Well-sealed brass shotshells

[Abilene]

A couple months ago I was shooting my brass Alcan shotshells at a match, and one of the stages required you to put your shotshells in a spitoon and load from that.  I put an extra in there in case I dropped one, but forgot about it.  When my empties were brought back to me at the unloading table, they were tossed into a little bucket I had there for my empties.  The live round was in there with the empties, but I didn't notice.  I took the bucket to my cart and dumped them into my water (with a little dish soap) jug.  Several hours later when I emptied it out at home I noticed the live round.  Doh!  And then later after they dried it accidently got dumped into the vibrator with the empties.  After all this it was still in one piece so I tried it at the next match and it went boom just fine!  ( I didn't try it during a stage, in case it went pfffft! and left a wad in the bore ).  The load is powder, then a Circlefly 11ga overpowder card, red plastic wad and shot, 11ga overshot card, sealed by swirling Elmers wood glue around the edge with a q-tip.  That's what I call well-sealed! 

[Mako]

Ho Abilene,
That's excellent, not totally surprising but pretty cool. But I am surprised you would put your hand in a spitoon after Scooter though, I'm assuming this was at Plum Creek...

I have a idea, if we could get to the stage writers to include water in the spitoon you and I can clean up, I'll shoot my magtechs.  We just need to REQUIRE that all knockdowns have to drop, they could waste 2 or 3 minutes on the stage. 

Later,
Mako

[Abilene]

Howdy Mako, actually it was at Green Mountain, they don't have those wascally wabbit knockdowns.  But you have a good idea.  Kinda like when '97 shooters write stages with odd number of shotgun targets.  Kinda... 

[Mako]

Abilene,
I assumed you meant last month and you weren't at GMR were you?  I have been waiting for someone to stick some of that loose spent brass they keep at the bottom of the spitoon in the chamber in their fumbling haste and then stick a 12 ga round behind it. I haven't seen that yet, but saw someone "accidentally" launch a .45 ACP case at a shotgun target.  The claim was that they were loading in blocks and they were using it to mark where they were in the sequence.  Someone  gave them a .45-70 case at that match to prevent that.

Yep, odd round counts...Pistol targets at powder burning distances, only 2 shotgun targets, splitting pistol sequences into two stages to try and confuse those of us shooting gunfighter.  By the way I noticed you were shooting GF at Plum Creek, when are you gonna break out your cap guns and "bring it on?"   That one antique Colt .32-20 is purty neat,  but I'm getting ready to call "gamer" !!  I've already forgotten what the other pistol was.  I came over to show my friend your Richards-Masons and was a bit surprised...SERIOUSLY! TOP STRAP REVOLVERS?  What's next smokeless powder?

And ewwwwwwwww!!  Were you on Nada's posse?  It slows everyone down reaching into the spittoon after he's shot.

[Cookie]

That's a pretty cool story. Especially surprised the glue held together in the tumbler.

I do have one question -

... sealed by swirling Elmers wood glue around the edge with a q-tip.

I originally tried Elmers glue, but found that the overshot cards absorbed the moisture of the glue, would swell, and then not seal properly. How do you get around this? (I ended up giving up on Elmers, switched to hot glue guns, and finally broke down and bought some water glass.)

Wow, I'm glad there's no odd-numbered shotgun targets at my clubs! Good thing the '97 gamers don't write stages! However all our shotgun targets are knockdowns (with a few fliers and pop-ups thrown in). Keeps it interesting. But, I'm also glad the shotgun targets tend to be last. The reload times kill me...

Lost my first shell Saturday. I can understand losing an odd pistol case in the dirt, but a brass shotshell? It just disappeared... 

[Abilene]

Mako, I think it was the month before.  Missed the GMR Nov. shoot and will again this month due to family stuff out of town.  My had is off to you percussion folks, especially gunfighter.  I don't even own a cap gun any more (only ever had one, a '60).  Basically I'm just too lazy, plus have too many other guns that need to get shot.  That 32-20 is my brother's, he's never even shot it, but lets me, so I try to shoot it a couple times a year and pair it with my old .45.  Combined age, 214 years    Not sure I understand the comment about the .45acp case.  Someone had that loaded in a shotshell???  Dang.

