Newbie Shotgun Question

[olereb]

I'm a newbie to loading for Shotguns so please be kind,lol. I wanted to ask can you use the same hulls for loading buckshot,slugs and birdshot?. I have a Lyman shotshell manual on the way but thought i'd ask a few questions while i'm awaiting its arrival. I have checked some of the online sites for new hulls and will admit I was lost as to which were good after seeing how many choices there are,i have been shooting shotguns for 25yrs but never thought about all the choices and reloading. For what its worth I have been reloading for my rifles and handguns for several years so i'm not a newbie to reloading totally. Thanks a lot for any input.

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Hello Olereb, Buy yourself Fiocchi hulls from BPI on special $8.99 for 100 primed hulls, start off with 2 3/4 inch hulls and Blue Dot for Slugs, buckshot and shot load.
I would suggest you get Lee 7/8 Oz Drive Key slug mold from MidSouth shooter's for $18 plus change.

If you happen to have a 20 gauge then go for .575" RB mold from Lee and get Trap Commander wads and order .125-28 nitro cards from Circle Fly and let the fun begin, we recently have a vacancy in our Elite Musketeer Brotherhood family, be sure glad to have you join our group!

I'm proud to be a Elite Musketeer, among other Elite Musketeer's here.

Best regards,
Ajay
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[repawn]

Short answer - yes.

Wads may differ for slugs and shot - but not necessarily. There are tons of hulls, wads, primer combos. Look for a hull, then a wad, then primer - find powder that works with that combo - follow loading data - different brands of primers change your load.
A combo I use for shot and slugs is:
Winchester AA hulls
WAA12 Wads
Winchester 209 primers
I use a round piece of card stock under the slugs (a felt wad would work as well) - otherwise everything else is the same.

[olereb]

Thanks for the help guys,i appreciate it. I was also wondering what wads are good?,seems to be a million of those too,lol.

[unclogum bill]

Guessing l shot over 2,000 slugs . Lee and Lyman, rifled and several smooth bore. If I want accurate at 100 yards (and l did) the lyman slug was for me. On a scoped savage with rifle bore (bolt action) could dead center the first. As barrel heated up formed a snake upwards and a little to the right. Any who, who needs more than one shot. Could never do as good with lee, but it is cheaper.

[Hogtamer]

Find a gun club where folks shoot sporting clays, trap and skeet. You can pick up hundreds if not thousands of once fired hulls. Most likely they will sell you powder, primers and wads, if not to you directly then to you through a member. Go to a big competition and you will be set for hulls for life. I just bought cheddite 209 primers for $25 per thousand. Lead shot was $46. While none of that is cheap by historical standards it's much cheaper than order houses I checked. Lots of help here for big lead loading and plenty here who will sell you slugs at a very reasonable price if you don't cast. Factory load slugs are a buck a piece at the least, but you can load 'em for half that.

[OnHoPr]

To your original question, yes. That is good that you have a shotshell reloading book coming. There are googles (#) of loads and components, but there are all types of chambers and leads (forcing cones) too. Is your barrel smooth or rifled? There are many things to look out for and here is one of them. There are straight walled hulls and tapered wall hulls. To go along with those hulls there are different styles of wads to accommodate the hulls and sometimes published loads mix them which leads to a debate in itself just for an example.

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Good morning Olereb, I just checked the BPI site and right now they show no Fiocchi hulls on special for $8.99, they have them on sale from time to time.

Those Fio. 616 primers are Ok for your Basic Slug, Buckshot and shot loads when using Blue Dot, Herco, HS-6, WSF, Unique and Bullseye powder.

Since I'm after full load efficiency and thats the reason I prefer to use Magnum primer's for better combustion and that is also the reason I fold crimp to pack up my load real tight!

