doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com light 28 gauge loads

Although the 28g. Belgian sub 5lb. gun we discussed (see: http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbt...e1b#Post126447) is primarily designed for hunting it is inevitable for me to shoot it at skeet or some such just for fun. I have several options including the 2 1/2" 5/8oz. RST loads or such. I would like to try reloading a 5/8 ounce lighter load than typical factory loads here. I have tried the usual suspects, IMR, Hodgdon, Winchester and Alliant with no luck. They all start at 3/4 ounce.

Can anyone point me to 5/8 ounce loading data for a 28g. hull?

Builder, I also have a 4 3/4 pound Belgium made gun, a nice little Francotte Knockabout ejector. It is uncomfortable to shoot with factory loads or my 3/4 ounce reloads. I installed my heavy .410 shot bushing in my PW 800B, which is somewhat less than 5/8 ounce, more like just over a half ounce. I left the powder charge alone to keep the pressure reasonable, filled the shot cup with a .410 card wad and loaded my shells just like a normal 28 gauge load. They are great little loads, no recoil and obviously low pressure. You can fill the shot cup with just about anything you can find that doesn't weigh anything, like a couple of pinto beans or a .410 card wad. I like soft fillers or pinto beans on top of the shot, but a hard spacer like a .410 card wad works just fine in the bottom of the shot cup.

I will not list a powder charge or bushing. But go to your manuals and select a light 1100-1200 fps 3/4 oz load that uses a relatively fast 28 ga powder. This means Unique or Universal. Believe it or not, there are some Green Dot loads out there - and that's my personal preference. Whatever.......

Use the selected 3/4 oz powder charge as a starting point. Or you can drop the charge about 1/2 grain. Load 5/8 oz #8.5s or #9s. Following shot drop place a couple kernels of puffed rice on top of the shot column. Alternatively, I've used 1/2 a packing peanut (for the less environmentally conscious). You may need to lower the crimp start and raise the crimp to get nice closure with minimal dishing.

A safe powder charge for 3/4 shot will be safe with 5/8 oz. But consistency is something else. I always use a chronograph to verify that loads are reasonably consistent.

The 5/8 oz 28 is a very nice load. I load 5/8 oz 20s as well.

Sam

May be difficult (or impossible) to find these days, but Armusa offered a factory 28ga 5/8oz load a few years ago. Cheddite hulls, no shot cups. I bought a batch in 7-1/2 shot size, not aware that there were other shot sizes available.

I recall shooting some 5/8 oz 28ga Rios at skeet. When I missed, I blamed the shells . . . but it may have been operator error.

In Lyman's 5th Edition there are a few low pressure-low velocity loads that should be nice to shoot.
The one is 3/4 oz. using the new Winchester High Strength (HS) cases. You can't interchange with the old Win. AA compression formed ones.
It calls for 12.0 grs. 800x powder, Win. 209 primer, Win WAA28HS wad, 1135 fps, 7,400 psi.
Also using a Fiocchi Plastic case, 3/4 oz shot, 12.5 grs. 800X, Fio.616 primer, Rem.PT28 wad, 1135 fps, 7,100 psi.

If you cut these 2 3/4" hulls to 2 1/2" and roll crimp them with one .030 overshot card, the roll crimp will work out fine and it is possible you might have to cut them slightly more to get a good roll crimp. I had to do this with 12 ga 2 3/4" cut to 2 1/2" and then cut to 2 3/8" to get a nice roll crimp.
From what I have read the pressure increase from 6 point to roll crimp is negligent if not less.
I would guess that you are not loading a lot and cutting a few boxes would be easy and so would the roll crimping.

I like my original answer for my friend "Builder". However, for the information of everyone involved in this thread, RST makes an excellent low pressure 5/8 ounce load in 2 1/2" cases which would be suitable for older guns of light weight, even composite barrel guns in good condition. I shoot the RST 5/8 ounce loads in short chambered Parkers. I use the 1/2 ounce reloads in the 4 3/4 pound Francotte. rstshells.com for the RST price list.

The standard Eley Grand Prix 28 bore load is 9/16th. ounce, if you can source them. Lagopus.....

I think Ballistic products has some wads, and data for 5/8oz 28ga loads. You can call them and they are very helpful, at least to me they have been.

Possibly adaptable to a 2.5" case. I had more than 8 lbs of SR 4756 and none of the powders I normally use in this gauge so I gave it a try. I use IMR load data for AA case(old style). Recoil is very light as compared to faster powders. Down side is that it's dirty. I let a recoil sensitive friend try them and now that is all he loads. The dirty load would not be good for an auto but in a break open gun it's no problem.