My "00" buck findings

[wonderwolf]

I'm not sure how I got the idea to start loading my own buckshot in mass quantities but somewhere along the way I got the desire to start. I started with AA hulls, red dot and trimmed WAA12 wads and 9 pellets of buckshot, worked well but was only ever able to get about 1000 FPS out of those loads. Long story short I settled on Green dot and got rid of the trap wads and decided to switch to the Flex seal gas seal offered by ballistic products. I'm getting 25/27 pellets (out of 3 shots) on a full sheet of newsprint at 25 yards with cyl choke and shot over a chronograph placed about 6' in front of the muzzle, some leading but I'm trying LLA now on the buckshot so we'll see where that gets me.

I'm way out of the load book with the wad and powder combination I'm using. I just reduced my initial charge 10% with a sim load and went from there. its been interesting to see the different problems I've run into this adventure as my first lot of hulls were all old AA hulls and the lot now I'm using are the separate base hulls (gas seal would cant and varry velocity by as much as 50FPS) which caused seating problems with the flex seal when I used 1/4" of a fiber wad, dropped the fiber wad and problem solved but the patterns opened up a bit however my velocities in lots of test ammo vary by only 8FPS now.

After about 250 rounds of buckshot down range, swapping out newsprint for patterns and exhausting hours of "researching" and reading on various components I am a firm believer that changing things in a shotgun recipe will not be as detrimental as some would lead you to believe. But just using common sense goes a long way. Dunno if anybody has had similar experiences but this has been more of an education than I had planned.

[odfairfaxsub]

I'm not sure how I got the idea to start loading my own buckshot in mass quantities but somewhere along the way I got the desire to start. I started with AA hulls, red dot and trimmed WAA12 wads and 9 pellets of buckshot, worked well but was only ever able to get about 1000 FPS out of those loads. Long story short I settled on Green dot and got rid of the trap wads and decided to switch to the Flex seal gas seal offered by ballistic products. I'm getting 25/27 pellets (out of 3 shots) on a full sheet of newsprint at 25 yards with cyl choke and shot over a chronograph placed about 6' in front of the muzzle, some leading but I'm trying LLA now on the buckshot so we'll see where that gets me.

I'm way out of the load book with the wad and powder combination I'm using. I just reduced my initial charge 10% with a sim load and went from there. its been interesting to see the different problems I've run into this adventure as my first lot of hulls were all old AA hulls and the lot now I'm using are the separate base hulls (gas seal would cant and varry velocity by as much as 50FPS) which caused seating problems with the flex seal when I used 1/4" of a fiber wad, dropped the fiber wad and problem solved but the patterns opened up a bit however my velocities in lots of test ammo vary by only 8FPS now.

After about 250 rounds of buckshot down range, swapping out newsprint for patterns and exhausting hours of "researching" and reading on various components I am a firm believer that changing things in a shotgun recipe will not be as detrimental as some would lead you to believe. But just using common sense goes a long way. Dunno if anybody has had similar experiences but this has been more of an education than I had planned.

just something about this shotgun thing it keeps the reloading far more interesting than metalic loading. your not concerned by keeping one bullet in a X group but 9 pellets in a X group. i like it!!!

[longbow]

wonderwolf:

There are substitutions that are quite safe like using an equivalent weight shot recipe to make a buckshot or slug load but substituting other components (especially more than one at a time) can have significant effect on the pressure.

Just a simple primer change can raise pressures by 3000 to 4000 PSI. No problem if you are running a load at 7000 to 8000 PSI but if the load you make the substitution on is running at 11,000 + PSI then you could be in trouble.

Another way to run pressures up is to reduce case volume by substituting a small volume hull like Winchester AA for a straight walled large volume hull like a Federal Gold Medal, or replacing a cushion leg wad with a solid wad column.

There is enough published load data available that you should be able to find recipes for components you have or can get. These recipes are developed using pressure barrels and are proven to be safe and good performers.

Play but play safe!

FWIW

Longbow

[heathydee]

I have alway experimented with shotshell reloading but only downward. Take a published load and reduce powder and/or shot and you cannot go wrong .

[longbow]

No argument there, that should always be safe. It may not give consistent ballistics but should always be safe.

I developed a light load for grouse hunting for my son when he was young but wanted to shoot a 12 ga. I lightened the powder charge to reduce recoil then patterned the load to determine pellet count and maximum effective range for the reduced velocity. Worked out well.