doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Need best way to polish chambers for extraction

Whew! I went to this site that you provided. It says a box of 10 costs just over $30. That seems awful pricey to me even for a specialized load.

At those prices, maybe it makes more sense to buy the all brass hulls and load my own. Anyone have any thoughts on this? How hard is it to reload all brass shells?

That is 25 round box for the Gamebore BP 2,5 inch, 1,0 oz loads. You must have been looking at some of the Kent TM waterfowl loads, they are 10 rounds per box and about USD30.

Brass hulls, like normal plastic hulls, are quite easy to load. Lots of folks here can tell you how to do it.

I have long used Remington RST hulls, shortened to 65 mm (2 5/8 inches), Remington STS primers, with 1,O oz shot dipper filled with Pyrodex-P or Goex FFg or FFFg, cardboard (nitro) wad over powder, 1/2 inch fiber cushion/filler wad, same shot dipper full of shot, over shot card wad, crimp normally in 70 mm (2,75 inch) loading press. I never mess with roll crimps. In later years I use 7/8 oz shot dipper filled with 777 FFg, one additional nitro card wad, all else the same.

In brass hulls, I used same powder and shot amounts and fiber wads of right size for hull. For thin walled brass hulls, like the original ones, that means 11 and 10 gauge wads. For some modern, thick walled hulls, that means normal 12 gauge wads.

Have won trap shoots from 16 to 18 yard line with scores of 22-24 of 25 targets with these loads.

Niklas

You are right. I was on the right web page but read it wrong. I was looking at the discount for 10 boxes and thought it was the price for 10 shells. It looks like the price for a box of 25 is $33.95.

I found on the Ballistics Products Inc. website that a box of 25 12GA 2-1/2" Brass Shotgun Hulls w/ Winchester 209 primers and all required wads and instructions for loading for $48.99. That would let me load my own, be able to reuse the brass, and have the nostalgia of shooting all brass shells.

If I go this route, I might as well buy the extra over powder wad, filler wad, and overshot card to keep on hand too. I am guessing that loading with a light load, then I might need to add an extra nitro wad to help fill the space left from the reduced powder load.

I have never loaded my own shells before, let alone black powder loads. I hope I am understanding this correctly.

Does this make sense to anyone and am I on the right track?

Before you get too aggressive cleaning up the chambers try a piece of your wife's scotchbrite kitchen pad spun with your portable drill. This won't hurt the metal but will do a pretty good job of taking out any dirt so you can at least see what the problem really may be. I have had a couple of guns which resisted extraction recently that the scotchbrite cured in just a few minutes work.

Cowboy;
On the brass hulls it isn't necessary to fill the hull to any particular depth. Just put in the desired load with adequate wadding, that stated by Niklas is great. The top brass hulls are not crimped, the top wad cemented in. Different folks use different glues for this, the old traditional is waterglass, also Duco Cement works well, others may give their favorite. Just be sure you get a good enough bond that the load doesn't loosen in one bbl when firing the other. My first experience with reloading was back in the late 1950's using all brass hulls loaded with DuPont Bulk Smokeless. The brass hulls are still a favorite of mine, though I would not recommend them for Large Quantity loading for a dedicated target shooter.

Shop around for brass hulls. Ballistic Products generally marks up stuff, sometime lots, over what you can get them for elsewhere. Graff and Sons is often importer for stuff BP sells -- I buy much of my reloading stuff from Graffs. Also check MidwayUSA.

Circle Fly Wads has best prices on fiber wads and also provides information about loading brass and plastic hulls with BP.

Getting brass hulls that use standard 209 size primers can make life simple, IF primer pockets are not too tight. I had to open primer pockets on some Rocky Mountain Cartridge brass hulls I bought many years ago. Some of the thin-walled brass hulls use large pistol or rifle primers.

Actually, plastic hulls can be loaded same way as brass hulls. Just skip crimping and glue in overshot card wad. I never bothered to fill brass hulls up to top, just did what 2-piper says.

Shotshells can be loaded with minimal tools. I started as a pre-teen kid with simple hand tools. Work just fine, so long as not much ammo is needed.

Many of us use cheap Lee Load-All plastic wonder shotshell loaders for all our shotshell loading. Produces excellent ammo, so long as load is properly dimensioned for hull and crimp. Some insist on bottom of line "all-metal" shotshell loaders. We don't shoot lots of trap, sporting clays, etc., so, we have never bought loaders that can produce lots of ammo fast.

Niklas