doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Star crimp origin?

Anyone recall when Federal went to the star crimp? I can well remember through at least most of the 50s they still loaded with a roll crimp & used a "Frangible" topwad.
Maybe one of these days I will get my Burrard book out & see if I can find that statment that "We" (USA) din't standardise on the 2 3/4" shell until 1947. I have had my copy for going on 50 years & referred to it extensively & just don't recall him saying that.

Miller, you will find it in Burrard's volume two, "The Cartridge", page 90 (1950 edition).

He also mentions on page 124 of the same volume that the full crimp closure was introduced towards the end of 1938 in Great Britain and America for paper tube cartridges.

For over two decades from the late 1890s to the early 1920s, the heaviest American factory loaded smokeless powder 12-gauge shells were put up with 3 1/2 drams of bulk smokeless, such as Hazard, New Schultze, DuPont, E.C. No. 1, New E.C., Alarm, Dead Shot, Oriental, New Troisdorf, and Empire; or the equivalent in dense smokeless powders, such as 28-grains of Ballistite, 28-grains of Laflin & Rand Infallible, or 38-grains of Shotgun Rifleite; and 1 1/4 ounces of shot. These could be put up in 2 3/4, 2 7/8 or 3-inch shells, and with bulk even 3 1/4 inch shells, but these longer shells only had more and better wadding, not a heavier payload. In the early 1920s, the ammunition companies, led by Western Cartridge Co. with their Super-X loads, began using progressive burning smokeless powders. Western literature of the period discusses a proprietary powder of their own, and also Du Pont Oval.

The A.H. Fox Gun Co. Super-Fox brochures from 1923 and 1925 discuss shells loaded with DuPont DeLuxe and DuPont 93?

I have been wondering about the pressures of those old shells from before the days of progressive burning smokeless powders for some time. From the late 1890s to the early 1920s, the heaviest factory loaded 12-gauge 2 3/4 inch and longer shells were loaded with 3 1/2 drams of bulk smokeless powder or some number of grains of dense smokeless powder (28 grains of Ballistite was one of the most popular) and 1 1/4 ounces of shot. In several of the old sporting books I've read the authors expressed the opinion that these loads were excessive and were of the opinion that the 3 1/4 dram 1 1/4 ounce was a better balanced load.

I've now scored some old DuPont Smokeless Shotgun Powders books from the late 1920s and early 1930s. These booklets are very lengthy tomes, 96 and 103 pages, promoting their DuPont Oval progressive burning powder, which allowed the development of the high velocity loads like Western's Super-X, Remington's Nitro Express, etc. In the manual they show a table giving the pressure of the 3 1/2 drams DuPont Bulk Smokeless pushing 1 1/4 ounces of #6 shot as 11,700 pounds, with 3 1/2 drams of Schultze 11,800 pounds, and the same load pushed by 28-grains of Ballistite at 12,600 pounds!! Velocities were all given over 40 yards, not the muzzle velocity figures we are use to seeing today. The DuPont bulk gave 943 fps, the Schultze gave 941 fps, and the Ballistite 966 fps. Meanwhile 40 grains of their DuPont Oval gave that 1 1/4 ounce of #6 shot a velocity of 981 fps with a pressure of only 9,400 pounds.

Researcher;
Great info. I too had often wodered about the pressures of some of loads you mention. I could not help but believe they had to be quite high, much higher than we have so often seen implied that all the older loads were. Some of the pressures you state exceed present day SAAMI Specs. Some of these very loads were listed in Lefever Arms Co catalogs with no distinction made as to their use in either steel, twist, or damascus bbls. Many shooters of the era also used a comparatively fine graind black powder which itself was no pussy-cat for pressure.
At least as early as 1913 the LACA catalog stated all their 12ga guns would be shipped with 2" chambers unless otherwise ordered. L C Smith had gone to 2 3/4" for their 12 ga guns even earlier.
I realize that some early shells did not have a very high base wad, & I have not tried it but with a 3� dram measure & 1�oz of shot one would not get much wadding in a hull shorter than 2 3/4". The smokeless loads would have fit the 2 5/8" hull much better I would think, but those early smokeless powders were all quite fast burning, thus high pressures with heavy shot charges.

The problem with everything pre-SAAMI (mid 20's) was a lack of standardization. But after SAAMI came on the scene--and there were a whole lot of short shells and short-chambered guns produced after that--there were different proof standards for guns with short chambers vs those with the "modern" 2 3/4" chambers. And it was about that time that the ammo makers started putting two warnings on their shell boxes: 1. Don't use long shells in short chambers; and 2. Don't shoot smokeless powder loads in Damascus guns. There's a lot of information left out of those warnings, but they are an example of erring on the side of caution.

