Shotshell reloading with dense powder

[DCoakley]

I've been trying to resolve a crimp dishing issue. I'm reloading Remington gun club and sks hulls with hodgon high gun, 18.5 grains, clay busters 8118 wads and cheddite 209 primer. Loading 1 1/8 oz. Machine is a mec 9000e.

Here's what I've tried so far..

Pre- crimp adjustment, final crimp and finish. No luck

Rammer tube was set at line 5 and moved it between 5 and 6. This helped but concerned wad not sitting on the powder.

id hate to change wads as I'm sitting on 10k. That will last me a year.

Thx in advance everyone.

[Imageview]

Could trim the shells slightly, but a lot of work for that volume.

[ar15barrels]

You can add a felt wad under the shot to raise the shot level to make the crimp better.
Otherwise, slightly increase your shot charge.

[4DSJW]

You could try doing what the CAS shooters do; add a dried bean or a cheerio into the shot cup before the shot charge. Definitely an added step, but with 10K wads it might be worth it. The dried beans seem to work better, probably because they don't crush. GL!

[DCoakley]

Thx everyone. Some good ideas. They soot well but like most always like the look of a perfect crimp.

[Thefeeder]

To find out if the wad is sitting on the powder.....Drop a charge, loosen the drop tube until it slides with little effort, place a wad in the shell by hand and use something to slowly slide it down until you feel it contact the powder. slide the drop tube up and place that shell under the tube. Lower the handle all the way to raise the shell l, with the handle down lower the drop tube to touch the wad, raise the hanlde and push the drop tube down another tad or so......lock it in....that is your highest wad placement touching the powder

Crimp......try adjusting the crimp die by loosening the hex head screw on the side of the die and raise or lower the small plate....note where it sits at the start and make small adjustments. Also, the top of the die has the plunger adjustment screw....make half turn adjustments if needed

My .02 ----I'll take shoots well over looks all day. Nobody cares what you shoot, what they care about is the score card

[rhodesengr]

I know this is an older post but another thing you can do is use the 1oz wad with 11/8 load, like cb8100. Dense powders do tend to cause stack height issues but I have loaded WSH in Rem hulls with CB8118 and got decent crimps. Maybe post a photo? Otherwise, a cork spacer under the shot works well. 20 gauge spacers fit nicely in 12gauge wads. Or get a 5/8" punch and make your own.

[DCoakley]

Late reply due to numerous experiments. Here's a few that I tried, some worked meh and others worked very well.

1. 1 oz wads that were just a bit taller worked well. Still used 1 1/8 oz into them. Crimped nice.

2. Adjusted wad depth less. Also worked well.

3. Learned that modern powder doesn't necessarily need the wad sitting on the powder. Loaded and reloaded a box of 25. And reloaded the same 25 hulls 5x. Found no difference in the hulls, i.e. Burns or holes

So my solution was less wad depth, minor cam adjustment on station 5 and crimps look like factory. (It's an OCD thing).

Taller wads also found no difference in performance and pattern. Used all test loads on 40 yard pattern board, full choke with bt99. Shot 16, 27 yd, doubles and 5 stand. No issues. Never tried the bean or cork BTW.

Thx for everyones input.