic drawers on a shelf will handle the cards. I have to share basement with dear wife, and a lot of out of season decorations. I like so many of us am overflowing already. I figure I have enough shot for around 5,600 loads @ 1oz. each so 1000 to 1,500 hulls seem about right. At best I'm going to have 500 wads of my most useful load (probably as you suggest a good trap load) The others will more likely be 250 each. Yes I do tend to build to an inventory which I then try to maintain. Smart or a sickness only time will tell.

Right now I'm buying shot gun powder single pound at a time. Hoping to find the one(s) I need to buy an eight pounder of. Might even buy 2 powders if the second really covers a need. But lord save me if I start trying to cover the territory those of you who really shoot shotguns do, or that I already cover for metallic. Assuming the wife didn't notice the expense I'm pretty sure she would notice not being to get through the basement.

Have read about what ginsing posted. I think it was expressed as buy wad for one weight higher load. So to get 1 oz. buck shot in wad use 1 1/8 oz. wad for the shorter base and taller wad cup.

[OnHoPr]

@ Rogerdat, Yes, it can be mind boggling with all the components & data for the 12 & 20 especially if you are loading for multiple guns. Where a lot of this vast expansion of criteria is used is in the tinkerers tinkering. IIRC ask HT if he still wished they still made the UniWad.lol It solved a lot of these specifics. Basically, for powder for the 12 & 20 Unique is probably the better choice. GD starts getting a little on the fast side for the 20, but if you shoot a lot of the 20 you could still use it and save a few cents and it is a good cold weather powder. This is for general clays and field loads. When you get into the heavy or mag hunting loads since they discontinued 4756 for the 20 ga just a couple of powders should suffice. A bulky powder like STEEL or maybe 800X, but the 800X might keep you away from true magnum loads, and a low bulk powder like Longshot or HS6 which would make great heavy or mag loads for the 20 and 12. These would give you wad column, hull, load space versatility.

I usually just use 209Ms and adjust the load accordingly for field or target loads. But, I did a lot of tinkering with mag loads. Back in the day when I reloaded a lot I just used 209s, 157s, 97s, 109s whatever, but that was mostly for target or field loads. I did have problems in MI in cold weather with BD with them though. You should be able to get away with only 2 or 3 wads for the individual gauges. Try to keep your hulls american. That's just trying to keep it general for 2 gauges for target or field and magnum for 7/8s to 1 1/8 for the 20 and 1 oz to 1.5 oz for the 12. If you went 3" or 3.5" on the 12 or 20 you might be able to find data with the those wads. When you start shootin single projectiles and looking for the dream load for all the individual guns is where the mind boggling starts.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Roger: I use Green Dot for the majority of my loads as they are all in the Trap Load category, running in the 1200 fps range. I have 2 wads and have been using the Blue Claybuster wads for my Slug and Buckshot loads and Claybuster WAA12 Clones for my shot and Pumpkin Ball loads. Same Winchester Primers for everything. I can adjust column height by Roll Crimping which is variable with respect to the column height as opposed to fold crimping which has to be close or you get sucko crimps.

I have some Blue Dot I got so I can try some more powerful loads down the road.

I have thousands of AA hulls some old style and some new. A friend gave me 700 old style AA's which I have loaded 6-8 times each, so they are throw aways. The newer AA's are all once fired and I paid $100 for 2500 of them .04 each. I also find good hulls laying around and favor any hull that previously had a Factory Roll crimp like a factory slug. My next class at Front Sight I will pick up a bunch of them.

So I have two wads, two powders, and that covers all my shotgun loads, from bird to buck to slugs.

Right now I am casting .319 round balls for buckshot and then tumbling them in a little Harbor Freight Rotary Tumbler.Another Green Dot load.

I have a Lyman .662 round ball mould, the NOE Lyman Sabot Slug mould, a Lee 1oz mould, an STI Hammer Head slug mould, and I got sabots for it, and I bought one of the Russian Paradox moulds which is supposed to show up next month from Russia, and will probably need a gas seal for it, and will probably use Blue Dot for those slugs. All the rest are using Green Dot and running in the 1200 fps range or more properly the Walmart Dove Load range which is more than adequate for anything I'm going to do..

I loaded a whole box of Lyman Slugs with 23 gr of Unique but see no measurable difference between those loads and the Green Dot loads.

My point here is that you can do pretty much anything you want with one or two powders and wads.

Randy

[Petander]

Centershot:
That approach can work however I wouldn't advise buying the exact same components as your trap loads.

I will get slapped on my face for this:

I don't always buy components,I use the trap rounds as they are.

I have cut out the crimp section from trap loads,removed the shot and re-loaded them with slugs of lesser weight than the original load. The hull becomes shorter so pressures go up. The first time I did that was in the 90's for light 12 gauge practical slugs.

And today I fired some 20 gauge Svarog (Lyman-style) 265 grain slugs, using Pegoraro 1 oz trap rounds components. Cut the crimp,remove shot,add 28 gauge fiber and 20 gauge slug,roll. Hit bullseye with a very mild load.

An added bonus: I gather more lead than I shoot away with these 30 cent slug rounds.

