Hey all, I'm looking for an alternative load for my standard LP load I use now ( I was able to score 8lbs of 800-X).

The components I want to use are:

Federal or Cheddite 2 3/4" hulls

Win 209, Cheddite 209 or Federal 209A

Z16 or similar wad

Looking for a psi of 7000 or less

Velocity of 1150 to 1200fps

Payload of 1 1/8oz

Let me know if you have a recipe I'm looking for.

Thanks so much!

Greg

800X tends not to be a great choice for low pressure loads in the smaller bores. Works well in a couple but mostly with poor wad sealing. Have you looked at the 16GA.com low pressure data. Not home right now to access them but there might be a couple over there. I’ll check when I get home. I understand the desire to use what powder you can find these days.

I think hell will freeze over before you find a load that fits all of your criteria in a 16 gauge. Hard enough for a 12 gauge with 1 1/8 oz. drop the payload back to 1 ounce and you might find something but it’ll be thin pickings.

I'm eagerly awaiting news that DR-16 wads are available again. I understand Down Range is supposed to be running a batch soon. My supply is running low. They work great for 7/8 oz loads.

Ditto on the DR-16. Hope they are making more. I am down to my last 250. Nick Sisley posted tested load recipes in Skeet Shooting some time ago for the now defunct PB, 7625, and for both still available Universal and International Clays. They were for 2/12” with the DR and Ballistic Products wads with 3/4 and 7/8 oz loads. These can be found on the Hogdons site. A number of tested loads were posted in the Parker reloading forum several years ago, some using 20/28, Green Dot, with the DR. The 16 gauge society has a reloading forum worth searching.

Good luck

Well I looked at all my loading sate and could find nothing that gives the result you want. The few lower pressure loads I found have wad to shell sealing problems. That comes from using a wad designed for a tapered hull in a straight wall hull. It seals, kind of but not well and not consistently. What that means is they are not real consistent because the wad does not do a great job of sealing the shell and you get more variance from shell to shell in velocity and pressure. The average seems great but if the pressure runs from 6,500- 7,500 psi and the velocity runs from 1125-1250 that load give you a lot of difference from one shell to another.

Drop down to one ounce or 1 1/16 ounce and you might have a few more choices. Most of the 16 gauge low pressure loads are based more on the one ounce or lighter type loads, except for a few which seem to be all with powders which are no longer being made. Many of us have a hoard of those powders but when it gets used up they are more historic data than usable data then. Good luck in your quest. I just loaded up on 800X because I use it in my 2 1/2" 20 gauge low pressure loads. But when it is gone I am back to the drawing board.

700x is very tough to meter. Unless you plan to weigh each charge be prepaired to be unhappy. A progressive loader is a blooper machine with 700x.

bill

I'm pretty sure that Mr. Shchodlatz means 800X and not 700X!!

It does well in 600Jr and Spolars. Not so well in MEC progressives. The Spolar has a small vibrator which shakes the powder for extremely consistent load where the 600 Jr rattles back and forth so many times before powder drop that it also is very consistent. The progressive MEC are so smooth and only operate once for every powder drop that they can be plus or minus a bit with 800X. Never loaded800X on a PW when I was running them but suspect it would be like a MEC progressive and a bit plus or minus.

800x in a PW was a disaster when I tried it. Loaded 100 shells and got rid of the rest of the keg. Completely erratic charges. Never looked back. I’m surprised any shotshell reloaders are still interested in it.

Hodgdon has their head up their corporate ass.

They have dropped some very useful products like PB, 4756, and AA Lite.

Yet, they keep 800X which wasn't particularly good for anything when it was new and still isn't.

Well.....I like 800x. My experience with it metering in my 600 Jr. has been excellent, the only complaint being it’s a little messy (flakes like to sneak out of the rubber grommet on the charge bar). I have killed a lot of birds with loads using 800x as the powder. Everything from Doves to Geese. I think it’s extremely useful, especially in classic guns where pressure is a factor. I’ve enjoyed using it for two decades. I haven’t used it in awhile, but I wouldn’t hesitate to use it when I need a specialty low pressure heavy hunting load for a classic gun. My Lefevers and Foxes absolutely loved the loads using 800x.
I’ve used it in the Midwest (late season pheasants...late season ducks) for at least a decade during the coldest parts of winter...never had a blooper.