Check my posts here:
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http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=118&t=196961&sid=7ec7e68a79f8a3538217a451ccc3c505

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Get a pot full of hot coffee and start reading and you will learn a lot from my bad experiances,
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Best regards,
Ajay
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We all, who take slug loading seriously are a dedicated family, who have taken it upon ourselves to perfect our tech. We experiment to find better techniques and share our knowledge.
Location: New Jersey. USA / Frankfort, W.Germany / London, UK
-Elite Group of Slug Shooter's
We all, who take slug loading seriously are a dedicated family, who have taken it upon ourselves to perfect our tech. We experiment to find better techniques and share our knowledge.

[dverna]

If you want a hull that can be reloaded a number of times, stay with STS, Gun Club's, or AA's. The Fiocchi hulls are junk - but highly rated for slugs. Mostly due to the straight will design that allows more powder volume. I do not load them.

I have loaded a lot of Top Gun and Estate hulls but they can only be reloaded once. They have a paper base wad so be really careful with range pick ups (wet base wad). I shoot them in an O/U for trap and they never hit the ground. They are a straight wall hull.

Most wads for straight wall hulls are not going to work well with tapered hulls. I have a goodly variety of wads and this is NO place to save money as they are really cheap. I buy my target wads by the case(5000) and they cost about $75. Look at the loads you are interested in and plan accordingly.

Manuals are good and you are smart to use one. Here are some good links:
http://data.hodgdon.com/main_menu.asp
http://www.alliantpowder.com/reloaders/index.aspx

I reload about 15,000 hulls a year but am just starting with slugs and buckshot. So I am new at that aspect of shotshell reloading.

One word of warning. There are a lot of people posting loads. You CANNOT work up a load like you can with a pistol or rifle because the pressures that would signal overpressure in a metallic round will blow up a shotgun. I have decided not to use any of the data posted here unless I can find that load in the Lyman book or on a manufacturers wed site. But that is me.

I have no need for maximum loads anyway. Look at the "tactical" loadings and they have less recoil, less pressure and are more fun to shoot. But I am not a hunter. YMMV

Don Verna

[olereb]

To your original question, yes. That is good that you have a shotshell reloading book coming. There are googles (#) of loads and components, but there are all types of chambers and leads (forcing cones) too. Is your barrel smooth or rifled? There are many things to look out for and here is one of them. There are straight walled hulls and tapered wall hulls. To go along with those hulls there are different styles of wads to accommodate the hulls and sometimes published loads mix them which leads to a debate in itself just for an example.

Thanks for the info. The slugs will be going through both a smooth barrel and a rifled barrel,mostly rifled though.

[olereb]

dverna-
Thanks for the heads up regarding the pressure danger with shotguns,i was not aware of the difference in danger between loading for shotgun and metallic.

[dverna]

olereb

There is a lot of work going on with "non-standard" slugs. Ajay has a ton of info posted. All good reading. I do not agree with his method of establishing a "safe load" but we can agree to disagree. There are firms that will test 5 loads for a nominal fee ($25-30) and give you the pressure of that load. It seems expensive but that is what I will do if I find a load that I wish to use, but looks like it is pushing the limits. It is less expensive than a blown gun and a whole lot better than an injury.

Like I said, my loads will be lower powered (for self-defense and practice) and I am working with the Lyman 525 slug so there is quite a bit of data for it. Buckshot loads can use the normal birdshot loads of the same payload.

Once you get much above a load that has 9500 psi you need to be careful about substituting wads and/or primers as it is possible to have a swing of over 2000 psi by changing components - and for 12 ga loads the SAAMI max is 11,500 psi except for 3 1/2" loads - they are rated at 14,000 psi max.

As you can see, these are very low pressures compared to rifle and many pistol cartridges.

