Fed paper base wad = Fed Gold Medal reloading data???

[JIMinPHX]

I'm looking to make up some .410 buckshot loads with 00. I see that the Lyman shot shell manual lists data for Federal hulls with paper base wad. What I have a bunch of is Federal Gold Medal hulls which look to be all plastic. I can't seem to find any buckshot loading data for them. Can I use the other Federal loading data? Is there somewhere else that I can look for data for these all-plastic hulls? Do these all-plastic hulls take the same wad? I haven't done a lot of shot shell loading, so please forgive me if I am asking stupid questions.

Thanks,
Jim

[oneokie]

Contact Alliant Powder for clarification on which hulls are similar.

[JIMinPHX]

Geeze,
I was expecting more responses. I guess that maybe I'm going a little further off the beaten path than I had first tough.

oneoki, thanks for the suggestion. I'll try them Tuesday.

[woody1]

I don't know anything about 'em but you might check this site. Good info re: shotshell reloading.
http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/view...248550&start=0
Regards, Woody

[turbo1889]

No the Fed. GM and the Fed. Paper Base-wad hulls are different hulls and with most loadings the paper base-wad hulls use a slightly higher powder charge then an equivalent load in the all plastic GM hulls.



You could always just use the old 13gr. of 2400 the universal load for 410-bore:

~ No magnum primers; standard primers only.
~ 3/8 to 1/2 oz. payload in 2-1/2" shells or 1/2 to 11/16 oz. payload in 3" shells.
~ Any 410-bore hull except for Winchester one piece compression formed tapered wall hulls that are extra thick near the bottom of the hull wall.
~ Any sensible wad stack; single piece plastic wad or card, felt, fiber, and cork built up stack or combination of both.
~ Fold crimp or roll crimp your choice.
~ Some load combinations may be slightly on the light or reduced side but all will be good.

[JIMinPHX]

You could always just use the old 13gr. of 2400 the universal load for 410-bore:

~ No magnum primers; standard primers only.
~ 3/8 to 1/2 oz. payload in 2-1/2" shells or 1/2 to 11/16 oz. payload in 3" shells.
~ Any 410-bore hull except for Winchester one piece compression formed tapered wall hulls that are extra thick near the bottom of the hull wall.
~ Any sensible wad stack; single piece plastic wad or card, felt, fiber, and cork built up stack or combination of both.
~ Fold crimp or roll crimp your choice.
~ Some load combinations may be slightly on the light or reduced side but all will be good.

Turbo,
Thanks for posting that.

I'm OK with a mild load & I have 2400 on the shelf. The load would be 4 balls of 00 buck (1/2 oz) in a 2.5" hull. I've got W209 primers. That just leaves me with one thing that I'm wondering about.

Are SP410 wads or Winchester HS (red) wads OK to use in those hulls? I found this data on the Federal website - http://www.federalpremium.com/pdf/FP...oadingData.pdf It lists bird shot loads for the .410 in the GM cases but every load uses the 410SC wad. I don't have any of those & my local shop doesn't carry them.

You say that this load is the old universal load. Can you tell me where it comes from?

Thanks,
Jim

[JIMinPHX]

I don't know anything about 'em but you might check this site. Good info re: shotshell reloading.
http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/view...248550&start=0
Regards, Woody

Woody,
Thanks for posting that. shotgun world certainly has a wealth of information. I trolled through there for about an hour last night, but didn't find what I was looking for. It was an educational experience though. That place just about looks to be shot gunning's version of this board. It is a great resource.

[turbo1889]

It is my understanding that it was printed on the back of some of the old metal cans of 2400 back when it was made by Hercules. It floats around the net on various boards that are dedicated to loading the 410 and other small gauge guns. If you pull lists of published loads for the 410-bore that use 2400 powder you will find that if you eliminate the ones that have magnum primers and the ones that are loaded in the Winchester one piece compression formed tapered wall hulls you will have a list of loads that are all loaded with charges that are 13 grains or just slightly more so that confirmed it for me personally when I first encountered the info years ago.

