I got a semi 20ga a while back and when I was testing different types of shells and initially it ran fine with Winchester, Remington and federal, but didn't seem to like the challengers. It would only eject 1 or 2 out of every 10. The hull would typicall get pulled back 1/3 to 1/2 way and then it seemed like the extractor would slip off of the rim and you would have to pull it out with a fingernail. So after trying a handful of them I put them away and continued on with the ones that worked well. I was a little disappointed because I had a whole case of them to use and the gun didn't seem to like them.
I recently had it back out for a few rounds of clays and after my first round shooting only the remingtons I decided to take a handful of the challengers and use them on singles and shot 2 of doubles, I figured if I had to fiddle with the empties to get them to eject between rounds I would be fine and I could slowly whittle down on the number of shells I still had. This would now be about 50 rounds through the gun and its nice and warmed up at this point and they started eject about 8/10 or 9/10 on the singles and if I put one shell in as the second shot of a double.
So I decided to try a few doubles with the challengers and it seems that if there's another round in the tube there must be more resistance somewhere, because I was only ejecting about half of the time on the first shot, but it would go back to the 8-9/10 on the second shot.
This time I tried to compare the two shells side by side to see if I could make out a difference, but they were pretty close. The remingtons were slightly longer, so they may cycle the action a little quicker, and although the bases were different colours, the rims both seemed about the same size, and I compared them to some federal I had at home and again, not much of a difference.
One thing I did notice afterword though is that after I started using and handling the challenger shells is that my fingers felt a little greasy, so I wonder if they have a wax or lubricant on them from the manufacturing process that the other brands don't. In my head this could be causing the extractor to slip off the rim as there's less friction to let it grab on, or if there was any on the outside of the hull maybe the heat of firing is changing it enough that it is making the hull stick to the inside of the chamber more.
Has anyone else noticed a waxy residue on their challenger shotshells? If there is some sort of wax or residue on the challengers, that could be the reason it would work as the last shot, but not 2 in a row, the other round could be cleaning off the residue between shots with the challengers.
I recently had it back out for a few rounds of clays and after my first round shooting only the remingtons I decided to take a handful of the challengers and use them on singles and shot 2 of doubles, I figured if I had to fiddle with the empties to get them to eject between rounds I would be fine and I could slowly whittle down on the number of shells I still had. This would now be about 50 rounds through the gun and its nice and warmed up at this point and they started eject about 8/10 or 9/10 on the singles and if I put one shell in as the second shot of a double.
So I decided to try a few doubles with the challengers and it seems that if there's another round in the tube there must be more resistance somewhere, because I was only ejecting about half of the time on the first shot, but it would go back to the 8-9/10 on the second shot.
This time I tried to compare the two shells side by side to see if I could make out a difference, but they were pretty close. The remingtons were slightly longer, so they may cycle the action a little quicker, and although the bases were different colours, the rims both seemed about the same size, and I compared them to some federal I had at home and again, not much of a difference.
One thing I did notice afterword though is that after I started using and handling the challenger shells is that my fingers felt a little greasy, so I wonder if they have a wax or lubricant on them from the manufacturing process that the other brands don't. In my head this could be causing the extractor to slip off the rim as there's less friction to let it grab on, or if there was any on the outside of the hull maybe the heat of firing is changing it enough that it is making the hull stick to the inside of the chamber more.
Has anyone else noticed a waxy residue on their challenger shotshells? If there is some sort of wax or residue on the challengers, that could be the reason it would work as the last shot, but not 2 in a row, the other round could be cleaning off the residue between shots with the challengers.