Those 3 1/2 dram bulk smokeless/28-grain Ballistite dense smokeless 12-gauge loads were the hottest/heaviest offered by the factories. There were plenty of 2 1/2 dram, 2 3/4 dram, 3 dram, 3 1/8 dram and 3 1/4 dram loads being offered, and Ballistite as light as 20 grains and 1 ounce of shot, but North American shooters being how they are, you know plenty of the old boys were opting for the most they could possibly get!

And, in those days handloaders were often doing really scarry stuff!! I recall Bill Headrick did an article in The Double Gun Journal on a very high grade Parker Bros. hammer gun that the original order stated the purchaser wanted it to shoot a load of over 4 drams.

I just very carefully went through a 1903 Baltimore Arms Co. catalogue, and there is no mention in it anywhere of chamber lengths. There is a page of recommended Smokeless Powder Loads, but no mention of the length shell they should go in. They do state to only load black powder in brass shells and that for smokeless loads be sure your hulls have a high base if using dense powder and a low base if using bulk powder. The heaviest 12-gauge loads they recommend for Pigeon shooting is 3 1/4 drams of bulk smokeless powder and 1 1/4 ounce of shot or 26 grains of Ballistite and 1 1/4 ounce of shot. They recommend 2 3/4 or 3 dram, 1 1/8 ounce loads for field shooting.

The 1905 Philadelphia Arms Co. catalogue doesn't mention chamber lengths anywhere, but does give their recommended smokeless powder loads as being for 2 3/4 inch shells, and gives 3 1/4 drams with 1 1/4 ounce of shot. They don't mention Ballistite but do recommend 20 to 26-grains of Infallible. Under the DuPont Bulk smokeless poowder load, they state "If 2 7/8" or longer shells are used, use three or more 1/4 black-edge or express wads."

I do not know all the particulars on it but in an American Rifleman article on smokeless powders which first appeared in the 1950s & was then reprinted in their Reloaders Guide in the 60s as I recall, it was stated that Infallible & Unique were the same powder. I do know that on the Lyman 55 powder measure the same settings were listed for the same weight charge. Also early Lyman data lists only Infallible for shot shells & only Unique for pistols & reduced rifle loads.
The oldest data I have which lists pressures is A Herter's "Professional" Reloading Data book. Pressures are crusher pressures as they show a picture of the pressure gun & describe how they are taken, though all are given as "PSI".
One chart is for paper cases & paper wads.
25grs Unique under 1�oz shot for a 3 3/4DE gave 9,489.
23grs Unique under 1 1/8oz for a 3DE gave 8,725
23grs Red Dot under 1 1/8oz for 3DE gave 10,178
20grs Red Dot under 1 1/8oz for a 2 3/4DE gave 9,462
A 3 dram measure of DuPont Bulk Shotgun Smokeless under 1 1/8oz gave 10,500
I also have an original 12ga Lee Loader with the instruction manual having a 1961 copyright date. In it they state that because of the strength of "Modern" primers DuPont Bulk should no longer be loaded in equal measure to Black Powder. For loading the bulk they recommend using the shot measure set to 1 1/8oz for loads of either 1 1/8oz or 1�oz. They also show lighter loads wirth 1 1/8oz with the shot measure set at either 1oz or 7/8oz. On their charge table they show these loads as having about a 25% greater DE than they would actually measure in drams of black. No pressures are listed in the Lee loads though. They do show the same 23grs Redot with 1 1/8oz as the standard 12ga load.
Note Well!! all these loads ar around 50 Years old & ""ARE NOT"" recommended for current loading Data, but given only for historic interest.

When I started loading in the early 1960s, the hull everyone was using was the Federal paper. The load was a Federal primer, 23 grains of Red Dot, a nitro card, two Felton Blue Streaks and 1 1/8 ounce of shot. Then, along came plastic and we got the PGS (Plastic Gas Seal) wad to replace the nitro card and the powder charge dropped to 18-grains of Red Dot.

Back to the original Star Crimp question. While my scanner still isn't scanning, I tried a digital pic of the "Shotgun Dope" page from the September 1939, The American Rifleman --

Always good to remember that psi was a crusher measurement (which means it was really LUP) prior to WWII, and I think for quite a few years after that. The British standard 850 bars proof, which they only dropped a few years ago, was a crusher measurement rather than transducer--which is why you can't multiply by 14.5 to convert to an accurate transducer equivalent.