Finally got a press. Help needed!

[Michael J. Spangler]

hi guys!

I finally picked up a lee load all.
So now i guess i need to get started.

I have a Lee 1oz slug mold (and plenty of slugs cast)
I have a very large box filled with older Remington Peters green hulls with a separate opaque base wad
I have some 209 cheddite primers but i'll picking up more soon enough.
I have some unique on hand, and with the difficulty of finding powder locally i guess thats going to be my go to powder for now.
I would like to aim for a light recoil load, maybe 1100 FPS or less.
I plan on fold crimping as the hulls are not new.

I'm going to shoot them through a remington 870 mostly smooth bore (cylinder bore) possibly through the rifled at times

Reading through some old thread i've seen a ton of suggestions of hulls/wads/powder etc and it's totally overwhelming.
I understand the basic principles of building the load, proper height for crimp. wad types, hull types etc.

Still there seems to be so many variations its mid boggling. Can anyone point me in the right direction for a decent starting load? I think i'll have to order wads because the local shops don't stock much in the way of wads.
I was planning on a Federal 12S0 as it makes sense for the height of the slug with an appropriate card underneath the slug.

should i be looking at any of the crazy specialty wads on BPIs website? am i asking for trouble in doing so?
Should i look into roll crimping?
could i cut down my 2 3/4" hulls and make shorter roll crimped slugs?

or should i just buy some new hulls/wads and not fiddle around with all of this? i don't want to try to make something work if it's not meant to be. i won't be shooting hundreds of slugs a week, so i would just buy a few hundred new hulls and a proper wad if it saves me headaches in the long run.
shotgun is really a secondary thing for me (so far, but we all know how the addiction starts right? or else we wouldn't be here)
i would prefer not to have to do too much experimentation on the first run. if i can make the first loads be fun then i'll do as i always do and jump in with both feet.

thank you all in advance.
now back to much more searching and reading

[Michael J. Spangler]

p.s. i have a couple winchester white and a couple winchester pink wads on hand. like 5 of each.
i grabbed some from the friend i got the press off of so i could test fit.

[too many things]

well first is the slug made for a shot cup? bet not. Cyl bore is .730 so see if slug in shot cup are over that . if so it wont work

[Hogtamer]

Are they the old cork - asbestos - whatever base wads from the 70's and 80's? If so you've got a poor hull to reload. First, a regular 209 primer will be a jam fit, and second, you'll blow a cloud of stuff out the barrel. I think all who've tried them agree that the BPI trap commander wad is the best fit for the lee slug. I've loaded an awful lot of them with many different wads and the trap commander is hands down the best. Remington wads definitely will not work with the internal ribs. As for the winchester wadsthe white aa12 is best. Federal plastic basewad hulls are the easiest loaders with greater internals. My favorite are the Plastic based Estate (load like federals) that you can pick up by the sackfull at any trap/sporting clays range. New AA hulls are the least forgiving and you must use Win. components to get any kind of fit. It is generally accepted that one oz. load data for lead shot can be used with your slug for whatever components you wind up with. The loads that come with the slug mole will jar your teeth. And for accuracy you must have a hard card under the slug in the wad cup and 2 are better. BTW, here's a pic I posted this week of lee 7/8 slugs @ 100 yds out of my smoothbore 870...
well, can,t post pic but can see it on 200 yd thread. best of luck. Get 'em on paper and it's great fun!

[turmech]

The Federal wads would be designed for a straight wall hull like federal or some of the European hulls. The Remington hull you have is a tapered hull so would be the blue magic, Winchester AA and Remington gun club to name a few. These would typically use a tapered wad but not always. The powder charge listed in any data listing a tapered wad can't be switched to a straight wad.


I don't think you will find any published data for the lee slug with unique or data for 1oz shot to convert to slug data. Or I should say I did not a few years back. That does not mean you could not use it but extreme caution should be used when deviating from data for a shotgun, possible more than with rifle/pistol reloading.


When looking for data it is fairly safe to substitute a slug for the same weight of shot. This would typically require a different wad with less shot cup. You would want to however use the same brand and design of wad.


The Winchester pink and gray wads are good ones for tapered hulls and somewhat reduced charges. The WAA12, win 209, Remington hull and Blue dot is a good load, but has some recoil. That data is in the lee instruction which came with the mold. IIRC I reduced the load a couple of grains below what is listed.

[turmech]

I just read the previous post (he an I were writing at the same time) the old Remington peters hulls I have on hand are identical to the Remington gun clubs of today as far as I can tell.


I would also recommend you pick up the Lyman shotshell handbook if you don't already have a copy. It is almost a necessity and will show you how to tell what hulls you have and what works with what.

[Michael J. Spangler]

it's a remington peters hull with a separate plastic base wad.
seems from bumping around the forums thats it's ok to reload these. it's not a fiber wad thank god. though i did find a handful mixed in that i quickly tossed in the trash.

thanks for the info guys. keep it coming

[longbow]

I'd have to do some digging for exact recipes... and I hope you are aware that shotshell reloading is not a lot like metallic cartridge reloading and that changes of hull, primer and even wad can result in significant changes in pressure up or down depending. Best to get a manual or even better several manuals since as you noticed the combination of components is staggering.

Do not go assembling random components to create a load!

Having said that Lee came out with very generic load data for the Lee Load All below:



These are for shot and the closest is for 19.2 grs. of Unique and 1 1/8 oz. using the data for "Plastic shells with plastic basewad..." This would be a safe and soft shooting load with the 1 oz. drive key slug. Most slug specific loads will be much higher velocity with resulting increase in recoil and pressure.

Longbow

[Michael J. Spangler]

Thanks longbow.
The picture isn't loading on tapatalk for some reason.

Yes I'm aware of the dangers or working with shotshell vs metallic. There is a narrow window to play with I shotshell.
I equate metallic to cooking and shotshell to baking. Do not stray!

[FullTang]

Here's a nice YouTube tutorial that gives you the basics, and it uses Unique:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr9n...E_T0OkA56tUnAV

[OnHoPr]

Hey, you got slugs, powder, primers, get a few wads and load them. About 20 gr of unique should be fine to start with. The 12s0's can work well, but the longer shotcup of the 12s3 will allow you to put a nitro card in the base of the cup. It will also allow you to be more flexible if you wanted to change powders or powder charges. Basically stay uniform with the height of the load and the crimp. Pay attention to the wad after firing, it can tell you things. It all depends on what you want to do with the weapon and load.