But this should not be done really. ( Place a scary ghost emoticon here )

[gpidaho]

I read this in one of the threads here so I thought it was worth a try. Using an appropriate sized drill bit, a Forsner type. Cut the folds out of a loaded shotshell, leaving the crimp ring intact. Mix shot and melted wax to form a solid mass (slug) The ones I made cut a nice clean hole in the target at 50 yrds. Now, if I get a round built and the fold crimp doesn't hold from the hull being warn and weak I cut the center out and build a frag slug. Works pretty good. Gp

[Ginsing]

Petander:
It's interesting that yours are casting so light. I just checked 10 random slugs I cast up and they average 280 grains.
What alloy are you using?
I'm glad they shot well for you, my very limited shooting with them(5) they did ok. About 4" at about 40 yards.

[longbow]

Petander:

You shouldn't be raising pressure subbing equal or lower weight slug in place of shot. It is generally accepted that slugs produce less pressure than shot due to less bore friction.

TonyfromItaly... or maybe Elvis... one our European members anyway, posted that for slug loading it is accepted practice to increase birdshot powder charge by 15% for a slug. I have not confirmed the safety of that practice so take it with a grain of salt and it is always better to err on the side of safety.

Regardless, I don't think your method is going to cause higher pressure. It should be safe and sane.

Longbow

[Petander]

My higher pressure thinking comes from the shortened hull, then roll crimping tight. Everything is being packed in a smaller space than before. It is a good thing when shooting much lighter slugs than the original payload was. I don't really know.

My alloy is hard, ww/lino. High antimony. About 16 BHN. That's why I'm paying serious attention to choke diameters.

Attachment 233488

[Ginsing]

Mine are about 50/50 pure lead / coww that might explain the weight difference.
I wouldn't worry about the choke as long as the ball or slug will fit through the choke. I just shot the .575" ball in a trap wad through a modified choke. The recovered wads didn't even have torn petals. There was a line on the wad where the equator of the ball was. The wad just squeezed down in that spot. Accuracy was quite good

[Cap'n Morgan]

My higher pressure thinking comes from the shortened hull, then roll crimping tight. Everything is being packed in a smaller space than before. It is a good thing when shooting much lighter slugs than the original payload was. I don't really know.

Shortening a round will not affect pressure as long as slug weight, wad and wad compression remain the same. I would try sectioning a loaded slug and compare it to a sectioned trap load (or use clear plastic hulls where you can see the individual components) If the powder & wad column has the same height, all is fine. Adding a roll crimp instead of star crimp will actually reduce the pressure slightly.

[Petander]

Okay,thanks for clarification,Captain.

Got some chronoing to do.

[longbow]

I'd agree that if the hull, powder charge, wad column and payload are all the same the hull length shouldn't matter unless you use a ridiculously long roll crimp. If you shorten or remove the cushion leg though then there is less or no crush at ignition effectively reducing combustion chamber volume and I think raising pressure.

BPI short hull load recipes without cushion leg wads seem to produce higher pressure with less of a given powder than same charge under a cushion leg wad.

From my comparisons it appears that faster powders seem to be affected more. This is just from me comparing between a variety of load data but the short story is that I'd be careful about using a wad with a much stiffer cushion leg or no cushion leg in place of one with long/soft cushion leg. Pressure testing is the only way to be sure though and this is just me speculating some.

For what you are doing I wouldn't worry about it as you are just shortening the crimp some.

Longbow

[Petander]

Yep these are mild and nice. I also loaded some 574 balls to try.

Attachment 233554

Some may wonder why I'm doing this. Well, where I live I get factory loaded trap ammo for the price of powder alone. Making everything from components will cost twice - and now I'm getting more lead than I shoot as a bonus.

Nice and easy practice slugs.

[longbow]

A guy just can't complain about nice and easy and cheap with the bonus of extra lead... what's not to like!?!

Actually I have to check on component costs versus factory loads. It seems factory birdshot loads have dropped in price so may be cost effective to use as you are.

[Petander]

My shotgun reloading re-started when I begun experimenting with TSS. I like 20 gauge,I have some friends with 20 gauge guns,too. TSS ammo is priced wayyy out there. And I can make barrel-safe TSS for some of my older, maybe a bit delicate shotguns,too. These light slugs are also fine with them.

While at TSS... I'm saving money by loading other shotsells,this is sort of getting out of hands but I'm sure the saving will start soon. I even have a buckshot mold in the mail, something I never imagined doing.

But well, I never thought of getting a cat either. Life gives funny (furry) things.

[Petander]

These 20 gauge "trap slugs" and "trap balls" chronoed 1250 fps, the same as my 1 1/4 oz tungsten load development with VV N340.

Attachment 233704

[Ginsing]

I have read of people using vv n340 and n350 in shotguns. I havnt been able to find any specific load data for them however. Even the Vihtavuori website says it works well but has no data as of yet. I would like to try n350 powder in my shotgun loading, I use it for mid power 44 mag, plinking loads in 30-30 and 45-70. It works great, clean burn, consistant velocity and great accuracy.

[Markopolo]

Petander,what sort of hulls are those.. don’t think I have ever seen those here in the states..

[Petander]

Those are Bornaghi brand hulls.

A couple of finnish tungsten shot companies have published their (hard to find) tested Vihtavuori data. It's all in finnish,grams,m/s etc... Lead is "lyijy", steel is " teräs".

https://ammoxdata.com/reseptit/

https://unlimitedammo.fi/reseptit.html.

Enjoy!