Question..Reloading all-brass 12 gauge shotshells

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Just got a couple of boxes of Magtech 12 ga. and .410 all brass shotgun shells. As I have been reloading shot loads in .444 and 45/70 cases for a long time the .410 loading will be no problem. Have never loaded 12 ga. of any sort before ...and they don't make gas checks in that size.
I have a "Lee Loader" hand tool kit in 12 ga. and the process seems straight forward... as I started out with one of these tools in 45/70 many years ago.

For those of you that have reloaded these 12 ga. all brass cases before I have some questions.

What did you use as an over powder wad..what else can be used instead of regular 12 ga. factory components.

Is using a 12.ga shotcup beneficial.. or just fill case with shot of choice.

Whats' the best wad material for filling most of the case when loading slugs.

As these cases don't require crimping (according to Lyman #42 1960) what is good to use to seal "over shot card/wad " besides sodium silicate ..aka. Waterglass.

These will be fired from a smoothbore 870 Rem

Thanx.
 
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You will find that slightly larger wads are needed if you want a tight fit. I ordered 11ga wads from Buffalo Arms for mine. They have thicker nitro wads for over powder then fibre wads and finally thinner cards for over the shot.

I'm loading with black so I don't use any plastic wads or shot cups. As far as the final seal over the card goes, I'm still having trouble finding something that will hold. I tried white glue on the last batch and most of them fell apart. Do you have a source for Waterglass? I'd like to give that a try.

My Magtech brass uses large pistol primers so the Lee Loader depriming tool probably won't fit in the flashhole.

Good luck and let us know what you figure out.
 
Dies can be had from places like ch4d but I just make sure that I keep them matched to the same gun. Then I never need to size them.

The dies are big $$ and are the larger diameter (1 1/4" I think) so you need a press to match.
 
Dies are not required.....if loading with BP the wad fit is not even that critical, all operations can be done by hand. Use a cardboard over powder wad, then enough felt wads, preferrably soaked in BP lube, a thin overshot wad. The whole column should come to the top of case, leave enough case to allow you to seal with hot glue gun.
 
Mr. V V and Mr Hunchak

vagrantviking said:
You will find that slightly larger wads are needed if you want a tight fit. I ordered 11ga wads from Buffalo Arms for mine. They have thicker nitro wads for over powder then fibre wads and finally thinner cards for over the shot.

I'm loading with black so I don't use any plastic wads or shot cups. As far as the final seal over the card goes, I'm still having trouble finding something that will hold. I tried white glue on the last batch and most of them fell apart. Do you have a source for Waterglass? I'd like to give that a try.

My Magtech brass uses large pistol primers so the Lee Loader depriming tool probably won't fit in the flashhole.

Good luck and let us know what you figure out.
Click to expand...

Thanx for your response....had read that purchased 11 ga wads was a good way to go and may still have to go that route. Was mainly interested in what material could be used to make them myself..felt..cork..cardboard or like the old "pasteboard " wads used in reduced recoil BP loads for the old Trapdoor 45/70 Cavalry carbine ..with 50-55 gr. powder instead of 70 gr load.. ( Don't really know what material pasteboard is made of )

Have tried to find a source of Waterglass (Sodium silicate in water = Water glass solution) with a local druggist.. who thinks he may be able to source something like that from an agency that they use for Pharmacy chemical stuff..( other than the Meds..cosmetics etc ) ...however will have to wait until l get back from a gopher Safari in S. Sask at a friends place from 07 to the 19th AUG.

The" Lee" 12 ga. Capping /decapping tool will easily prime the large pistol primers into the Magtech Brass....and as you've said it wont decap..however I have used the decapping rod from my Lee 45/70 plastic box set ( any pinned rod and any base from any Lee loader will work )..plus the partially hollow round base from this kit to deprime spent primers. Tried it several times and deprimes very well

I'm guessing that as you are already reloading this brass you have already figured out how to prime and deprime them. If not...I came up with a variation that worked just as good without useing any Lee tools.

P. S....Apparently sodium silicate is used by Potters (Crafts people ..not smokers ) for glazing their creations..unknown if its a similar solution or not...will get back to you as there are several "Potters" within a few miles of here and when I get back will try to track some answers down.

Mr Hunchak...thanks also.....in your opinion does the hot glue method of sealing the over shot wad seem fairly durable to you..hold up to rattling around in pockets/gloveboxes and loading /unloading in the shotgun and such... or leave it in a ctg belt only until you wish to shoot it. If its durable it would definately be easier to do.
 
I use a long thin pin punch to deprime and a piece of dowling and a hammer to prime on a flat steel surface. Wads are made from .125" card stock, avail. at craft stores, they are used for overpowder and overshot. Felt of any thickness is used to build the proper height of wad column, including soaking some in BP lube to help in cleaning. It should all add up to come within 1/8" of top, hot glue gun works for sealing and stays put. However for field use I use regular empty 12 Ga. hulls cut back to 2 1/2" as they can be pitched away after use. The brass empties should be soaked in soap and hot water asap.
I use a 3 dram load (around 85grs.) of FFG and 1 1/8oz. of shot for clays, and upland birds, but 100grs. with 1 1/4oz. of bismuth for ducks and geese, although the latter load does not go in my damascus guns.
 
