doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Winchester AA loads in vintage guns

Stallones,

They have a 1210 '/sec load and a subsonic around 1050'/sec. Which one are you talking about?

rst

Yes, RST are great shells but here is the thing:

RST starts at $100/flat, and postage is $22, for a final price of $12.20 per box.

AA costs $7.99 per box. I have coupons for Sportsman's Warehouse for $10 off of $50 purchase. So, 7 boxes (costing $55.93) puts me over the $50 threshold. Thus, the 7 boxes actual cost $45.93, plus 6% tax for a total of $48.69. THEN, there is a $2 rebate per box, making the final price $4.96 per box. Confused yet?

Bottom line is, they are CHEAP and have a generally good rep.....so if they are appropriate for the guns then they are a good value and I will be loading up.

The reason they won't sanction those loads is because they don't necessarily use the same powder from lot to lot. They're working to a specified velocity. Their only concern with pressure is that they stay within SAAMI standards. As Kensal says, with sub-1000 fps loads, chances are pretty good pressure will also be low. But you don't know for sure. A few years back, Federal did a special run of low pressure 12ga loads that were sold through Midway. But other than exceptions to the rule like that case, there's no pressure guarantee on shells from the big outfits like Win/Rem/Fed. Best thing to do is to buy those AA's, shoot them in a gun proofed to SAAMI standards, and then work up low pressure reloads in the once-fired hulls.

I will shoot no new AA's in any gun I own. Too many problems have been reported by others with loose basewads. I know that most were from reloaders but a few were said to be new shells. I had on new hull with the base wad that had come loose and was about a third of the way out of the hull. Factory not reload. That cured me of using them.

Why run the risk just to save a few dollars? Until they go back to a one piece formed hull I will pass and load my own in some other hull. For that matter I have many thousands of the old style AA that we all loved for years. We have so many more choices today than we had just 20 years ago. Low pressure loads are out there and reloading has never been easier to do with reloading information every where for low pressure loads.

I can't speak to the Winchester shells, but years ago I got some Eley Hawk low-noise, low recoil, sub-sonic loads and they shot fine out of the right barrel of the 4-weight Ansley H. Fox B-grade I was using, but the left barrel shot waaayyyy off the mark. Use my 1200 fps, 7/8 ounce, 6300 psi Remington STS reloads and the gun shoots right on with both barrels. A single example, but that was my experience. Everything I load, I load to 1200 fps, it makes my mind happy.

I believe regardless of the manufacturer and any advertising, shells will be loaded to a pressure high enough to insure reliable function in a gas operated semi auto. These may be a "lower" pressure but may not be "low" pressure. You pays your money and you takes your chances.