doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 1 3/4" 12 gauge "shorty shells"

I have seen several ammo makers offering short shells, mostly to cram more shells in a home defense gun I assume.
Has anyone shot any? They sell at premium price it looks like. Challenger is a shell I shot a lot of, they have a short offering.Honey, I Shrank the Shotgun Shells (And the Recoil!)

Challenger's Super Shortshell Shotshells - say that three times fast! - are part of the new wave in shotgun ammunition: shorter than standard length shells. The benefit is being able to load more rounds into the tube magazine of your pump action personal defense shotgun. A full 1" shorter than standard shells (1-3/4" vs. 2-3/4"), Super Shortshells also make excellent reduced-power loads for recoil-sensitive shooters, especially in single- or double-barreled shotguns.

Like all Challenger shotshells, Super Shortshells deliver excellent performance at an economical price. "Economical" doesn't mean cutting corners in the wrong places. Cheddite primers give "surefire" reliability, while the slow-burning powder spreads out the recoil impulse to help make Super Shortshells extremely easy on the shoulder. Extra-hard, high-antimony pellets maximize the "punch" of the smaller shot loads.


1-3/4" shell length lets you load more rounds in tube mag shotguns
Light recoil excellent for beginning, youth & smaller-statured shooters
Extra-hard, dense-patterning pellets
Available by the 20-rd box or 300-rd case
Super Shortshells are not just the result of loading up good ingredients and hoping for the best. Like all Challenger shotshells, Shortshells are exhaustively tested in a state-of-the-art (and science!) ballistic laboratory. A universal receiver is used in conjunction with an ultra-sensitive quartz pressure transducer and advanced chronograph to test pressures and velocities. This ensures you enjoy the same light recoil from one round to the next, EVERY time you pull the trigger.

I have shot some Aguila #7 1/2 through a relatively heavy, tighter choked gun a some clays only for curiosity. It broke modest clay presentations, and was expectedly mild shooting. I may carry some for dove coming up. I'll never have to worry about it, but I had the thought to try an over the counter 2 in. shell option, and I saw it sitting on a shelf for about fifty cents a shot.

Mike I bought a number of boxes of the 1 3/4� shells several years ago.David and I shot some hand thrown birds just to see how they performed. Worked pretty well. I will give you some to try when we get together so you can try them on dove if you would like.

Mike, have you tested them in different tactical pumps for reliability in cycling?

SRH

Thanks Phil, I'll check them out, thinking about first shot for doubles.
Stan, I don't have any tactical pumps-just Redwing lace ups....

Stan, when we sold the Aguilas at Cabela�s, a number of the pump guns tried to allow two out of the magazine, causing horrific jams.

�Redwing lace ups� - I like that.

There was a long discussion of the Aguila shorties on CalGuns a few months ago. Lots of uninformed tacticool types on that thread, but consensus seemed to be that they were prone to jamming in a lot of pump guns and not worth the risk in an HD situation.

I don't own a pump gun and I've never tried the short "shorties" but I have used a fair number of the roll crimped Gamebore 2" shells loaded with 5/8 oz #7 shot in my double guns hunting in the uplands (cases are just over 1 3/4" long when fired). They patterned well and were very effective on bunnies, the occasional woodcock or squirrel; and even on one old coon. Recoil was very mild, but what I liked most was how easy they carried over a long day afield kicking brush; was equivalent to having a .410 with the pattern of a 12-bore. I don't worry about home defense; wife would scare anybody off.

Reported fps & pressures

Aguila 12ga MINISHELL 1 3/4� 5/8 oz. shot - 1,175 fps - 11,000 psi
Federal 12g SHORTY 1 3/4� 15/16 oz. shot - 1,145 fps - 9,200-9,500 psi

Hey Doc Drew. thanks for that info. I've actually tried to look for that Aguila info, but hadn't had any luck.

Thanks, Mike. Sorry to be slow in getting back to you. Church this morning and at the river until about 8 pm this afternoon.

Seems the consensus is that they don't feed well. I can't envision a situation where I'd need over 9 rounds in a personal defense shotgun anyway. Eight in the mag and one up the pipe is heap big medicine.

SRH

I've seen, on Full30.com, and adapter that fits into the magazine port on a pump shotgun to make them feed the 1 3/4" shells.

I had no idea they were loaded with almost an ounce of shot...
JR

Hello gentleman,

I am not sure the pressure reported for those short shotshells are correct, let me explain:

In the Aliant reloading manual I have, a 12 ga 7/8 oz load with Bullseye powder the pressure with a plastic base wad shell is 6,300 psi, How you can reach 11,000 psi with a 5/8 oz in the Aguila minishell or even 9,200 psi with a 15/16 oz in the Federal shorty?
Is there a powder faster that Bullseye?

Just curios.

The answer is...

It's a very short wad column.

Higher pressure is reached because the room for gas expansion before payload movement is much less.

Federal was the source for the reported pressure
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=559346

the Aguila pressure I found on the Aguila website

and shorty shells are also available from Challenger
https://www.targetsportsusa.com/challeng...5-p-108956.aspx

I can tell you the Aguila 7 1/2 shot patterns incredibly evenly out of a P-gun and a 1905 Parker.

Drew is right, the Federal pressures are directly from Federal. Still have the email somewhere!

For the Mossburg pump an attachment can be bought to make it work with short shells, not so with a Remington pump. I think only the Mossburg pump will work with short shells. I've roll crimped quite a few over the years and have two boxes of them sitting in the window over in the clubs shotgun room. I even took apart a couple of boxes and shortened them up for the 2" shells. Some guys just can't figure out when Winchester or Remington made 2" shells and boxes for them.

Shotgunjones, is pressure much higher if fiber wads are substituted for plastic wads, all else being equal ? There's no expansion with fiber wads, or does the poor gas seal make up for that ? All published data is not always correct, so Jose may be on to something.

A fiber wad is far from being an incompressible solid.

An online acceleration calculator shows that an object accelerated from a standing start to 1150 fps in 3 milliseconds experiences an average of nearly 12,000 G's. That's the average. Since a shotshell obtains 80% of it's final velocity in the first 10 inches or so, the initial acceleration would be much higher.

Look at a fired plastic wad and note the deformation the pellets undergo.

Fiber wads get squashed quite a bit, but have the ability to rebound as does a plastic wad.

Put a fiber wad stack of cards and felts in a vise and reef down on it a bit. That's what happens in a shell too.

Now take that away, or make it really short, and you've taken away quite a bit of area for gas expansion.

Pressure will increase.

I know there is much to consider about pressure, but if the pressure seems high, the duration must be correspondingly brief to move 5/8 oz of shot at mid 1100 fps. For a break action, 5/8 oz out of a tight choke was fun, and tempting for me to revisit.

Nobody's ever happy.

We make short 12's and magnumize the 410.

We lower trucks and lift cars.

We want less filling and great taste.

Mostly, we want to be different.

Everyone has a great yet pointless idea.