800X is discontinued. Go to their web site and look. Dropped last year and now getting hard to find. Worse with all the panic buying people will buy it because it is all they can get and then find out that it does not meet their needs. It will sit on their wall until later when they either find a use or resell it. I bought over 40 pounds of PB in this way. In a year or two I hope to buy the same amount of 800X which will run me for the rest of my lifetime.

I understand why it was discontinued. Slow sales, very slow sales in dollar amounts. When a powder falls below one percent of your sales volume there has to be a real question of do we still need it or can we just drop it and shift those sales over to another number and by in large, that is exactly what has happened. I just wish they would do a limited product run every two or three years. Announce that there will be a special run of 10,000-50,000 pounds of powder X, available on a certain date. Let us stock up in bulk, on slow numbers, but keep them available. If they can do knock off Red, Green, Blue, Clay ... Dot, Unique, why not do a limited run of older powders? It is all volume and turn overs.

Sometimes there are no great replacement choices. We are working against the basic powder company goals. A powder must generate pressure at a certain minimum pressure level and curve so that it can work a semi automatic action. We want a powder to reach a peak pressure load, as low as possible, for a given performance. We want 5,000--7,000psi loads and they need 8,500- 10,000 psi just to keep semi autos running. It is getting worse because we are happy with 1100-1200 fps loads and all the new data seems to be 1300-1550 fps and the pressures for new stuff are all high to my needs. Most of the loads we are after are failures or at best very marginal loads for semi autos. I always wonder how many unpublished loads they have worked up that never met their minimum levels and we will never know about.

I am another fan of 800x, it is my goto powder for 12ga 1 1/4oz NP BB coyote loads for my combo guns. It is a great powder for reduced loads(small game/finisher) in my 222 Rem and 5.6x50R Mag, the load data is from the Calhoun Bullet company. I squirrelled away enough to last me till I'm done shooting as I don't use alot but it is very useful.

Used up my 12 lb container on 2 1/2 20ga have 1 lb left no 20gaues any more.


Those are f209 not f209a

Hey all,

Plus 1 for what Dustin said.

I really like 800-X. I use this powder for my LP 12ga loads. Yep, it meters like crap, but I use it for my hunting loads only. For the limited amount of rounds I reload using this powder, I can and do weigh each drop. It's a bit of a pain, but worth it to me.

I use Longshot for my 16ga LP loads, but as I'm so low on it (and can't find any local or on the net) and have 9lbs of 800-X, I thought perhaps someone may have worked up a LP load for 16ga. It appears that 800-X is not a powder for smaller bore LP loads. But, it was worth a try.

When I first got into reloading I had so many different recipes that it got confusing. I now just have 3 I use, one for clays, and one each for 12ga and 16ga. A person learns thru experience and some helpful tips from others who've been around the block a few times.

KY Jon, great post also. I was not aware that 800-X was discontinued. Glad I got that 8lb jug.

Anyway, thanks all for the great comments and tips etc.

I pray things get better, guess we'll see what happens next.

Best,

Greg

I've had good luck for years using Unique (not 800X) with a 1 oz. load in Remington black hulls and a spreader disk atop it, because the Parker I use it in is choked F/XF. It opens the pattern enough to enjoyably use the gun for sporting clays and closer targets. I'd check the recipe, but where I have my ammo in the garage it is currently -8F and it isn't very comfortable to poke around there in my robe and slippers.

I USE 17 1/2 GR PB IN MY OLD STEPEHN GRANT 16 GA. WORKS GREAT AND LOW PRESSURE

I admit I made a serious mistake, I did mean 800X , not 700x 700X has served long and well.

bill

It was originally marketed as a do-all 12 ga. target powder. That joke didn't play very long, and people ran from it. It's been something of an orphan for the last forty years, looking for a place to be loved. Where to start? Its filthy, and meters very poorly, which means your velocities will be all over the place. It's loud and makes dogs howl. Whatever you want to do, there are at least a half dozen other powders that will do a much, much better job. Convert it to cash and get one of the good powders.

Converting to cash is the easy part. Finding other powders right now is the hard part. I am glad I have stocked up so much stuff in the last four years. I was worried about running low on 209 primers until I found 30K that I had put away for a rainy day. That rainy day fund brought my primers on hand up to just under 50K which should last me until this panic induced shortage is over.