I have taken a lot from some of the forums here on CGN. I figure I would share some of the fun I have stumbled upon.
I bought a Gents reloading room. I bought it from his widow more as a favour so she could get it out of the house. There was 50 years worth of stuff. I was over whelmed with all of it. I had no idea where to start. Then I read sendmorebrains thread:
http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?863820-I-can-now-stop-purchasing-slug-rounds-!&highlight=slug
I realized that Slugs were a great place to start.
I had a mountain of old CIL 300 powder, thousands of primers, 600lbs of soft lead and a couple of garbage cans of hulls. I was set to turn a bunch of it into slugs.
I bought a 7/8 Slug mould off ebay (paid too much) and we at setting up a nice space for production.
I quickly realized that in my area very few people reload shot shell, and the few shops in the area carried little or no supplies.
Enter Budget Shooter Supply http://www.budgetshootersupply.ca/
Henry's inventory is updated regularly and he ships pretty fast via CanPar.
It was from Budget that I found all my wads, roll crimper, buckshot mould and a bunch of asst stuff.
Casting the Slugs was easy, I used a 10lb Lee pot and was quickly able to figure out how to make great slugs. There is lots of casting info here on CGN and there is a couple great youtube vids on casting with the Lee slug mould. The only thing I have to add is don’t hit the mould on the rivet holding the center plug. You will be lucky to get a hundred slugs before it all comes apart.
I used Federal Gold Medal high brass hulls (not that bass height makes a huge difference), Sureshot 209 primers and CIL 300 powder. The Winchester WADS 12ga GRAY 7/8oz (24gm) fit great and work on the 1oz slugs too.
I assembled all this on my Lee Grabber Progressive, dropping the slugs into the wads and crimping the ends like a typical shot load. This is pretty fast and you can do hundreds in a session.
Then I added a drill press to my bench and started to make some roll crimped slugs.
You need to cut the hull down, I used a chunk of plastic water pipe cut to length as a jig. Simply insert the hull into the pipe and cut off the protruding end off.
You also need to cut the petals down on the wad to clear the crimp.
Once you get these assembled the roll crimper does a great job. All this does add to labour and you are now happy to make a hundred in a session.
Next I ordered up a Buckshot mould. This turned out to be the slowest and most costly to produce. The mould is twice the cost of the slug mould by the time you add the handles.
I originally wanted to do 00 Buck. The mould makes 18 balls enough for two loads. Sounds great! However I could not find a 00 Buck mould and settled for #4 Buck.
Thinking I could load a bunch of #4 while I waited to find a “00”
#4 Buck: The mould also makes 18 balls however my loads used 25 balls so casting took a lot longer than I thought. I used the Downrange WAD 12ga 1-1/4 YELLOW (WAA12F114) Then there was the next surprise. The Lee mould makes 6 linked strips of three balls. You have to cut them apart. Well…..any idea how long it takes to cut 25lbs of #4 Buck up with a set of flush cutting pliers????? Not only that but I also had to count or weigh every load.......now a hundred is an all night affair.
I have since loaded #8,6,4,2 shot, and while the cost savings is small (when you can by cheap target loads at Walmart) you can hammer off hundreds of rounds per session no problem.
Of course I should make all the safety disclaimers, including the following.
Find a mentor, their help will keep you ten fingered, and wear your safety goggles on your face not your forehead.
I also want to add that when I did this I had no info or load data for my components. Don’t ask for the data as the primers and powder are long since unavailable.
I did choose to buy a cheap shotgun to do my load development with.
I bought a Winchester 37a off the EE and cut the barrel off to shoot slugs.
I then read derekb’s thread about his barrel cut down.
http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?867790-Barrel-Cutdown-from-26-quot-to-22-quot-to-achieve-Cylinder-Bore-Pics&highlight=single+shot
I looked in my box-o-crap and decided to make a more usable shooter under the premise of re-purposing leftovers with a zero budget.
Everything is a used take off that is added to the shotgun.
That ATI heat shield looks goofy, but provides a great set of ghost sights, and believe it or not gets hot with all the ammo I have to shoot.
The bag was kicking around and it all fit together nicely.
Combined with near endless slug ammo this little 37a has been a big thrill to shoot. In fact the nice shotguns are all gathering dust as my beater has really grown on me.