[unclogum bill]

"
There is a lot of work going on with "non-standard" slugs. Ajay has a ton of info posted. All good reading. I do not agree with his method of establishing a "safe load" but we can agree to disagree. There are firms that will test 5 loads for a nominal fee ($25-30) and give you the pressure of that load. It seems expensive but that is what I will do if I find a load that I wish to use, but looks like it is pushing the limits. It is less expensive than a blown gun and a whole lot better than an injury. "
Good advise for sure. Taking someones advice could get you hurt. Working up a load is something to take care in. I do wonder if sending a load out for tests won't cost 27 bucks in the has-mat fee. My country boy way involves a old "Long Tom" shotgun whose pitted barrel would make you shiver. Using ratchet ties and a holder, I fasten her to the bench, when no ones around(early morning) and loop a cord that puts me back a ways. Still have that gun, Replaced firing pin with a 20 penny nail then retired her. Any way thought was if she gave her life it was better than mine. I do that with all non verifiable loads, rifle as well. Also never fire anything sitting lonely at the range table, One day you will here how someone got killed by doing such.. Best to all.

[SuperBlazingSabots]

Hello Unclogum Bill, I like your idea and will be looking for a tree to hide behind when I pull the string attached to the trigger next time, all the by-stander's will be wondering why is he looking like a peeping tom from behind the tree!

I'm proud to be a Elite Musketeer, among other Elite Musketeer's here.

Best regards,
Ajay
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-Elite Group of Slug Shooter's
We all, who take slug loading seriously are a dedicated family, who have taken it upon ourselves to perfect our tech. We experiment to find better techniques and share our knowledge.
Location: New Jersey. USA / Frankfort, W.Germany / London, UK
-Elite Group of Slug Shooter's
We all, who take slug loading seriously are a dedicated family, who have taken it upon ourselves to perfect our tech. We experiment to find better techniques and share our knowledge.

[olereb]

After reading about how straight hulls are good for slugs I decided to get some of the Fiocchi hulls for slugs and I found a guy yesterday at work that happens to have a lot of AA hulls that I can have for free that I figured I would use for buckshot. My question is are the AA hulls straight or tapered and also I was looking online at wads and did not notice anywhere that was mentioned they were for straight or tapered hulls. Like I mentioned before I do have a loading book on the way and WILL be reading it before loading anything but just wanted to ask these questions while I wait. Thanks again everyone for the great replies.

[unclogum bill]

At the risk of appearing educated the answer is tapered.
At the risk of appearing foolish it doesn't matter all that much.
Sort of like splitting hairs. At most levels it wont matter.
Those AA winchester will work well with slugs or shot.

[dverna]

There is no haz-mat for shipping ammunition. It must ship FedEx or UPS ground and be marked ORM-D on the package.

I plan on using AA's and STS's for my slug and buckshot loads - both are tapered hulls. I have over 20,000 hulls so I am set for a long time. I normally sell about 5000 hulls a year to keep from getting buried in hulls. You can have too much of a good thing - LOL.

One thing to be warned about it that crimping new hulls that have not taken a crimp can be a challenge. Ballistic Products sells a tool that will yield a good crimp with fresh hulls - just decide if you want a 6pt or 8pt unit,

http://www.ballisticproducts.com/Super-Crown-Crimper-Large-Bore-6-Pt-Crimp-Starter/productinfo/0740006/
http://www.ballisticproducts.com/Super-Crown-Crimper-Large-Bore-8-Pt/productinfo/0740007/

The other option is roll crimps but I have never used a roll crimp as it is too slow - but that is me.

Good luck.

Don Verna

[W.R.Buchanan]

Don; I used a .69cal./.662 Lyman round ball (422 grns) with a 1/4" felt wad in my normal Green Dot trap loads with old style AA's. They are cream puffs to shoot, and do everything you need out of a tactical load. IE; they go "ping" when you hit steel, and poke holes in paper targets.

The Lyman slugs should do the same but weigh a little more.

I am not trying for anything but light loadings with my slug loads. I don't need super duper accuracy (minute of pie plate is fine).

I don't need the power and I don't plan on hunting animals with a shotgun. If I do need to hunt with slugs I have two boxes of Federal slugs which should last for a very long time.

I can shoot up a box of my round ball reloads in one stage of a three gun match, and I don't want to feel it later.

The only thing you will have to adjust on your machine is the crimp depth.

It took me about 5 wasted hulls to get it right. I did the Win Universals in the same setup. They are one way trip to the shoot.

Randy