So, got into trap last year and havebeen enjoying it. I'm a hoarder and had been accumulating quite a bit of shotgun stuff (rather eclectic bunch of stuff) and since the cheap shells at Wal Mart are nowhere to be found, I decided to finally get off my butt and do it.
Loader is a Lee Load All (I'll evetually get a better one, have a MEC for 16 gauge) and I found a combination using the Federal hulls I had a bunch of from saving them after a trap session, Winchester 209, 19 grains of 700X, Claybuster equivalent of the WAA12SL wad and 1 1/8 ounce of 7 1/2, Loaded 50 Saturday and started off good, then had several fizzle out, a couple left wads in the gun which I was being alert for and punched them out, but it was a frustrating start. I was worried that quantity of 700X had gone bad as it's quite old.
So, back to the drawing board. Reloaded the hulls, same load, only this time I was very careful to keep the powder hopper full, tap the charge bar several times before charging and look in every hull before seating a wad. Back to the range yesterday afternoon and they all worked perfectly. Had that range to myself, didn't even ask for a scorer (they hire high school kids to do it and since I was mainly interested in whether my handloads would work, liked being solo). I think I hit 19 one round and 18 on the other which is a decent day for me, sometimes I do better but can't count on it.
I know a lot of you guys are old hands and this doesn't sound like much but it was pretty much my first time seriously loading any shotgun shells. Those Federal hulls crimp real nice, I reloaded them after I got back along with 50 more, still holding nice crimps after three firings. They have a big bin there that the kids put all the empties they police up in, free to anybody who wants them so I took a few minutes to get a bag of those same hulls, I should be set for a while.
I'm pretty pleased with that Load-All too. As cheaply made as it is, it seems to turn out good ammo, though as I learned, one has to be careful with it. All in all, a cool experience, I've been a metallic cartridge handloader and bullet caster forever, it's been a while since I delved into something handloading related that was completely new to me.