I've not bought shotshels in a long time...

WB
[subject]
Wednesday, October 30, 2024, 08:59 (12 days ago)

Atwoods is a popular farm store here in the south. Pretty useful for many things from feed to fancy $70 cowboy shirts and bushhog blades. They do have a sporting goods section and some firearms. A simple task is to drop in and pick up a few boxes of shotshells to go practice on some clay birds. The clay birds were left over from dove season and $10 for 90. Not a single box of 20 ga shells of any kind less than $20/25 in the whole place. A run on 20 ga ammo? Has the 20 become so popular? Forget even finding any of my beloved 16 ga. Another reason to keep a good 12 gauge in the lineup. They had some Federal target ammo for $9/25 but I really like the AA hulls for reloading. They have a very short brass that makes re-sizing easy (not plated steel that rusts) and the full plastic innards last forever, the 8-point crimp is very resilient and lasts a dozen loads if you do not abuse them. Years ago, the cheap hulls had cardboard in the base in front of the primer that didn’t last too long and would come loose. The grooved plastic was thinner and would split, 6-point crimps would too. There is a lot more than what meets the eye. So for a premium of $3 a box I got Winchester with 1-1/8 oz. over 1 oz. Federal loads. After getting home I saw I had accidentally gotten a box of 1 oz. but charged for (2) boxes of 1-1/8 oz. ($12 a box). Couple days later I went in to make it right. They informed me they could not refund or take back any ammunition for safety reasons. OK I can understand that. I’d just take the difference in price. But the 1 oz. and 1-1/8 oz. rang up the same $12. Poo, I just wanted consistency. The 1-1/8 oz. has like 50 more pellets per shot. Finally a kind manager, we’ll call her Karen, gave in and said as a courtesy they’d allow me to swap this one time. Wouldn’t you know this long haired stocker was right in my way and not interested in moving for a mere customer. I had him hand me a box of 1-1/8 oz. 12 AA’s and I was out of there. I should have checked the color of the rounds but I just wanted out.

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I got home and wouldn’t you know. I still got it wrong. It’s close enough. There is a 105 fps different listing with a 7 gr. FFg equivalent charge difference rating. The ancient rating of shotshells in “dram equivalent” is for some reason still retained. I’m pretty sure a “dram” is 27 gr. of black powder. (7,000/256 = 27.3 gr) A dram being 1/16th of an ounce! They still use some comparison for smokeless to black powder. Old traditions sometimes just hang around. I’ve loaded a few shotshells in my time. I find metallic loading much more pleasurable. Lead shot is very expensive these days. A #25 bag containing enough shot for 350-400 target/field loads is about $50, doubled in price like everything else. Some guys are even making their own shot! I do have a good load to share with some possible mods needed. You have to “fit” the guts of a shotshell to be the correct length of whatever hull is used. This allows a consistent crimp that will not fold inward or open up from inside pressure, spilling shot. I like old Red Dot at around 17 gr. and a good 7/8 or 1 oz. shot cup to hold my 1 oz. payload. It works well and gives about 1100 fps or so. I have also used it for the LEE 1 oz. cast slugs. They do not kick hard and my patterns are good, hull longevity is positive as well. No doubt there are modern powders that do the same or run cleaner but if I can find my old friend Red Dot I keep a bit around. It actually has "red" flakes in it to identify. Hence the name(s) Red, Blue, Green... works well with cast bullets too in pistol plinking loads. Just a bit of a rant on chain stores and self-responsibility of checking what you are buying. I am my worst enemy.

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Back a hundred years ago in Tennessee I used Red Dot in

Gary Reeder
[subject]
Wednesday, October 30, 2024, 12:42 (11 days ago) @ WB

my 45 ACP shooting in the combat games. I used 5.5 grain of Red Dot with a 230 grain hard cast lead bullet in my AMT long slide. I shot right at 200 rounds every day rain or shine in practice so I went thru an 8 lb keg fairly quick. I was loading on the old model 450 Dillon press and pretty much wore it loose after about 5 years of this.
The 5.5 grain load with a 230 bullet is just a C hair over max but it ran the long slide with never a hitch.
Later on in '87 or so I was loading 38 Super for Kase and Colleen, as they had got into the combat shooting. The problem there is the 38 Super had to be loaded at absolute max to reach the power level required to shoot in the matches as at the time the combat shoots required a 45 ACP loaded hot to shoot in the games. The main problem is the 38 Super load would bulge the case to a point where it was almost impossible to reload the cases. I tried but could never get the bulge at the base of the case completely out, at least out enough to where it would reliably function the gun. I had Colleen and Kase to practice with a load that was below max that would function their pistols but not bulge the brass. Kase's gun was a custom Para Ordnance and Colleen's was a custom Springfield Armory and both were guns we built in our shop. Both were 18 round guns.
Their loads that would hit the power factor to allow them to shoot in the matches was a 125 grain hard cast lead bullet with a really stout load of Red Dot that hit the power factor but ruined the brass. At the time I was buying 5000 rounds of 38 Super brass in bulk and it lasted maybe a month of shooting. I kept 2 Dillon presses going pretty much every night to keep them shooting.

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