4 Attachment(s)
My First attempts at shotshells...
I have been reading the castboolits threads on these shotshells for a month and thought they're neat, and "I can do that".
So I have been fiddling around in the garage.
I first used a pipe cutter to cut the brass. After getting tired of that I bought a HF 2" chop saw and made a wood jig for that. My fingers are happier.
Attachment 138633
For neck sizing I bought Lee carbide 41 magnum dies. I size full length resized 308 brass before cutting them with lots of lube. I make fewer bad cases this way. For the most part the necking is concentric.
Attachment 138632
I have no W231, but lots of other choices, like 700X, Bullseye, Unique, and 2# of International Clays I have no other possible use for.
I used card wads over the powder, and now I use 45 cal Wonder Wads, and 45 cal Vegetable fiber wads both meant for black powder. Leading is an issue with these wads, but less so than with the card wads I punched out. I use a 38-55 vegatable wad for over the shot. It's great. I'm thinking of smearing some Bore Butter on the shot before putting on the over shot wad and see if that helps the leading. I like the idea of shot cups but I think 115 to 120 gr of shot is what I need to get the things to cycle my gun.
I use a piece of 3/8" dowel for tamping the wads, inside and on top.
I have used between 95 to 120gr of 7-1/2 shot. The more the better.
The crimp was the hard part.
I radiussed the end of an old 223 die with my Dremel tool first, that sort of worked, then I bought a 7/16" carbide ball end mill and smoothed that out so it works wonderful with the right amount of force..
Here's my die after one round of smoothing, before I smoothed it out some more:
Attachment 138631
You do have to be careful about how the case enters the mouth of the die, it's easy to go off center and ruin the brass.
The roll crimp takes some practice, the feel is a lot like a primer seating, but too much and my crimps look weird. They still work, though.
I might have to try annealing the mouth for more consistent extraction. I don't have a torch, maybe I'll figure out a way to do it on my gas stove.
For the most part, my Para P-14/45 likes these better than my Glock G30S.
Here are some I made up today beside some old CCIs I still have. Thank you folks here for helping me.
Attachment 138629