doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Load pressure

Does anyone know the PSI for 3-1/4 x 1-1/4 1220 loads sold now by Federal, Winchester, and Herters?

This isn't a question that anyone could answer without testing each. The SAAMI specs are that it's not supposed to be over 11,500 psi. I would guess that all of those are likely to be close to that much pressure in order to get that much velocity. I often load shells close to those specs using Green Dot and the load data I used put the pressure right at the max

I only shoot that load in modern guns that can handle that pressure. Good luck finding the information you need!

Those SAAMI specs have been in effect for a century. The heaviest 12-gauge shells our North American ammunition manufacturers offered from the 1890s until after WW-I, 3 1/2 drams of bulk smokeless powder or 28-grains of dense smokeless powder such as Infallible or Ballistite pushing 1 1/4 ounces of shot were higher pressure than SAAMI specs. Those loads didn't move that 1 1/4 ounce of shot as fast as the progressive burning smokeless powder loads that were introduced in 1922, Western Cartridge Co.'s Super-X leading the way, did.

With the North American Nimrod's proclivity to use the hottest loads he could lay his hands on we can be sure that any of these old guns that saw use from the mid-1920s into the 1990s when we see shooters beginning to think about these things, digested plenty of the Western Super-X, Winchester Super-Speed, Remington Express, Peters High Velocity and Federal Hi-Power loads.

Sure, wish I could answer your question about these particular shells. I've found that it's almost useless trying to call the manufactures for getting pressure specs on their ammunition. For the most part, I quit worrying about such things if I was running them through fluid steel barrels. On pattern welded barrels, I do like keeping the pressures down to error on the side of caution & be kind to the barrels.

I find it fairly easy to find loading recipes in the speed range mentioned below 10,000 psi and it's one of the reasons why I reload. I don't send my reloads off to get tested & simply pick a loading recipe from the powder manufacturer & make sure I select the correct bushings for throwing the weights listed for both powder & shot by weighing them when I'm first working up a load.

As a rule of thumb, you can count on factory ammunition being no more than the SAAMI maximum of 11,500psi, if your uncomfortable with that type of pressure, there are companies like RST who openly share pressure specs.

Another pet peeve of mine is I sure wish shotshell manufactures would get away from printing the outdated & useless black powder dram equivalent on their boxes and replace it with the pressure rating for the ammunition.

B&P did offer ballistic data



The pressure data is still on this website. Click on a shell then + INFO dropdown
https://www.baschieri-pellagri.com/...iro/trap-skeet+professional/1/index.aspx

And BTW AFAIK Tom Armbrust is the only one who will test factory loads.

valuable data...

thanks for posting...