Brass Shot Shells for Black

[Cemetery]

Was thinking of tinkering with some brass shot shells.

But was just wondering what people use to reshape them, after getting dinged, or not destroyed by footfall.

[Fox Creek Kid]

They are great for style points but a pain the kiester. Paper hulls are more authentic. The first "modern" type shotguns hulls in 1876 by Winchester were paper tubes. 

[Mako]

Cemetery,
If you step on one you just roll on the ground and lament the loss of your prized shell.  Oh, and be sure to do it after you have finished at the unloading table.

They are not easy to get round again.   Ahem... I know of "someone," who had that problem and he tried a sizing ring he made out of a piece of brass on a hydraulic arbor press.  Hmmmm, didn't turn out as planned even though there were copious amounts of lube applied.

Fox Creek Kid is right, they are more for style points than anything.  I tried annealing the mouth and applying a crimp to aid in loading, I still had splits on a few after a couple of loadings.  The sharp mouths catch on everything at loading.  I have considered a conical cardboard nose, but as you can tell it is getting complicated

I primarily use Rem. STS gold hulls, everyone thinks they look cool....I keep the Brass for less serious shoots or goofy loads with extra stuff in them.

Best of luck,
Mako

[Fairshake]

I have had a few brass hulls that had dents and such but after reloading and firing they were fire formed to normal. The biggest problem is that in most SXS they will not shuck out like the STS or AA hulls. They tend to stick and I have tried them in more than one SXS. In my 87 which has the drop two they are so heavy that they tend to go past the position and cause me to do some pushing of the lever to realign them. I use the paper hull made by Federal and Fiocchi for the 87. The paper hulls tends to swell and not come out of my TTN SXS so it uses the STS and GREy AA's. I shoot Frontier Cartridge with full house loads so I don't use the Gamer Loads. My 44-40's receive full cases of 2F with 210 gr custom bullets from my molds and the 12 ga hulls are above the 60 gr mark. I don't consider any type of pump shotgun to be historically correct but if that is what you shoot then it might work well with the brass hulls.

[rickk]

RCBS Cowboy dies (12 g) in either a RockChucker or a Lee "Cast Classic" press will resize, deprime, and re-prime the brass hulls. The depriming pin collet will straighten out about 99% of a dent or squish. The resultant hull might not be 100% perfect, but it will load, chamber, and fire (and then fire form to repair any remaining dents).

They are capable of putting a slight taper crimp on the hull as well if you want that.


The RockChucker and the Lee "Cast Classic" both have the 1-1/4" x 12 thread that the RCBS dies will fit into.

[Mako]

... I don't consider any type of pump shotgun to be historically correct ...

Fairshake,
Your stock just rose considerably with me because of that statement.

In my experience, dents yes, sqooooshed or stepped on cases no.  They always are out of round after that.

I read rickk's post as well.
Have you ever resized a badly deformed case?  I know someone with that die and after me asking him to fix a couple he told me that they would never be fully round again either. And as Fairshake correctly pointed out, they don't shuck as well as paper or plastic hulls; when out of round even a little it only exacerbates the shucking problem.

Regards,
Mako

[rickk]

Mako, if someone steps on it on concrete and flattens it, it is pretty much a goner.

If the mouth gets dinged, or it gets pushed into the dirt with a boot and deformed a bit in the process, or there is a dent in the side from landing on a rock it can be brought back to life.  A flattened mouth has a chance. If it is flattened down near the base the odds of it being resized without tearing the wall are considerably less. If it is not only somewhat flattened, but also bent so that it is no longer all pointing in the same direction it can't be resized.

The die will only allow a certain amount of mouth damage to be present before it will enter the die.  Some "fixing" with a tapered dowel before trying to resize it can help.

The way the die is made, the OD of a resized hull pretty much has to be within standard chamber dimensions. The ID might still be out of round in spots (dents) by about .050 or so.

[Mako]

rickk,
I've had a few over the last four or five years get damaged. One was on a wooden stage floor, the R.O. stepped on it almost fell.  The others were on the ground, I know I stepped on one moving to the next firing port who knows who stepped on the rest.  I step on rifle brass or plastic hull shells every once in a while and just toss them.

I destroyed one trying that sizing ring (ooops, I mean I know someone who messed one up) but I reshaped three and they never have been right.  Even after firing they just aren't round.  No major dings, just a roundness issue.

