Reloading 20 ga Federal 2 3/4 with plastic base wad

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g-manz35

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I feel like I might get beat up over this one. Lots of threads started about these and yet after reading nearly every thread I could find I’m still no wiser. I hosted our hunter safety wind up and ended up with 150 20 ga Federal hulls. For no reason other than experimenting I want to reload them. I have a Recipe for Federal 20 ga hulls and I found all the components. Problem is my federal “Top Gun” hulls have a plastic base was and the Field and Range hulls have a paper base wad. There doesn’t seem to be any definitive info suggesting that the plastic base wad hulls can’t be reload using the data that I found, but most threads I have found seem to have comments stating that the reload data is for paper bad wads only. Anyone have any experience reloading Top Gun hulls with plastic base wads??!!

Any info would help. Thanks G-man
 
It's reasonable question. My understanding is that plastic base wads, "all else being equal" ( which is not guaranteed) cause a load to develop a little bit higher pressure than the same case with fibre base wads. The difference is likely small, but measurable. If your load data for fibre base wad hulls has pressure listed, you may be OK if you choose a moderate-low pressure load(<10,000 PSI). Federal actually lists data for the 20 ga. plastic base top gun hulls: https://www.federalpremium.com/on/d...ocuments/catalog/shotshell-reloading-data.pdf
 
Longwalker said:
It's reasonable question. My understanding is that plastic base wads, "all else being equal" ( which is not guaranteed) cause a load to develop a little bit higher pressure than the same case with fibre base wads. The difference is likely small, but measurable. If your load data for fibre base wad hulls has pressure listed, you may be OK if you choose a moderate-low pressure load(<10,000 PSI). Federal actually lists data for the 20 ga. plastic base top gun hulls: https://www.federalpremium.com/on/d...ocuments/catalog/shotshell-reloading-data.pdf
Click to expand...

The link you provided is for data that was printed in 2008. I believe the plastic base wads came out shortly after that time. Measuring the two different hulls that I have from the base wad to the top of the open crimp shows that there is a substantial difference in capacity. It will probably be clear when I go to reload them which is the correct hull.
 
I’ll check my data tomorrow regarding the different base wads but my use of these hulls is limited because……
The steel heads on these are VERY hard to resize, tough on the press.
The plastic seems prone to early splitting and cracking, especially in the crimp area.
There are some useful lower pressure loads for these hulls when shortened to 2 1/2 for vintage guns but they are difficult hulls to work with.
 
I've never seen the plastic 20 ga. base wads, however I've loaded thousands of plastic base 12 & 28 ga. Top Guns. I use Cheddite data.
Works just fine.
 
I reload mostly Federal paper basewad hulls on a MEC 9000. I use the Claybuster 1078-20 wad, 16.5 gr of Unique with 7/8 oz of shot and get good crimps.

I tried half a dozen of the new plastic basewad hulls with this recipe. The crimps were dished, not enough for shot to leak out, but close. The plastic basewad hulls have more volume as the basewad is slightly shorter.

Regards, Bob.
 
The plastic base wad is lower than the fibre base, but is also more rigid. The increased volume lowers the pressure while the more rigid base wad raises it. Data is a bit hard to nail down due to confusing naming of the hulls between the different construction. From what I know it seems the actual data for powder charge is similar if not identical, but stack height issues show up with the plastic base wad hulls due to the increased volume.

Some people treat all straight walled hulls the same, others will use Cheddite data in any plastic base straight walled hull.

In the absence of tested, published data, safest bet is to ask Hodgdon, Alliant or whomever your powder was made by to see if they can clarify which data to use in the hulls you have. Both are normally pretty good in providing information if they have it available.

Or shelve those hulls until you can find data for them.
 
With all things being equal, a similar charge of powder will give higher or lower pressures based on the volume off the chamber the powder burns in,, the variable here is the paper or plastic base wad, here
the paper base wad will yield lower pressure because it will compress therefore increasing the volume compared to the plastic base wad,
I do interchange hulls but only if the base wads and volumes are similar, I am not promoting this but warning that there are risks if not paying attention to component choices and
this is especially important with hunting loads that have much higher pressures than common target loads, there is a smaller thresh hole of safety, I have personally seen shotguns blown up
from excessive pressure handloads.
Stay with recommended book loads.
To Gman, adjust your column height with cards under your shot or change the load until you have proper crimps, bad crimps lead to variable pressure and burns and inconsistent velocities and shot leads on targets.
BB
 
bigbull said:
With all things being equal, a similar charge of powder will give higher or lower pressures based on the volume off the chamber the powder burns in,, the variable here is the paper or plastic base wad, here
the paper base wad will yield lower pressure because it will compress therefore increasing the volume compared to the plastic base wad,
I do interchange hulls but only if the base wads and volumes are similar, I am not promoting this but warning that there are risks if not paying attention to component choices and
this is especially important with hunting loads that have much higher pressures than common target loads, there is a smaller thresh hole of safety, I have personally seen shotguns blown up
from excessive pressure handloads.
Stay with recommended book loads.
To Gman, adjust your column height with cards under your shot or change the load until you have proper crimps, bad crimps lead to variable pressure and burns and inconsistent velocities and shot leads on targets.
BB
Click to expand...

Thanks. I did find a good recipe for credited hulls and Longshot powder. It produces good velocity with low pressure even at the lowest powder charge. I will try this combo as it seems like the most conservative way to go. I too had a buddy blow up a gun. It was years ago and they just kept adding more powder to their lead goose loads. They even had primer strikes blow out on their shells and they didn’t pick up on it. He said it wasn’t a great experience. Those were different times.
 
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