doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com .410 hull brands

A buddy and myself are venturing into reloading the .410. I've had half a lifetime of reloading 12s and 20s, but no little 'uns. I've been gathering hulls for years and have a duke's mixture of them. Question is, which brands are Cheddites? Are Kemens, Estates and Rios all Cheddites?

Also, according to the way I 'cipher the Claybuster info, their .410 wad is a direct replacement for the Rem., the Fed., and two of the Winchesters, right?

Stan

Estates are Federal hulls

Stan: Get ready for a lot of aggravation and frustration! The .410 is the most difficult shell to load successfully, and I never was successful in reloading any but Winchester, Remington and Federal hulls. The .410 is very sensitive to slight variations in hull length and strength. Over about 40 years of reloading the .410, I settled on Remington hulls, Winchester primers, Federal wads, WW296 powder, and magnum shot. I could have used WW AA hulls, but the loader must be set up for the hull being used, or you won't get good crimps. Using larger than 9 shot can be difficult on a progressive loader because the larger shot tend to bridge in the drop tube. The wads aren't very interchangeable either. A wad made for the old Winchester CF hull would allow the fine powder used in .410's to migrate past the wad in straight walled hull like Remington and Federal, resulting in bloopers. I have loaded many thousands of .410 shells because I like to practice skeet with them, and the above opinions are based on my experiences.

I too have tried them all, you are best off getting rid of all of them except Winchester AA HS. You will thank us after few months.
If you have a lot of long ones just take the scissors and cut them to length

I load at least 4000 410/year, the AA HS is head and shoulders the best hull but Federal and STS work for about 3 reloads and break targets well. Imports ???????

bill

Stan, Tom and the others are right. I am still loading AAcf hulls and Reminngton STS because I am able to make both on my P-W without adjustments with a wad change.

Once all the old AAs are gone I will go to the AAhs hull. Resist the lure of trying the off brand hulls. it will only make your beard turn grey.

Thanks, guys. I'm listening.

Anybody use the Claybuster wad? They're a little cheaper, but may not be worth the savings if they don't work well loading the AAs.

Stan

They can be sensitive to slight variations so be very careful when loading magnum stuff. I only load them as a low velocity sub-sonic round with 3/8th. ounce of small shot for ratting or else as a blackpowder load for an older gun. I also mainnly use card and felt wads and rollcrimp. Fiddly little devils. I ddi use some plastic wads in the ratting load but had to reduce the powder load quite a way to get them right. Lagopus.....

I used Claybuster wads in my .410 loads for quite a while, but started having blooper problems with the Remington hulls. After a lot of frustration and head scratching, I finally measured some wads. Claybuster had changed the wad diameter from that of the Remingtons to that of the Winchesters. I gave almost a whole case of the Claybusters away, and went to Federal wads with no more problems. The Claybusters worked just fine in Winchester hulls (0ld AA). The only caution I would give about loading .410's has to do with primers. I never had any problem using WW or Rem 209's, but some brands gave high pressure in the .410 causing shot off shells. Cheddite was one of those brands.

Thanks, Tom. I'm gonna start out with WW AAs and Claybuster wads with WW primers, and go from there. I may be back with some more questions later.

SRH