7/8oz Shotshell Load Using APP

[Clemsum]

I read the thread and watched the videos on loading shotshells without a press and was reminded that I have an old Lee Loader from when I was in high school. Since I have been thinking of shooting Frontier Cartridge Class at our monthly match and I have APP 3f on hand (I know 2f is recommended) I want to load up some shotshells.

I have the Gray 7/8oz plastic wads on hand but they are too long for the shell with that volume of powder. How much can I reduce the powder column safely or can anyone recommend a plastic wad that would work with the 7/8oz load?  I don't particularly want to use fiber wads if I can avoid it.

Thanks
Clemsum

[Noz]

I shoot 1 oz over greatly reduced powder charges. Produces low speed patterns of great goodness and amazing take down ability.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

There are a number of remedies to get more room in a load. 
1. Get a shorter wad.  Field wads for 1 1/4 oz. like the AA114 work with about 50-60 grains of FFg. the normal 1 1/8 oz target wad will likely work with FFFg in the 40 gr range.  You will have to adjust powder & shot to tune the load height to get a proper crimp. I usually stay at 1 oz or less of shot.
2. Cut the petals off those wads.  It will eliminate any pattern tightening effect, but will give a bit more space for powder or shot.  I do this on my old European full choke guns that are already tighteran **.
3. Cut the cushion legs in the middle. Turn the parts 90 degrees and mesh them together.  This will shorten the wad length without affecting patterning much.  The cost is TIME!, lots of it!

Some complain about plastic streaking in BP shotgun loads. I have tried an over shot card to keep the heat away from the plastic, with an upside down plastic wad with the petals removed on top.  It leaves the cup part of the wad under the shot.  A century ago a similar fibre wad was called a "Swedish wad".  Some of you might recall the Herters "chalice" wad that spouted the supposed advantage of the cup shape to concentrate the shot column. 

These tricks might save a bit of $$ by using components on-hand, but at the expense of TIME!

[Mako]

Clemsum,
You're right about the WAA12L grey wads being too long.  I use those for my daughter(s) 7/8 oz CAS loads with nitro powder, there's not enough room underneath for real powder.

However the PINK WAA12SL wads are shorter and you can collapse the legs enough with the wad pressure setting to get a 45-46 grains of FFg under 7/8oz of shot in a Win AA or Rem STS hull.  It's all about column height.  I have loaded rounds for the girls with 7/8 oz of shot and a 3.1cc Lee scoop of FFg (45.6gr according to Lee)

The manufacturers of the Super G Wads have a very good pictorial comparison of their 24 gram-1 1/8 oz wads showing the cups sizes being the same and the difference in height being the collapsing section.  These are actually imported by BPI and most people don't realize it.  Unfortunately BPI gave them names like "spitfire," EML and Comp Special Short.  They identify a few by length which is actually the most useful dimension for those of us shooting gunpowder in our search for shorter wads to accommodate the taller powder column we get with BP.

This is the Elio Gualandi comparison:



I have used the BPI "Short Shell Wads"  which they sell for use in the 2 1/4" or 2 1/2" hulls.  These work well for 1 1/8" oz loads with 55-65gr of BP in 2 3/4" hulls.  The wads shown in the BPI catalog are now clear/white instead of the green shown by GU.

Check out this photo.  Using clear hulls you can see the one wad is collapsed more that the other.  Even thought they are two different Super G wads (left is a 19, the right a 22) you can see the compression section is collapsed more on the left wad than on the right.  This collapsing is "controlled" by how you have your wad pressure set with your loading press.  With this you can do some fine adjustment on your column height to get the perfect crimps.



Here is a quick conversion table which will help with comparing the renamed GU wads on the BPI site.

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Odds%20and%20Ends/UGtoBPI.png

In conclusion the secret is to have the top of the loaded column be 7/16" below the top edge of the hull mouth.  This 7/16" is what you need to form your crimp on 2 3/4" shotshells.  Everything else is just powder, shot and "filler" (includes wads) to get you to that height.

Regards,
Mako

[Blackpowder Burn]

I use the Claybuster 1138 red wads.  They work well with 1 to 1-1/8 oz shot and 65 grains BP.