Enjoy!
I bought a Gents reloading room. I bought it from his widow more as a favour so she could get it out of the house. There was 50 years worth of stuff. I was over whelmed with all of it. I had no idea where to start. Then I read sendmorebrains thread:
http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?863820-I-can-now-stop-purchasing-slug-rounds-!&highlight=slug
I realized that Slugs were a great place to start.
I had a mountain of old CIL 300 powder, thousands of primers, 600lbs of soft lead and a couple of garbage cans of hulls. I was set to turn a bunch of it into slugs.
I bought a 7/8 Slug mould off ebay (paid too much) and we at setting up a nice space for production.
I quickly realized that in my area very few people reload shot shell, and the few shops in the area carried little or no supplies.
Enter Budget Shooter Supply http://www.budgetshootersupply.ca/
Henry's inventory is updated regularly and he ships pretty fast via CanPar.
It was from Budget that I found all my wads, roll crimper, buckshot mould and a bunch of asst stuff.
Casting the Slugs was easy, I used a 10lb Lee pot and was quickly able to figure out how to make great slugs. There is lots of casting info here on CGN and there is a couple great youtube vids on casting with the Lee slug mould. The only thing I have to add is don’t hit the mould on the rivet holding the center plug. You will be lucky to get a hundred slugs before it all comes apart.
I used Federal Gold Medal high brass hulls (not that bass height makes a huge difference), Sureshot 209 primers and CIL 300 powder. The Winchester WADS 12ga GRAY 7/8oz (24gm) fit great and work on the 1oz slugs too.
I assembled all this on my Lee Grabber Progressive, dropping the slugs into the wads and crimping the ends like a typical shot load. This is pretty fast and you can do hundreds in a session.
Then I added a drill press to my bench and started to make some roll crimped slugs.
You need to cut the hull down, I used a chunk of plastic water pipe cut to length as a jig. Simply insert the hull into the pipe and cut off the protruding end off.
You also need to cut the petals down on the wad to clear the crimp.
Once you get these assembled the roll crimper does a great job. All this does add to labour and you are now happy to make a hundred in a session.
Next I ordered up a Buckshot mould. This turned out to be the slowest and most costly to produce. The mould is twice the cost of the slug mould by the time you add the handles.
I originally wanted to do 00 Buck. The mould makes 18 balls enough for two loads. Sounds great! However I could not find a 00 Buck mould and settled for #4 Buck.
Thinking I could load a bunch of #4 while I waited to find a “00”
#4 Buck: The mould also makes 18 balls however my loads used 25 balls so casting took a lot longer than I thought. I used the Downrange WAD 12ga 1-1/4 YELLOW (WAA12F114) Then there was the next surprise. The Lee mould makes 6 linked strips of three balls. You have to cut them apart. Well…..any idea how long it takes to cut 25lbs of #4 Buck up with a set of flush cutting pliers????? Not only that but I also had to count or weigh every load.......now a hundred is an all night affair.
I have since loaded #8,6,4,2 shot, and while the cost savings is small (when you can by cheap target loads at Walmart) you can hammer off hundreds of rounds per session no problem.
Of course I should make all the safety disclaimers, including the following.
Find a mentor, their help will keep you ten fingered, and wear your safety goggles on your face not your forehead.
I also want to add that when I did this I had no info or load data for my components. Don’t ask for the data as the primers and powder are long since unavailable.
I did choose to buy a cheap shotgun to do my load development with.
I bought a Winchester 37a off the EE and cut the barrel off to shoot slugs.
I then read derekb’s thread about his barrel cut down.
http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?867790-Barrel-Cutdown-from-26-quot-to-22-quot-to-achieve-Cylinder-Bore-Pics&highlight=single+shot
I looked in my box-o-crap and decided to make a more usable shooter under the premise of re-purposing leftovers with a zero budget.
Everything is a used take off that is added to the shotgun.
That ATI heat shield looks goofy, but provides a great set of ghost sights, and believe it or not gets hot with all the ammo I have to shoot.
The bag was kicking around and it all fit together nicely.
Combined with near endless slug ammo this little 37a has been a big thrill to shoot. In fact the nice shotguns are all gathering dust as my beater has really grown on me.
Enjoy!
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