Shotshell specialists?

[tabascoz28]

Got a Stoeger M3000 tactical with the pistol grip and 7rd tube. Pretty cool when I can get it to cycle with birdshot. I know that buck works, and heavy game load works fine too but I'm trying to get it to cycle with the cheapest possible ammo. So far, remington target/bird is going great and the hulls are one piece and solid. They are flying at almost 1300fps.

I got a Lee Load All and tried to load to the specs and won't cycle. I noticed that the pressure for the max load wasn't even near 11,500 per sammi spec for 12g 2.75 shells.

My current powder is Clay Dot and 7.5 shot with Win209 primers and waa12 and waa12sl wads, one for 1oz and another for 1.125oz. The wad sits nice and snug with rem gun club hulls for this combo, unlike the estate hulls.

Questions:

Has anyone gone with a little more powder for this load to get the FPS up as the pressure was 9000 for 1oz and 9500 for 1.125oz? Trying to duplicate the factory speed and cycling reliability.

Should I get a different wad for 1.25oz loads?

Any help or point in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. I have a chrony so I'll be checking out those loads next week as well as the factory rounds.

[tabascoz28]

[JagerDog]

Is that a gas gun?

Edit: I see it's not. With gas guns I've had good luck at "fooling" the gun with slower powder. Though chamber pressure was quite low, there was more volume/pressure in the area of the gas ports.

With an inertia gun, you have to create more inertia. That's payload @ velocity. Chamber pressure is rather meaningless re: cycling. Looks like there's some headroom in the charge weight, but I wouldn't advise going off recipe. Clay dot being a target powder, they likely didn't test beyond the 1250 fps allowed in some games. There's plenty of data with different powders reaching 1300 fps and above.

One thing I never liked about Alliant data is they mostly test Rem primers in Rem hulls, leaving a lot of holes in the data.

I'd be tempted to get hold of some Hodgdon International. Green Dot is a ballistic equivalent but you're back to data holes. Winchester Super Target is yet another ballistic equivalent, but it's super dense so doesn't take as much room. I'm not looking at data, but you may be able to use the 1oz wad in a 1-1/8 oz payload in the straight hulls as they have more room.

You can check at shotgunworld.com. May have additional published data.



Some more break-in it might loosen up too.

[BigBronco]

Have you weighed the charges? I would not be surprised if the lee bushings were on the light side.

[JagerDog]

Have you weighed the charges? I would not be surprised if the lee bushings were on the light side.

Good catch. Weigh powder and shot drops.

The Load all makes decent shells if everything fits perfect. Exercise in futility if it doesn't.

[NapalmCheese]

Good catch. Weigh powder and shot drops.

The Load all makes decent shells if everything fits perfect. Exercise in futility if it doesn't.

My experience with the Load All is similar. It makes fine shells, but the Load All's lack of adjustment means you need to find a recipe that works with the Load All, not adjust the load all to work with your recipe.

[tabascoz28]

I did weight the charges and they were a bit low which is fine with me. I just made 5 more each at full weight of the recipes, so much slower to do them by hand... If they work on my next trip I'll end up dremmeling out some more room to get the exact load all the time. Thanks for all the info. I'll keep looking and testing but just wanted to see what experience people though about my thinking.

And if I can find some green dot I think that's what I really wanted but couldn't find, then start this process all over again...

[Thefeeder]

Look up Dram Equivalent and study it ....it holds the key to why SA shotguns will cycle some loads and not others. You can post any questions or PM me

In your post of the recopies above....both of those loads are pretty darn equal as far as Dram Equivalent....if one does not cycle the other most likely will not either

My guess is both are about 2 3/4 Drams......1.25oz going 1300 is at about a 3 1/2 Dram load

[JagerDog]

Where are you located?

I have numerous powders and an assortment of wads (though most are AA clones) if you need some sample packs. Various primers too. Can't ship primers or powder.

Alliant has 1-1/8 oz w/green dot going to 1250, AA wad and 209M. They have next to nothing for win primers, but i doubt anyone would say subbing a win primer for a CCI 209M recipe would be an issue. 209M and fed 209A are the hottest primers. Prolly won't get the 1250, but north of 1200 and safe.

[tabascoz28]

Look up Dram Equivalent and study it ....it holds the key to why SA shotguns will cycle some loads and not others. You can post any questions or PM me

In your post of the recopies above....both of those loads are pretty darn equal as far as Dram Equivalent....if one does not cycle the other most likely will not either

My guess is both are about 2 3/4 Drams......1.25oz going 1300 is at about a 3 1/2 Dram load

Once I chrono the loads I'll know if I'm at the dram equivalent but that was my original question. Is it safe to put more powder if the Alliant's website says I'm nowhere near high pressure and I'm barely at 3 drams even. It sounds like I can just a little if I chrono each time and maybe move up 1/2 grains?

My shotgun says it needs at least 1oz and 3 drams to work correctly. The rounds I bought from the store were 1oz 1.125oz both going 3.25 Drams according to the chart from Shotgunworld. Thanks Jagerdog.

I am located in Sacramento. This is very interesting stuff, some would have given up but I like a challenge. Never thought I'd have to match so many components to make a plastic shotshell. Ha ha

[anyracoon]

Just a FYI

When loading for shotguns, stick to published loads.

