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