[Clemsum]

Thanks to all for the replies. I think I will give up on the gray wads I have on hand and look for the pink or red AA wads.
Thanks again.
Clemsum

[Pettifogger]

One word of caution about "compressing" the wad column with wad pressure.  Plastic wads can be stiff and will decompress some after they have sat a while.  If your crimp starts unfolding after the rounds have sat a few days, the solution isn't to mash the wad in even tighter, it's to get a wad with the correct wad height.

[Mako]

Clemsum,
I didn't even talk about the Winchester red wads a lot of us use and you mentioned. That is the wad I use, but I use 1 1/8 to 1 1/4 ozs of shot now now at really low velocities to keep my pattern from opening up.  I want a fist or double fist size mass hitting steel knock downs.  You are talking about 7/8 oz loads, the WAA12R red wads are too short for the light recoiling 7/8 oz loads you want.  Winchester doesn't make the red wads anymore but Claybusters makes an analog wad called the CB1138-12.  It is a direct replacement for that wad.  It looks like this:



If you are interested in heavier shot loads you can get them here:
http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?productnumber=646729
or here:
http://www.ballisticproducts.com/CB1138-12-WAA12R-500PK/productinfo/030CB12R/

The problem is they are perfect for 1 oz loads to 1 1/8 oz  they actually work better with 1 1/16 oz to 1 1/8 oz of shot and you vary between 55 and 63 grains of powder to make the column height.  With 7/8 oz you can't get a good crimp, it's all too loose.  And you don't want to add powder you just blow a hole in the middle and get a doughnut shaped pattern.

Pettifogger is partially right, if you get it all too tight you will get malformed hulls and inconsistent crimps.  The wads actually won't decompress if you have a good crimp.  The wads actually relax instead of "decompressing."  That's what plastic does, it "plastically deforms" which means it takes on the new shape to relieve the stress it has been put under.  I have shells that have been loaded for years that were technically too tall of a column.

But he is absolutely right about matching the wad to the needed column height.  That is why I showed all of the incremental heights of those wads that GU has.  Since smokeless shotshell reloading is all about matching components rigorously listed in manuals, most people have no idea they are making columns of a certain height dependent upon the bulk of the nitrocellulose propellant they are using.  It's only when people like us are "wildcatting" loads do we need to know the heights of the wads as we vary our real powder loads.

So unless you want to shoot 1 oz or more forget the red wads and try something else.

   The Pink wads look like this:                    And the Greys you have like this:
           

See how tall even the pink wad is? it's only because of the flexible legs you can even use it.  It is still too tall I would probably go with the 19mm CS12S Comp Special Short sold by BPI
http://www.ballisticproducts.com/CS12S-Comp-Special-Short-12ga-250_pk/productinfo/072CS12S/



Wads from BPI are pretty cheap, the one i show above is on sale right now for $4.98 for a bag of 250.

Regards,
Mako

[Pettifogger]

"Pettifogger is partially right, if you get it all too tight you will get malformed hulls and inconsistent crimps.  The wads actually won't decompress if you have a good crimp." 

I'll take a partial and raise you an almost.  I have BP shells I loaded two or three years ago that are fine.  On the other hand when I changed loads and was experimenting I got plenty of shells where the wad pushed the shot cup up and the crimp partially unfolded.  The plastic in the crimp has been folded at least once in a reload and the material is certainly no stronger than the plastic in the wad so the force takes the line of least resistance -- UP.

[Mako]

Pettifogger,
I'm not going to argue with you.  It's your experience not mine.

In my experience a well formed crimp that has a deep shoulder fold around the periphery is very tight, strong and resists even attempting to manually unfold it for disassembly.  The difference between the strength of the crimp and the force exerted by the the compression section of the wad is that the compressed section is trying to straighten back along the axis of the shell.  The resistance to this is not in the center of the column but around the periphery of the crimp where the shoulder is actually folded back over itself.  That is enough to resist the opening of my loads.

Your wads must be stronger than mine.  I have found once I get a crimp set and they isn't the pinwheeling twist or hole at the center of the crimp (which means I have as perfect a crimp as possible on previously shot shells) it stays put.  It's all about how it looks after the last crimping station on my loaders.