I'm familiar with hard tooling.  I was asking about your RCBS die because I don't know what the clearance is on the Expander Ball.  Does it actually contact the inside of the case?  I ask because the pard I asked to size them for me told me the expanding ball  didn't touch any of the forward portion of the Magtech brass, is that true?   He's pretty handy, and he said it was because it had to clear the taper in the last inch or so of the base I.D.  It sounded plausible to me.

One last thing, you said it made a "taper crimp,"  The one he showed me had a radius and then some taper that was caused by the roll crimping operation.  Is your die a taper crimp only? How much taper will it give you?  He no longer crimps because you get only a few reloads until they split, he just had one with a crimp on his cart to show me.  I roll crimped a couple of boxes with a roll crimp tool made for paper and plastic, I didn't spin it I just used the quill on my mill to press them down.  I had splits too, I probably have 30 left out of the 50 and most of them had splits.  I just cut them 1/4" shorter.

Thanks,
Mako

[rickk]

Mako, I would be hesitant to even call it an "expander" as under normal conditions it does not do anything.

It has two steps in it though, as though they considered the possibility of it being used to "fix up" damaged mouths, or to un-taper an overly tapered case.

I haven't measured it, I can if it interests you, but I eyeballed the slop in a resized case yesterday and it was probably around 50 thousandths to the tighter expanding ridge on the "expander".

The taper crimp is just that, a taper. It doesn't do a roll. It doesn't do a star (The old RCBS dies do a star crimp). I'll measure a tapered case tonight to see what it measures. It's not much, but it is a visible taper.

I also use the taper crimp portion of the die after finishing the crimp on star crimped plastic hulls. My MEC 600 JR puts a little mushroom on the top of the hull when it finished the crimp. Looking at it from the end, the profile has a little bit of an octagonal hint to it rather than perfectly round. They still fit in the chamber fine, but if I run one thru the taper crimp portion of the RCBS Cowboy die the octagonal hint and the little bit of mushrooming go away, and there is a slight but visible taper left on the front of the hull.

I believe that higher end shotshell loaders than the 600 jr typically have an additional station with a taper die in it to do exactly the same thing.

[Pony Racer]

I will second what rickk says I have been shooting only brass cases for awhile and have had only one get so squashed i could not reuse it.

I also know some folks who got the brass just roll crimped enough that they cycled very reliably through a pump 1897.

It might not be historically accurate but the style points and fun factor of hearing the boom and resulting chuck-ching from a 1897 firing smokey brass shells is something to behold.

I shoot mine in doubles, 1887 IAC lever gun and a martini-henry 12 guage single shot.  I have had no splits in 6-7 years and rarely if ever have hulls gotten more than just a slight ding from someone stepping on them. After about half a day of shooting they do not slide out as easy as paper or plastic - but I like them.

They only problem I really had with them was sealing glue - used elmers for about 2-3 years with no issues and all of the sudden it was not sticking real well.

I use a glue gun - and I am completely converted to it.  The glue stays elastic in winter and summer and is dry enough to shoot in about 20-30 minutes.

Anyway that is my two cents.

PR

[Mako]

PR,
I appreciate your two cents.  I'm reading your post, it sounds like you don't crimp, but you have friends that do.  Is that correct?  If you are crimping I'd like to hear more about your experience, because like I said I was getting splits with shells I crimped.

With shells I don't crimp they will probably last forever.   I only use double guns and I have a chamber brush I use that helps keep the shucking problem down, but if they aren't round it appears to be an ongoing problem.   I had it happen with one that I knew had been straightened out, so I found the other two and just pulled them from my stock of shells.

As far as not denting or distorting them when you step on them, you and your posses must be svelte, lithe and light as feathers.  I guess that makes us a bunch of brass smashing fools.

The glue gun is a good tip.  I had wondered if someone did that with good results.  I hate adding glue and then having to wait overnight for hardening.  It seems I tip one every once in a while if I'm doing more than a simple loading block of 25 and find it in the morning glued to the paper I had it sitting on.  What kind of hot melt glue are you using?

And Let me know about the crimps.

Regards,
Mako

[Noz]

When I was doing brass hulls, I sealed with the traditional water glass. Never had a shell come apart.

[Pony Racer]

Mako no sweat!

I do a very slight roll crimp about every other firing - it is done with A special tool head and a rubber malllet (about 6-8 strikes only).

