Reloading challenger 12 gauge hulls?

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longranger85

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Hey everyone, I’m pretty new to shotshell reloading and I have a pile of challenger hulls that I’ve saved. Are they any good for reloading? I haven’t cut one open yet to identify the style it is. If anyone has had any experience reloading these any advice is appreciated.

Thanks
 
I've used them for buckshot and roundball .690 slugs, they worked fine but i don't think they will stand up to as many reloads as a good Federal, Remington STS/Gun Club, Win AA, or Fiocchi. Straight walled hull (i think they are a Cheddite hull or at least a Cheddite style) so reasonable capacity. No issue reloading them from my experience.
 
Have loaded plenty of them. A versatile hull, with a broad range of uses. Challenger hulls are supplied by Cheddite. So are straight-walled, like Federal. They hold up well to multiple reloads. My preferred hull for 1 1/8-oz hunting loads. Plenty of load data available for these hulls.
 
Sure, you can reload Challenger hulls. They wouldn't be my first choice.
Problems that I have encountered with Challenger Cheddite hulls -
Expanded primer pockets - a percentage are not tight when repriming.
Distorted flimsy case heads on depriming.
Hull walls wrinkling if you don't have perfect stack height of components. This can also happen with Winchester AA.
Best current cases are Remington STS or Nitro, second choice Gun Club, third choice Win AA HS, and then any Euro straight wall hulls like Cheddite or Fiocchi.
 
I reload the Challenger (cheddite) hulls in 28 g. They are certainly not as desirable as a the one piece hull designs. I limit my reloads to 2 times accordingly. I'd be more cautious if I shot a semi, with my O/U I can keep an eye out for hull separations.
 
I don't think there is a brand of 12 gauge shells that I haven't reloaded at least once. I check to see if there is any rust, dirt or swelling and decide from there. At one time I had 3 big garbage bags of empty hulls. I'm down to a 5 gallon bucket of 4 brands now. It was tough running 5 or 6 different wads to fit the hulls. Then swapping out the crimp from 6 to 8 all the time.
Down to two hull types now too.
I reload just for grouse and rabbits.
 
If Challenger hulls are what you have, then that is what I would use. I too have reloaded all kinds of hulls. Some I like, some not so much.
Challengers are somewhere in the middle.
 
longranger85 said:
Hey everyone, I’m pretty new to shotshell reloading and I have a pile of challenger hulls that I’ve saved. Are they any good for reloading? I haven’t cut one open yet to identify the style it is. If anyone has had any experience reloading these any advice is appreciated.

Thanks
Click to expand...
A few years ago I had accumulated a couple thousand Challenger hulls and decided to reload them for use in situations wherer I didn't want to be bothered recovering them. I found loading data but no matter which type of wad I used I ended up with seriously depressed crimps, even with the recommended Federal wads. I thought about using overshot cards to take up the space but first decided to strip apart a new Challenger 12 ga. round to see what the factory used.

It turned out to be a Gualandi Spitfire wad (https://w ww.ballisticproducts.com/Spitfire-12ga-wad-25mm-250_bag/productinfo/072SF12/). I managed to source some cheap and the Challenger hulls reloaded well after that with no depressed crimps.

I can't guarantee that those are the wads they are still using but they worked the best of all that I tried.
 
I have reloaded thousands of challenger hulls without issue, usually a 1 oz load for once and done in autoloaders and pumps.

For the current hulls, I use the Claybuster 61xx series wad. The current hulls have a thinner base wad than the hulls of 10+ years ago that were a translucent blue. The 61xx wads give me a very good crimp.

Bob.
 
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