doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Legal agreement on shotshell color coding by guage

There is no legal requirement in this regard.

However, when I was in my teens and choice of ammo was much less than is now the case everyone got used to the colour coding used by Eley - Orange for 12-bore, blue for 16 bore and yellow for 20 bore.

It makes sense to me that the colour-coding of shells of each gauge is a safety enhancing step that would possibly prevent accidents. I would be in favour of it but enforcement would be hard now that we get ammo in from all over the world.

I guess if 'they' can enforce the same system of indicating tyre ratings for motor vehicles (Rocketman was explaining this to me) 'they' could also decree that all ammo sold in the USA or in Europe conformed to a colour-coding shell scheme. I guess 'they' are too busy trying to stop us from using lead to do something actually useful with their time and legislation.

That Scott Farrel fellow that wrote the Guns Magazine article sure doesn't get out much. He states that the one thing we can count on is that "All 12 gauge shells are red." There has never been a time that we could rely on color to save us from our inattention. The "yellow 20" is a relatively modern phenomenon meant as a convenience, not a lifesaving measure. I still have 75 red AA 20s that I load and shoot when I am on a nostalgia kick.

Maybe when the UN has outlawed all our guns, they'll create another treaty to standardize the shell colors....grrrrrr...

Actually, he said you can't count on it as one company is currently selling red 20 gauge shells. I understood yellow 20's was a self imposed gentleman's agreement among USA ammo companies. Unfortunately, the rest of the world may not subscribe to this convention.

I have a few red 20 ga. shells. I think they are pretty old but still, I was shocked.

When I started shooting all cases were paper, except the all brass of course. Winchester & Western (they were sold as seperate brands then) were Red, Remingtons were Green, Peters were Blue, Federal Monarchs were Red as I recall, but can't remmember for sure about their Hi-Powers. All gauges were the same color.

It's all because of repeating shotguns... when you try to load a double 12 with a 16 or 20, you know something's wrong, but when the shell is in the magazine... I knew repeaters were evil!

Also. Grandpa said he had loaded his "duck shells" into red hulls, and "hare shells" into green hulls, to help instant recognition and save the trouble of writing the shot # over them. When I inherited his shotgun, there were some red shells that came with it. I shot a few ducks with them, and never knew the difference, but leter it turned out that the shells were loaded with #1.

You ever use a repeater, Hump? How is the shell stop of a 12ga gun going to catch a 20 or 16ga rim?

I believe the 12/20 mixups first saw the "Light of Day" peering out the chamber side of a 12ga double. You don't know anything is wrong unless you look down the chamber. "ANYTIME" you think you have loaded a gun & it snaps, check the bbl. Now this is of course much easier to do with a double, but the simple fact is, it has been ignored to the detriment of a good number of doubles. Only in extremely rare cases will a 16ga shell go far enough to get a 12ga behind it, but with a max chamber & min shell rim, it can occasionally happen.

I've been guilty of blasting away a few rounds with one of these infernal inventions, but I've repented that sin Yet, I can't picture anyone dropping a 20 ga round down the barrel of a break-open gun, and failing to notice something's wrong! Unless the somebody is shooting in complete darkness, in which case shell colouring isn't going to help much