For me personally, anytime I don’t have load data for a particular 410-bore combination I want to load and it isn’t a load that is important enough for me to drag out my pressure equipment and start working up with pressure measuring equipment the 13gr. of 2400 is the load I use to put something together quick and easy on the fly that I know will work. I rarely load 410-bore anymore with store bought plastic wads but when I did I just bought what was available and I have used Winchester 410 wads with the 13gr. of 2400 universal load. In fact I think right now I’ve got a bag of Win. and a bag of orange DownRange wads for the 410 and the rest of my 410 wads are specialized European wads for specific purposes and loads and the rest is old school hard card, felt, and fiber wads along with my hand rolled double wall paper tube wads for loading steel and hevi-shot in the 410 that provide the necessary barrel protection.

[JIMinPHX]

Well, I got the right wads & tried an exact book load for 4 x 00 buck in 2.5" Win HS hulls. I also tried the 13 grain 2400 load & a book load for 1/2oz shot. My results were pretty poor, which surprised me since this same buckshot did pretty well in a 12 gage. Out of 25 shells, I had 2 patterns that I would call very tight at 10 yards, 2 or 3 that were sort of OK & most of them had at least some of the pellets off the paper. The 12 gage rounds put 8 balls in patterns less than half the size of these 4 balls. I was pretty disappointed.

Tonight I cleaned out the crumb rubber trap that I fired a few rounds into. I found something very surprising & educational. 3/4 of the buckshot balls I found were squished into pancakes & the other 1/4 of them were half squished. Boolits that I recovered out of the same trap were hardly deformed at all. The boolits & buckshot were made out of the same alloy & were the same hardness. Since the boolits didn't squish down, I figure that means that the buckshot was squished before it left the barrel. That might explain the bad patterns.

The 12 gage wads that I recovered were pretty beat up, but still intact. They had deep spherical dimples in the bottom of the shot cup, but none pushed through. The .410 wads were not recovered in one piece. I would find the occasional fragment that was completely black, but I never found anything resembling an entire .410 wad. I never found a single base. I just found pieces of the petals. It looks to me like the padding in the 12 ga wad kept the buckshot round while the .410 wad did not offer the same protection to the shot.

I think that what this tells me is that in order for me to get good performance out of a .410 buckshot shell, I'm going to need some padding. maybe buffer will help. Maybe I need to load the 2.5" recipe in a 3" shell with 1/2" of padding. maybe I need both. Any comments or ideas are appreciated.

Thanks,
Jim

[turbo1889]

My experience with loading buckshot in the 410-bore has been that the bottom ball needs to be very, very hard. Straight WW air cooled doesn't quite cut it; water quenched will. The next ball on top of that doesn't need to be quite as hard and the next ball can be still softer and this continues to the top ball which can be almost pure lead. It is my conclusion that the bottom balls get caught "between a rock and a hard place" with the pressure building up from below and the inertia of the balls above them pressing down from above. A conclusion based on experience but which I cannot completely back up with solid “proof” scientific evidence.

Buffer does help as well, but the ball hardness is the biggest issue IME ~ YMMV.

[JIMinPHX]

I do have some water dropped 00. I'll try that next.

[JIMinPHX]

I made up a few shells with the water dropped buckshot. It did stay much more spherical than the softer shot. The patterns were terrible though. Less than a third of the balls stayed inside a 10" circle at 10 yards. I don't know where the rest of them went.

I did manage to recover 1 wad. The base was blown out of it. This was with a below published book load of H110.

It looks like wad failure is my biggest problem now. Does anyone have any suggestions on where I might look to find some reloading data that includes some kind of padding, buffer or other type of support for the wads?

Thanks,
Jim

[Andy Griffith]

I don't know, but I'd try looking for a recipe with a hard card wad at the bottom.
I'm getting some decent patterns with mine, but I'm loading hulls with blackpowder and hard card and fiber wads only.

If I am correct, the factory .410 buckshot loads don't use a plastic wad/shotcup, just cork/fiber and card wads. Cut one open and unless they've changed it, I *believe* that is still correct.