I only shoot Smokeless and don't shoot BP in any firearm.. however your build up method should work just fine with about 15-17 gr. Imr4227..I Just need to use a bit more wad material ......and then after that we'll try slugs next.
Thx. for your info.
 
I never thought of potters using waterglass. I will have to ask my mother as she does a lot of that.

I haven't tried the Lee loader shotgun deprimer but have been using a depriming rod out of a set of dies that aren't in use. For priming I found a deep socket that was long enough and the right size to fit in the balloon head brass and pound away.

Ben, I will have to try a glue gun for sealing it all up. Should work well though. I try to keep the top wad as light as possible to keep it from buggering the pattern but I'm probably worrying for nothing on that score.

For making your own wads I've seen people use old boot felts. The ones that I've made myself in the past were made from old ceiling tiles or tentest.
 
If you're reloading those brass cases with smokeless, you will need better fitting wads then what I use. With BP the wad fit is not as critical, with smokeless powder you need a good tight fit or you'll get some very "off" sounding shots, similarly if the wads/s are cocked or not straight it doesn't seem to matter with BP, with smokeless you will get bad,bad noises!!
 
loading 12 gauge brass shells

i load on a 650 mec jr, I deprime with lee tool as it uses large pistol primers, I prime on the press one at a time,
I load BP so that combination wont work for you, I dont worry about getting column to end of brass, there is about 3/4" of room left and over my overpowder card i cover it with a little bit of silicon caulking , what ever is in the tube.
 
"Water glass"

Got back from Sask. a few days ago and there was a mssge on my machine from the local Rexall drugstore. It would appear they had gone ahead and ordered some sodium silicate solution and they had it waiting for me.

Got a thick plastic 1/2 liter container for $18.99 and for some reason ..no tax was required to be paid. As I don't have any 12 ga. wad materials sourced/cut up yet I just did up some 45/70 shotshells again and used cards cut from cereal boxes for over powder and over shot instead of .458 gas checks as I usually do.

The waterglass solution is clear and quite thick..almost like unstirred paint in a can. Used a Q-tip and put a few drops on the over shot card and it flowed quite well to the inside case wall necks (after the case had received a slight roll over crimp) and also smeared a few drops on some cardboard to see how long it took to solidify.

The smears took a few minutes to harden and the solution in the ctg. cases about 20 minutes due to a thicker layer having been applied. The solution remained clear and hard like...like glass. Will have to wait to find out how it works long term wise but a google search quoted one source as saying it has held its adhesiveness for over a year and a half on brass 12ga. cases so far.

Like all chemicals it has its warnings..water glass shouldn't get in your eyes...don't breath the fumes etc..

At a possible +/- of about 10 drops per 12 ga.case the 500 ml. should last about as long as the cases will and then some.
 
All the above is good info. RCBS now makes a reloading die and shellholder for the 12ga brass shells as part of their Cowboy Action line of dies. I use Elmers white glue and spread it around with a Q-tip and haven't had any problems. A good place to get info on loading BP is here (h ttp://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php?board=19.0) and the Dark Arts child board at the top of the first page.
 
Brass shotgun cases

Forgot to mention.. to those who would like some all brass cases I ordered mine from 3w.buffaloarms.com located in Idaho, USA. as no one sells it in western Canada that I could source.

For shotguns they sell "Magtech" allbrass cases for .410...24 ga..28 ga..32 ga..20 ga..16 ga...12 gauge. Price is $22 US for 25 cases regardless of caliber...plus shipping. Shipping for my 8 pound order of brass and other items was $27

They have no problems shipping to Canada and will send you as much brass as your Visa card can bear. Ask them to ship it USPService only..otherwise there are more costs involved for you ! Received my order in 7 days.
 
Well I never had any success trying to find suitable items locally to use as wad material that weren't prohibitively priced...so ordered some 11 ga. over powder nitro wads...11 ga. fibre wads and 11 ga. over shot cards from Buffalo Arms.

All items come in packs of 500 and are quite inexpensive...so as I had originally also ordered .410 all brass cases I also got some .430 inch cards/wads etc. at the same time.

Going with a published load of 17.0 gr. Reddot powder as a basis for a 1 1/8th ounce load (503 grains) I loaded up 10 cases.....5 with #8 and 5 with #4 shot
with an over powder card wad judiciously pushed down hard onto the powder..followed by some lengths of compacted fibre wad until the 503 grains of shot was about 1/4 inch from the case neck. Over shot card pushed down/compacted over the shot and then the "waterglass'' was applied to glue it all in place.

Next day took the 870 18.5 " cyl. bore to the bush and tried out the loads on large pieces of cardboard displaying a grouse outline at..10..15..20..25 and 30 yards to see what kind of patterns occurred.