I think I got the tool head from a company that was called "Hammer Double" but have seen similar tools at BPI and other places. the tool head is set for 12 guage you add a metal striking dowl to backside center it on shell and whack with rubber mallet.

Since the doubles and martini-henry don't need a crimp even a slight one is helpful.  People I know who do the brass shells and 1897 shooting say they keep about two boxes of shells seperate from rest of the brass hulls - since the roll crimp has to be just right to get brass hulls to cycle reliably.

I use the mini glue gun with mini glue sticks since when I shopped for one; the small ones had a brass tip that gave a finer beed tan the bigger glue guns.

The glue I use is called: "all purpose stik" made by: "surebonder". It takes about 2 sticks to do 25-30 shells.

They are very cheap and if you have a Michaels, or just about any kind of craft store they will be in there.

As for being light on feet - probably just lucky I guess. I have lost 43 spanish brass to being crunched as well as cases splitting (although that was more me getting used to reloading necked cases.)

PR

[rickk]

sitting here with a beer and an RCBS Cowboy die, an old RCBS "regular shotshell die" a reloaded brass shell, a reloaded plastic shell and calipers.

A resized Brass hull is .790 at the mouth of the case.

The way I set the sizer set up, the Cowboy Die is squishing brass hulls down to .785 at the mouth... not much, but a taper non-the-less. It is capable of going down as far as .770 in OD if one wishes. I did some measurements on the die itself. The reduction in diameter appears constant verses distance, and looks like it goes from .830 to .770 diameter reduction over a distance of about .3".

The old RCBS "regular shotshell die"  has the same taper from .830 down to .770 over the same distance of .300.  Then it appears to roll down to .675 over the next .100 (and then it stops). That is a feature that the Cowboy die does not have in it.

So, the older "regular" dies appear to be designed to start a roll crimp or start a more extreme taper on a star crimped hull, something that the new cowboy dies will not do. The instructions do not talk specifically about the secondary taper in the die, but show it being used simply to but extra taper on a star crimped hull. I do not go that far on plastic hulls. I bring it down to about .790. If I had a semi-auto I might play with shoving it into the rolled part, but just haven't to date. When I set it up, I was afraid of it messing up the star crimps so when I started to see the hole in the center of the crimp going completely away I stopped.

The "expander" in the Cowboy die has a max od of .740. It looks like it will start into a case with an ID of .630. A new Magtech hull has a mouth ID of about .765, so, it won't bring it back to original size, and normally won't even contact the inside of the hull at all. It's only purpose is for unsquishing slightly squished cases.


The "expander" in the old "regular die measures .690 max. It really isn't made for fixing anything. It just holds and centers the decapping pin. If a plastic hull is that messed up, into the trash it is supposed to go.

So given the differences between the two sets, depending on exactly what you want to do there are things in both that can compliment each other to some degree. Between the two sets, you get shell holders that allow you to re-prime both large pistol primers and 209 primers.

Be aware that the die body in the two sets is identical, so the various parts from one set can be interchanged with the other set. It's really too bad that they don't make a "master set" with both plastic and brass hull parts in it. I hear stories that RCBS didn't want to compete with their newly introduced shotshell loader, but I suspect the real reason is that the plastic hull dies just weren't selling. They are pretty slow to use for batch shotshell loading, and at that time the dies only fit into the RockChucker. In fact, up until the LEE Cast Press came out that was true of the RCBS Cowboy dies as well.

There is some margin for error in my measurements. It is hard to measure the ID of a taper with calipers. YMMV. If someone comes up with slightly different numbers on a similar set of dies, so be it.


Changing subjects a bit, I use Waterglass to seal the overshot wad. Give it 10 minutes of sitting and it won't run any more. I think it takes several hours to actually harden though.  I know some use glue sticks. I was afraid that a glue stick might actually stick too good and raise pressures. I don't know one way or the other, but the waterglass is easy to apply and has a hundred plus year track record of reasonable success.

Rick

[john boy]

But was just wondering what people use to reshape them, after getting dinged, or not destroyed by footfall.

Cemetery, this is never a concern on Posse #2 at Jackson.  There are several of us that shoot them, Virgil Ray nearly every match.  Trust me, all your brass hulls will be on the unloading table before you finish shooting.  They get BIG RESPECT 

[Cookie]

The glue gun is a good tip.  I had wondered if someone did that with good results.  I hate adding glue and then having to wait overnight for hardening.  It seems I tip one every once in a while if I'm doing more than a simple loading block of 25 and find it in the morning glued to the paper I had it sitting on.  What kind of hot melt glue are you using?

