Win 87 with shorter shells?

[Reverend P. Babcock Chase]

Howdy Shotgunners,

I don't load my own shot shells, but it seems to me that current 2-3/4 inch shells tend to hang up on the unfolded crimp during eject from my (repro) 87. Since the originals were designed to function with rolled crimp, I'm thinking that I need to find (load?) rolled crimp shells for my 87. Does anyone sell factory rolled crimp shells? Do I need to learn how to do my own? Can I use trimmed plastic? Or am I totally wrong about how the 87 works?

Rev. Chase

[Abilene]

Seems like I"ve seen a number of Chinese '87's working fine with Winchester AA's, so I couldn't say.  But it is certainly pretty easy to roll your own.  Cut off the plastic hull as short as you want.  Roll crimp with either an antique tool (pretty easy to find and work well) or Ballistic Products makes a thingie to use on a drill.

[Curtis264]

Make sure you take apart your repro 87 and clean and polish the surfaces inside the gun, mine jammed up as well until I polished some surfaces and lubbed it. It will now feed everything including my reloads, has not had a jam since