Cookie, I dunno but the wood glue has always worked for me.  No card swelling, it dries fairly fast.  Regular Elmers dries a little slower but I have used that as well.  I don't use much, just enough to get it all around the circumference of the wad with no gaps.  The center of the wad will have a tiny film on it.  Those circlefly overshot wads are kinda glossy, kind of like they have some sort of coating on them.  For years I used waterglass as I found a quart sized jar.  I poured some in a smaller jar and worked out of that, so I wasn't opening the big jar too often, but after a half dozen years it dried up solid.  I liked the waterglass because it was period plus dried really fast.  But it would dry up and get brittle in the shell if it didn't get shot within a couple months, so I would re-apply it to the shells before the match if they looked like they needed it.  That's a bummer about losing the shell.  But you never know, might find it next month!

[Mako]

Abilene,
Ah, the story of the whizzing  .45 case... It was interesting, I was spotting and there was this strange sounding  shot and a something shiny hit the target and bounced back towards the shooting line.  The  round was a smokeless load and sounded light, not quite a squib, but light.  The steel rang like it was hit with a really wimpy .38 spl load (or maybe a .32-20 load... ).  The R.O. told the shooter to stop because he thought something had shot off of the shotgun and they called for a down range stop so we could sort out the problem and retrieve what he thought were gun parts.

You know me, so I took the shooter and his shotgun to the unloading  table and began looking for what broke.  It was a Russian imported double and everything  looked like it was intact.  About that time another spotter who had watched the path of the ricocheting object showed up with a bent nickel plated .45 ACP case.  I was still looking at the shotgun and assumed it was just a piece of brass he found.  The spotter insisted it was what hit the target and a couple of us, including me were arguing with him when the shooter spoke up and told us it was his case. 

He explained he used a wooden dowel with a .45 case on it as his marking stick when he loaded.  He has some sort of a hand loader and kept the shells in a wooden block using the dowel to mark his location if he stopped.  He told us he had done this since he had once forgotten to put a wad in the shell because he got out of sequence.  I found that a strange story in itself because he should have noticed his shot load dropping totally into the case when he poured his dipper.  Well... anyway,  he said he had been loading for this match but misplaced his dowel with the shell on the end (to make it purty I guess) and he was in the process of looking through his wood scraps for some dowel stock when he was called to dinner or something.  He had already picked out a new .45 ACP case up to make his new marking stick, so he just dropped it into the mouth of a partially loaded shell to give him a visual reminder.  Sometime after that he returned to his loading and just overlooked the case and crimped it in the shell.  You would have thought he would have noticed the weight difference and the lack of a good crimp.

I suggested he always use something long enough to prevent it being crimped in a case no matter what happened, this is where the .45-70 brass came in.

Well it isn't the legendary stack of dimes that Billy the kid was supposed to have shot Bob Ollinger with, just an 8 cent nickel plated case.  But it was "exciting," well for me anyway.  It never ceases to amaze me what people do when reloading .

So ends another tale of danger and excitement,
Mako

[Cookie]

@Abilene - I just re-read your post and I noticed you used a q-tip as an applicator. Maybe that's the difference. I just squirted mine on straight from the bottle. I was probably using too much...

Plus, apparently I'm using the wrong size wads / cards. I originally bought from Midway, and they only offer standard size wads & cards. It wasn't until afterwards that I figured out Circle Fly recommends using slightly over-sized wads & cards for Magtech brass shells. So I've got a couple hundred wads & cards that are the wrong size.

It's amazing how many tricks / products you have to go through to find something that works with reloading. 

[Abilene]

Cookie, yeah I think you got it figured out.  And I'm not sure, but Circlefly may actually recommend the 10ga cards for the Magtechs.  The Alcan shells are a bit thicker.  When a load my old Winchester or Rem-UMC shells, which are about the same as the Magtechs, the 11ga cards are just slightly loose, but they still work okay.

Mako, now that is an interesting story, and could very well be totally unique in the history of CAS    I don't want to out that shooter in public, but next time I see you let me know who it is so I can join in with ribbing him about it