Loading brass 12 gauge shells
- Thread starter Rotaxpower
- Start date
With smokeless, you may be in new territory because the capacity is enormous compared to plastic or even paper, the inside dia. is much bigger as well. I don't believe that you can use regular plastic wads as they are not wide enough. Even alot of 12 ga. felt and card wads should be measured first. I also don't believe you can use loads out of manuals unless you find some loads for brass cases. I've loaded and shot alot of shotshells with brass cases, as they are meant for BP, where you load in 80grs of 2fg, then a card wad and enough felt wads to build your wad column to the correct height that the shot and then a final card wad, will bring things to within 1/8" of the mouth and you can seal it all with a bead of glue from a glue gun. I found it best to cut my own wads for a good fit..note that 80 grs of 2fg is barely 2 3/4 drams and a speed of about 1100fps.
x2 on what Ben said....I only load BP in my 12ga brass shotshells and my load sequence is about the same as Ben`s......Don`t waste your money on buying 12ga dies and the press to fit the die size....Running a bead of glue around the inside of the case to seal it, is good enough for a side-by-side shotgun....
I would not go smokeless. If you want to use a wad cup then use an 11 gauge. You can get them from track of the wolf.
Unlike the guys above me, I use a roll crimp to complete my loads. It holds the overshot card firmly. To do a roll crimp you need the lyman cowboy action 12 gauge die set. It works just like a regular dies set. The disadvantage is it is not water resistant to the same level as gluing.
Your choice but lots of fun to see people's faces when I use my 1900ish underlever double and load those brass shells.
Unlike the guys above me, I use a roll crimp to complete my loads. It holds the overshot card firmly. To do a roll crimp you need the lyman cowboy action 12 gauge die set. It works just like a regular dies set. The disadvantage is it is not water resistant to the same level as gluing.
Your choice but lots of fun to see people's faces when I use my 1900ish underlever double and load those brass shells.
hugh manuell
Regular
- Location
- Central Ontario
Recently Handloader magazine did a 2-part series on this subject. See if you can find copies of them.
Hugh
Hugh