[rsrocket1]

Sorry about the long reply

With an inertia semiauto shotgun, inertia (momentum) is the important parameter. Dram equivalent refers to velocity. 2.75 Dram = 1145 fps, 3 Dram = 1200 fps. If your gun manual says it needs 1 oz at 3 Dram so that means an equivalent inertial of 1200 oz-fps (strange units, but it actually is a correct depiction of momentum). So with a 1-1/8 oz load, you actually need only 1066 fps. Both your red outlined loads should work but for your gun, the 1200 oz-fps loads are the minimum and your gun should cycle with them provided you are actually checking the weight of the 1 oz loads to be sure and chronographing these loads to meet the minimum fps.

You say the Lee bushings drop light. Big problem here. Both a lower shot weight and lighter charge will result in lower momentum. First, correct the drop weight of your shot to make sure you're shooting 1 oz or 1-1/8 oz or whatever. It sounds like you have a chronograph so that's good. Weigh out 5-10 charges of powder and chronograph them. 1-2 shots is not nearly enough to get a good average.

Before all that, your shells are all wrong for the published recipe. Estate shells are similar to Federal hulls. They are classified as straight walled hulls and you Remington hulls are tapered hulls. Tapered hulls have less volume in them than straight walled hulls and generate higher pressures. Your Winchester type wads are made for tapered hulls and in a straight walled hull, can leak powder into the wad leg area. This usually isn't a problem if a few flakes migrate, but with a lot of bouncing around, it can add up. If you look at load data, you'll see that recipes for Federal hulls call for a grain or two higher charges than for Remington or Winchester hulls. In my experience, the hull volume in increasing order are:

Winchester/Universal/SuperX (don't bother with Universal or SuperX hulls, they are really thin and have a tough time holding a crimp)

Remington (all varieties)

Federal/Estate

Don't bother with euro hulls

Alliant Clay Dot is supposed to be a ripoff of Hodgdon Clays (which was originally meant to be a competitor to Alliant Red Dot before they came out with "IMR Red"). Alliant originally said in their literature to use Hodgdon Clays load data. "Pixel peeping" loaders who send their loads out to be pressure tested by laboratories said that Clay Dot isn't exactly the same as Clays, but for us common loaders, it's close enough. What that all means is you can go over to Hodgdon's load center web page and look though a much wider database than Alliant's. Your two red circled loads should produce similar results with the Winchester primer.

As for chronographing the loads, the important thing for you would be consistency. If the load works, then tweak other recipes to get you the same or greater velocities so long as you stay below the max published load. It's OK to move up and down between the minimum and maximum loads (interpolate) but not go outside these limits (extrapolate). Shotshell loading is not like metallic loading. There are no real signs of overpressure until the chamber of your gun gets over stressed or splits and there is very little margin between 9,000 psi which is a lower limit of clean and consistent burning of powder and 11,500 psi which is the max SAAMI limit for shotguns.

Summary:
You have an inertial cycling autoloader
Inertia = Momentum = shot weight x muzzle velocity
Pick and make sure your loads have the right momentum to cycle the gun

Good luck and have fun

[tabascoz28]

Rocket, thanks for all that info. It is about the same as I've read around other places and thanks for the shortcut info on hull properties.

It sounds like if I can't get the momentum that I need with Clay Dot I'm going to need to get a different powder and or maybe even hull/wad/primer combo. Well, least I have a pump that I can use Clay Dot for. My goal is to get one birdshot/clay target load that works for both pump and semi. And then a good load for buck and slug, those will be more expensive but I know those should be easier, fingers crossed.

[FLIGHT762]

Your powder may be too fast to get a 1200+ FPS load safely out of it.

Try a 1-1/8 oz load at the max recommended powder load with your powder. If that doesn't work, your going to need a slower powder to get the 1-1/8 oz load faster.

I have a Benelli M-1 super 90 I've owned since 1995. It will not cycle with any load under 1-1/8 oz. and at least 1200 fps. My reloading go to Dove hunting load was 1-1/8 oz. going 1250 FPS. I believe I was using about 25 grains of Unique.

When I bought cheap, commercial ammo for it, some 3 dram (1200) fps 1-1/8 loads wouldn't cycle. When I used Winchester AA 1-1/8 3 dram (1200 fps) loads, the gun cycled. This indicated to me some of the bargain base ammo was not going the listed 1200 fps.

My gun worked 100% with the 1250 FPS 1-1/8 oz. loads and would just barely cycle reliably with the AA 1-1/8 3 dram load.

Inertia guns are picky @ the threshold where they will reliably cycle. You need to find where your gun will reliably cycle with the lowest target load

Wouldn't be a bad idea for you to buy a couple boxes of commercial ammo to see where you're at.

[tabascoz28]

First rounds out of the gun was 00 buck. Those cycled just fine. I've tried Estate 1oz and 1 1/8, only the heavier one worked reliably. So far the Remingtons have cycled pretty good with 1oz 3.25 dram loads, I think I had trouble with the 3 drams.

That's why I decided to create my own loads so I never have to go looking for this stuff and see if they have it and be at the mercy of panic buys or low inventory.

Hodgdon Clays data seems to have an exact match with Clay Dot and more powder loads going to 3.25 drams. I'll slowly work on those next.

By the way, The lee loader seems to be dropping shot very accurately at 1oz and 1 1/8. It's just the powder that's short which is expected for such a crude measuring device but I'll fine tune that later I guess.