As previously stated I have a very little experience hunting grouse with a 12 ga. as I've used a .22 rf all my life and 45/70...444 shot shells...Suffice to say all grouse targets were killed and it would appear they are best shot from 10 plus yards and further out for eating purposes useing a 12 ga. ....and a side note a 2x4 board shot at 6 feet ...shot on the 2 inch side made a 2 to 2.5 inch hole useing #4 and # 8 shot... which you shot gunners no doubt already knew.

So next in line was to try slugs in the brass cases..had to wait a while to get a one ounce Lee slug mold...$23 from WSS Calgary.

When the mold arrived about 5 days ago I cast up about 200 and had about 12 rejects while the mold got up to temperature.....avg. weight about 442 grains. Yesterday I loaded up some slugs with 17.0 gr Reddot and with the wads in the same manner as with the shot loads until I got the slug up to about 1/4 inch from the top of the case neck.

As the Lee slug is about .690 inch diameter it rattles around on top of the fibre wads in the brass case..decision was made to "patch" up using the on hand sticky type labels I'd used to " patch" up .410.. 200 grain pistol bullets to shoot out of my .416 Rem years ago. This got me close but still needed more width.....cut up some playing cards into thin strips and wrapped it around slug and inserted it into the brass case and they stayed centered. Applied some " water glass" and glued them in place and let them set up.

"Ben"......had earlier advised that he uses 12 ga. plastic hulls for his slug field loads ...shoot and throw away type loads. Had some IVI target 1 1/8 ounce #8 shot loads so I cut the crimp off and dumped the shot to save and placed an un patched Lee slug in the shot cup ( no petals type) and "water glassed" the cup into the plastic case to test along side the Brass slug loads.

At the range today I shot 5 of each at 25 yards.....my 870 only has a bead and no other sights....both types of slug loads went about 4 inches wide x 3 inch high..however all went about 7- 10 inch high of aim point.

This leads me to believe that the easiest way to make cheap slug loads and with minimum time expenditure involved is to buy the cheap 100 round 12 ga. loads at the Box stores and take out the shot and replace it with a slug and stay with just shot loads in the brass cases.

I have no intention of shooting game with these slugs with this type of accuracy nor if they grouped an inch at 25 yds....merely a new direction for me to experiment with and they would all work quite well at my personal comfort zone ...the other side of my tent and to 10 feet beyond.

............. all brass .410 slug loads to follow next...
 
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I would think that the poor accuracy of the slug loads would be due to a poor fit more than a factor of the case that it came out of.

I'm thinking of finding a round ball mould of .72 or slightly smaller (can't recall the exact size just now). Just have a feeling that results would be a bit better or easier to achieve with round balls.
 
Would agree to this improper fit premise with the Brass cases...however the factory rounds I used for testing were useing the Lee slug with the factory non-petaled shot cup and were a very tight and centered fit....and shot about the same. Perhaps like reloading rifles...powder type or the powders weight may need to be varied too.

Shooting roundball may very well be an easier process and with a better fit may prove more accurate...IIRC in the old days the Brits shot all manner of game including tigers in India with large ball loads...and I believe it may have been started in smoothbore muskets/rifles until rifled ones were introduced.

Shooting round ball... unless you get a custom mold mostly restricts you to the Lee .690 and the Lyman .690 and .715 diameter. The .690's to use with shotcups and the .715 without as you already know.

Contacted the Westcoast distributer for Lee products in N. Vancouver today and although they are wholesalers only,... advised me they did not import this roundball mold to any BC retailer locations and my WSS catalog was checked and they stock all manner of Lee round ball but not in the .60 plus range. Their only Lyman (Cowboy mold) is also in .662 and .690 and is $80 .

Marstar stocks an Italian made .715 Ball mold $56 (not aluminum)..and they state its Mold blocks only and has no handles.. but is Lyman or RCBS handle compatable...and they are out of stock and..."try again in a month" as that's when the next shipment arrives.

If you go this round ball route....let us know how it works.

........edit... if anyone else loads up their own cast slugs what kind of accuracy are you getting with your loads..smoothbore or rifled.. BP or smokeless...with a bead sight.
 
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I have made 12 gauge wads by ripping up toilet paper, mixing it with water, letting it turn to a pulp like mess, then push it down a piece of smooth pipe of the diameter you want(I use a piece of cut off 12 gauge barrel) , then holding the pipe tightly I press a dowel that is close to barrel diameter down the pipe and force out as much water as possible. Then I just push out the long pulp turd and let it dry. When dry it can be cut with a razor blade to whatever length you need. If using BP it may be a fire hazard. I have used the cardboard from shotshell boxes for top wads, then used white glue to seal, I flood the top and when it turns clear it is dry. Although brass shot shells are nice looking and period correct they don't work well for Cowboy action shooting because they don't come out of the SXS shotguns as easy as plastic. And when they are on the ground someone may step on them. Much different if you are hunting with them , the cases would be looked after and would last a long time.
 
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