scottg
12-26-2013, 11:14 PM
Maybe this is a little silly but, I wanted to build a buckshot load using one of the clear shotgun hull available. I enjoy reloading and (here comes the silly part) I consider what I’m doing an art of sorts, and I like to be able to see my work of art. There, I said it. Therefore, I had decided to try the Fiocchi clear 2 3/4 inch hull. I know Cheddite and Federal both make clear hull but when I was ordering the hulls Fiocchi were the only 2 3/4 inch hull available at the time.
As it has been a while since I have reloaded shotgun shells I had no wads so I ordered a number of different ones including, Federal 12SO (1 Oz), 12S3 ( 1 1/8 Oz), Winchester WAA12SL - Pink (1 – 1 1/8 Oz), Winchester WAA12 – White (1 Oz) and Remington RP12 (1 – 1 1/8 Oz).
I also ordered some buffer for my buckshot load from BPI their Mix 47.
Feeling optimistic that I would be able to work something up with this I began my experiments.
My goal was to mimic 9 pellet #00 buckshot loads offered by Remington, Winchester and others. I did not have any buckshot loading data but, I did a bit of measuring of a dissected store bought 00 buckshot shell and quickly learned that each #00 buckshot pellet weighs about 1/8 of an ounce and 9 pellets is about 1 1/8 oz. So I found some shot data for 1 1/8 Oz loads and began working from there.
My powder choices were Unique and Blue Dot simply because those are what I had on hand that would work for shot shells. Checking the Unique powder charges for some of the 1 1/8 Oz I settled on about 25gr of Unique powder.
At this point I have a starting place to produce a mild buckshot load traveling about 1,250 fps for which I should have all the components.
So let the work begin.
The first thing I learned with any of the wads was that #00 buckshot can only sit 2 side by side when using a wad. If I tried not using a wad, then I could set three side by side and create three stacks. Very quickly I learned I could only get 8 pellets in all the wads (stacked 2-by-2) and still have room for a crimp except for one and that was the Remington RP12. I learned too that with the RP12 I could get one more stack giving me 10 pellets. Okay, I can live with that but I had to rethink my powder a little bit so, I went back to the charts and tables a learned I could use the same charge of Unique for 1 1/2 Oz loads.
After settling on a 10 pellet #00 buckshot load, I quickly learned the RP12 did not keep the powder contained. There was powder creep around the wad which was very annoying and because I am going for the artistic aspects here I found that unacceptable. I learned too this happened with all the other wads as well. The Fiocchi is a straight walled hull, unlike others like the Winchester AA hull which is tapered which a lot of wads seem to be designed for.
The solution to my little problem, and I don’t want to start a discussion war here because I know it’s “coloring outside the lines” a little but, I found if cut some round disks from some brown paper towels just large enough to wrap up around the cup of the wad, it would keep the power in place (plus it looks kind of cool).
When it is all said and done, I’m pretty proud of my load. As expected, it was a mild recoil load with great patters at 20 yards. I am currently loading up some buffered and non-buffered loads and plan on testing them at various distances for patters and consistency.
So in summary here is what I’ve got:
Hull: Fiocchi 2 3/4 in
Primer: Fiocchi 209
Powder: Unique 25.6 gr (Lee Dipper 2.8)
Wad: Remington RP12 with single ply brown paper towel disk on bottom
Lead: 10 #00 Buckshot stacked 2-by-2 for 5 rows
As it has been a while since I have reloaded shotgun shells I had no wads so I ordered a number of different ones including, Federal 12SO (1 Oz), 12S3 ( 1 1/8 Oz), Winchester WAA12SL - Pink (1 – 1 1/8 Oz), Winchester WAA12 – White (1 Oz) and Remington RP12 (1 – 1 1/8 Oz).
I also ordered some buffer for my buckshot load from BPI their Mix 47.
Feeling optimistic that I would be able to work something up with this I began my experiments.
My goal was to mimic 9 pellet #00 buckshot loads offered by Remington, Winchester and others. I did not have any buckshot loading data but, I did a bit of measuring of a dissected store bought 00 buckshot shell and quickly learned that each #00 buckshot pellet weighs about 1/8 of an ounce and 9 pellets is about 1 1/8 oz. So I found some shot data for 1 1/8 Oz loads and began working from there.
My powder choices were Unique and Blue Dot simply because those are what I had on hand that would work for shot shells. Checking the Unique powder charges for some of the 1 1/8 Oz I settled on about 25gr of Unique powder.
At this point I have a starting place to produce a mild buckshot load traveling about 1,250 fps for which I should have all the components.
So let the work begin.
The first thing I learned with any of the wads was that #00 buckshot can only sit 2 side by side when using a wad. If I tried not using a wad, then I could set three side by side and create three stacks. Very quickly I learned I could only get 8 pellets in all the wads (stacked 2-by-2) and still have room for a crimp except for one and that was the Remington RP12. I learned too that with the RP12 I could get one more stack giving me 10 pellets. Okay, I can live with that but I had to rethink my powder a little bit so, I went back to the charts and tables a learned I could use the same charge of Unique for 1 1/2 Oz loads.
After settling on a 10 pellet #00 buckshot load, I quickly learned the RP12 did not keep the powder contained. There was powder creep around the wad which was very annoying and because I am going for the artistic aspects here I found that unacceptable. I learned too this happened with all the other wads as well. The Fiocchi is a straight walled hull, unlike others like the Winchester AA hull which is tapered which a lot of wads seem to be designed for.
The solution to my little problem, and I don’t want to start a discussion war here because I know it’s “coloring outside the lines” a little but, I found if cut some round disks from some brown paper towels just large enough to wrap up around the cup of the wad, it would keep the power in place (plus it looks kind of cool).
When it is all said and done, I’m pretty proud of my load. As expected, it was a mild recoil load with great patters at 20 yards. I am currently loading up some buffered and non-buffered loads and plan on testing them at various distances for patters and consistency.
So in summary here is what I’ve got:
Hull: Fiocchi 2 3/4 in
Primer: Fiocchi 209
Powder: Unique 25.6 gr (Lee Dipper 2.8)
Wad: Remington RP12 with single ply brown paper towel disk on bottom
Lead: 10 #00 Buckshot stacked 2-by-2 for 5 rows