Safe substitutions?

[faustus]

Safe substitutions?

I am still relatively new to shotshell reloading but I learned a lot in the last couple of years and particularly on this site. Thanks to all those knowledgeable folks on here and their willingness to share that knowledge.

We all know that every shotshell reloading manuals state the following:

“Do not make any substitutions!”

However, in today’s world and with the difficulty to get primers, hulls, wads and powders, … the reality is that we have to make some sort of substitution to a published recipe and to acquire all the components needed to assemble a load. And I have been forced to make such substitutions in the last couple of years ….

But what are safe substitutions? No manual is teaching what is a safe substitution and what is not. All I learned about substitutions is basically from this site and from the experience and knowledge that you folks were willing to share on this site.

I know that it is difficult to predict the amount of pressure increase or decrease of many substitutions. However, if at least I know that a certain substitution will decrease pressure and not increase it …. and if I apply this substitution to a published recipe …. then I am on the safe side …. right? All I will end up with is a load that will have a lower pressure than the published recipe.

Now if we had to teach new shotshell reloaders about substitutions …. and about what is safe and what is not …. what would the rules be? What would we try to teach them?

Here are some examples of what I am talking about ….

1. Substituting equal weight of birdshot with buckshot and no other change will lead to lower pressures.
   
2. Substituting equal weight of lead shot with steel shot will increase pressure. Don’t do it!
   
3. Substituting equal weight of steel shot in a recipe with lead shot will lower pressures.
   
4. Adding buffer to a recipe that does not use any buffer will increase pressures. Don’t do it!
   
5. Other ….??

So what are other universal rules that you would share with a new shotshell reloader and the reloading community? What substitutions or changes to published recipes are safe …. and what changes are not safe?

[megasupermagnum]

#1 is correct, it is stated in some manuals. I'm not sure buckshot will always lower pressure, but it shouldn't change it much. It isn't always possible with really large buckshot, but it does work a lot of the time.
#2 is not realistic unless you are being really stupid. The volumes between lead and steel are just so different it's not going to realistically happen.
#3 also not really realistic. Steel shot data isn't rare, but it's not easy to find loads that would translate well to lead shot. I just can't imagine anyone ever wanting to do this.
#4 100% correct. There is no rule of thumb for how much I've seen, but we can be certain buffer will always raise chamber pressures all else equal. That said, the opposite may be possible. In Tom Rosters buffered manuals he states you may forgo the buffer if you wish safely. Chamber pressure will lower, but so will your pattern percentage. There are some loads in there that would make fine plain field loads, so I can see why someone would do this.

#5 other: I have no problems swapping near identical wads. We all know you can use clone wads such as Claybuster or Downrange. I go a step farther. For example, I will gladly swap a Winchester AA for a Remington figure 8 wad. They are both taper wads, with almost identical crush sections, and really are almost identical wads. I also swap Winchester AA12R wads with Remington RP12 wads. They are mildly different, but pretty much the same. Load data often shows both performing identically. I've even gone so far as pressure testing identical loads, but one with a Winchester AA20 wad, and a Winchester AA20F1 wad. Both were identical in pressure despite small differences in the wad. Steel shot wads are an area I would be a lot more careful being they can vary so much.

It's definitely a gray area, but I feel safe recommending substituting basic lead shot wads of identical design. There is simply no real danger when we are dealing with 1 oz and 1 1/8 oz trap loads with so many nearly identical wads.