Regards,
Mako

[The Swede]

Some complain about plastic streaking in BP shotgun loads. I have tried an over shot card to keep the heat away from the plastic, with an upside down plastic wad with the petals removed on top.  It leaves the cup part of the wad under the shot.  A century ago a similar fibre wad was called a "Swedish wad".  Some of you might recall the Herters "chalice" wad that spouted the supposed advantage of the cup shape to concentrate the shot column. 

Did the over shot card work to keep the plastic wads from melting?

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Did the over shot card work to keep the plastic wads from melting?

Seems to.  More time consuming to load but I've not seen any streaks of "snot".

[Pettifogger]

Mako, I try all kinds of wads just to see what does what with what load and shot charge.  Most of my stuff is BP.  I have no problems with Remington STS.  Winchester AA's are about 1/16" shorter than an STS and require recalibrating everything on a Dillon 900 when you change loads, so i was trying to find a combo that would work by changing components, but not press settings.  No matter what I do, the Remingtons almost always yield better crimps.  Remingtons are hard to get right now and the last batch of STS Gold's I got were a bad batch.  On about 1 out of 10 the brass rim would fall off while reloading.  Right now I have a lot of AA's.  I've seen those clear hulls you had in the picture, new at some good prices.  Are they skived or unskived?  Are you having any problems the first time they are crimped?  The crimp on the one on the right looks looser that the one on the left.  The Dillon only had five stations and the crimps weren't always as nice as I like.  I sold it and bought an RCGS Grand.  It has eight stations, three just for the crimp.  As I am getting used to it, its seems to be doing a nice job.

[The Swede]

Seems to.  More time consuming to load but I've not seen any streaks of "snot".

Time consuming is not a problem... Streaks of "snot" is.

[Mako]

Time consuming is not a problem... Streaks of "snot" is.

Which is exactly the reason I don't sniff my barrels after shooting, no matter how good they smell...

[Pettifogger]

Which is exactly the reason I don't sniff my barrels after shooting, no matter how good they smell...

Yep, nothing like the smell of sulfur in the morning.  As far as time consuming loading vs. snot, special handling for each shell is a heck of a lot more time consuming.  When I'm loading two or three cases (not boxes) for a match and a practice session time is valuable.  All you have to do for snot is go down to Ace Hardware and buy some rubber stoppers in the hardware section.  I have four.  Two go into the breech end of the double barrel.  When I am on the road I just take some Windex on "spray" (not stream) shoot about eight blasts down each bore to wet them down and then put two slightly smaller stoppers in the barrel ends.  After I have finished cleaning my rifle and handguns all it takes is a patch on a tornado brush pushed through from the breech end.  The snot comes right out.  Total time impact -- zero, since the shotgun is just sitting while I am cleaning the other guns.

[Mako]

Pettifogger,
I agree 100%, the impact in time is basically zero.  I just spray moose milk in the barrels and let them sit while I clean the other three and then take a paper towel pull it in half, stuff half in each tube and then push them through with a stiff large diameter cleaning rod and any plastic comes out like a snake skin.

I have never understood the hand wringing over plastic wads with gunpowder, it cleans as easily as vegetable wads.  Loading is much simpler and the results are better for CAS because you can control the pattern much better.  Modern chokes throw at least one choke less with fiber wads instead of the petal controlled plastic wads.  We need tighter patterns, not more open ones when engaging steel knock downs and tipping targets.

Now if someone wants to load fiber wads to be more "authentic" , then that is okay.  I think that the "problem" with plastic is vastly OVERBLOWN and the dangers of plastic is used as an excuse to use fiber wads and be different.  I say if you want to be different, then just do it...

~Mako

[The Swede]

from what I have read in the past it is not hard to clean the plastic.... But snot....

[Pettifogger]

from what I have read in the past it is not hard to clean the plastic.... But snot....

You're the one that called it that.  I usually call it plasticized black powder fouling.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

You're the one that called it that.  I usually call it plasticized black powder fouling.

No, its snot!