Like Pony Racer I started with Elmer's but switched to a glue gun.

It's possible Pony Racer has better control than me, but I hated using a glue gun. The glue itself is perfect for the purpose (adheres instantly, dries very fast, remains elastic), but the end result looked horrible. Nowhere near uniform, with bumps and little glue threads hanging off. Also, the glue itself doesn't get removed with each firing. Some glue gets left behind in the shell. (I don't really think the residue affects anything, but it bothered me.)

So after the glue gun I switched to Sodium Silicate, and love it. It does take awhile to dry, but the result is beautiful.

Also FWIW, I shoot a SxS and I don't add any crimp to my brass. And so far I haven't had any brass become unusable. I have had a few shells get a bit dented at the mouth. I just shoved a wood dowel inside and tapped on them with a rubber mallet. As long as they'll fit in the chambers, they're good to go.


@FCK - I don't have any references atm, but it was my understanding that brass shells came first, then paper, then plastic? I know I read that somewhere (with dates) in some shotgunning journal, just can't remember where...

[cheatin charlie]

I just picked this up from Google:

In 1868, the Union Machine Metallic Cartridge Company began producing an unloaded brass shot shell.  It was supposedly the first commercially available shot shell.  The loaded versions were not sold by UMC until 1888

Just loaded some Magtech hulls and no need for lubed wads.  Lubed wads were meant to be used in Muzzleloading shotguns.
I also use Waterglass and it works well.  Added advantage it mostly melts out of hull while soaking in water.  Warn brass
pickers that hulls will be hot especially on hot summer days.

Charlie

[Lefty Dude]

I have been using All brass shells now for about three years. Sorry gang I shoot smokless, but soon BP.

I shoot 16 ga., use Unique powder, plastic wads, & 7/8 oz shot. I have over 150 case's fo 16 ga. & 12 ga.

This Summer I will develop the BP load for 12 ga. & I will be using plastic wads.

I have decided to use Brass shells at Winter Range in a few Weeks. Will be loading up 75 rounds tomorrow for the match.

If any Pard needs help with loading Brass shells and is at WR, look me up. I'll be the Shooter with all the brass in his belt.

I have helped several Pards with the technique of loading Brass shells. Idaho Sage Rider had some issues we corrected. He is now loading 16 ga. & 20 ga. brass for his Winchester 97/16 and 20 ga. SXS's.
BTW;If you crinkle or deform a case, just use a round steel mandrel, plastic mallet and pound it out.

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Howdy!

I've been loading my brass Magtechs for 6 or 7 yrs now.  I bought 100 and a few are into their 8th loading, so you can see that I don't shoot my 12 ga much - I shoot nearly all at NCOWS matches.

During that time, I've had 2 cases split right at the mouth.  I do 100% of my loading by hand, so there is no crimp OR expander.  I can't explain the splits other than material weakness or flaws.  I shoot ONLY BP in mine.  I've shot mine out of 2 shotguns: my first was a Stoeger hammerless Coachgun, then I traded for a nice Tula hammered double.  My shells have only expanded about .006" - .008" from firing, and the chambers are "generous" enough that resizing isn't needed, and MOST will shuck out after firing with only gravity and a slight shake.  A few take fingernail pulling, but NONE have ever stuck badly.  My charge works out to about 68 grs. (if measured) of 3F or 2F - whatever I have the most of on hand.

The only shells I've had to reshape (3 or 4) Have been easily done by hand. 

Have fun!  As Fox Creek Kid mentioned, paper hulls are more authentic, but brass are fun and look great.  It's my understanding that while brass hulls WERE (somewhat) available from the 1870s, the brass hulls really gained favor during and after WWI due to the paper hulls they used in trench warfare often were ruined by humidity/rain in the trenches.

But brass hulls filled to working levels with BP are really fun to see ... and shoot!

[Driftwood Johnson]

I don't consider any type of pump shotgun to be historically correct but if that is what you shoot then it might work well with the brass hulls.

Howdy

Are you saying my 1897, made in 1908, is not historically correct for 1908, and my Model 12, made in 1923, is not historically correct for 1923?

For that matter, my main match sidelock hammer gun was made around 1906. Is it too not historically correct? Is it less historically correct than some of those ugly Side by Sides being made today?