28 gauge reloading, good,bad, ugly and then Winchester

Well Friday night blues, COVID-19 and no real life, what to do? Sipping on whiskey and thinking 28 gauge. I found some Remington sts and express, in the bottom of old hulls. What the hell might as well reload some.
So first things first both of these hulls when deprimed will stick on your deprime punch and require some effort to remove. What causes this is the plastic flashing under the primer. See pic. There is a fix called #1 drill bit to open it up before new primer. Never again will it stick. The sts seem to be worse then the express.

So moving on I’m loading from a load in lyman’s 5th. Either of these hulls, 20 grains of blue dot, Remington primer, 3/4 oz of #9 for skeet, pt28(Remington) wad.
The sts seem to stretch the plastic more then the express, but the express seem to leave a weird shape when fired. See pics. There is a tool to help open the mouth called spin doctor, haven’t got one yet, but if it works would be worth it.
If you would like more on the plastic stretching you can google creative reloading, guys name is Rudy. He makes a tool ( really nice) to cut 12 gauge hulls all the same length. He may have others

The Remington sts hull in pic 1 with the stretched plastic, if not corrected before crimping will give you horrible looking crimps. You will waste lots of time adjusting your machine with still ugly crimps. If you load anyway as the next pic you will see not a pretty crimp. Will it go boom? Yes for sure. On some you will get a wired flare at the end of the shell. Most will still go into chamber of o/u, but most likely will cause cycle issues in semi- auto. To be continued

Update the blue dot crushed targets today. Blue dot is designed as a magnum pistol powder and some say not suitable for 28 gauge. The loads are from old source, and after 75 reloads went boom today with no issues I’m gonna say it’s good to go.
The purpose here is to look at different loads, hulls and the problems that you may have loading 28 gauge hulls. The sub gauge hulls are more difficult to load and requires extra time. With that being said all my loads are weighed round by round, shot, and powder. I load on a mec 600 mark v.

When I started loading sub gauge it was search, search and more search to find info on hulls, and problems, so go back to last night if your still reading. The sts hull had a flare at the end. Slight and it still went in the chamber of my silver pigeon. Tonight the hull of choice is monarch green hull. These load like cheddite hulls. The load is cheddite primer, 15.4 grains of universal with same pt28 wad and 3/4 oz #9. The flare at the end is more pronounced. What causes this is your final crimp station out of adjustment, when you pull the handle it flares out the end of the shell, no where for the crimp to go. Adjust your final crimp stage.

The second shell was caused during the prime stage and the handle was forced to bottom out and drive the primer into primer pocket. As you can see in the picture the primer is seated to deep. The ring around the brass is the primer expanding the brass. Flush is key. A closer inspection with a really cheap tool that every reloader should have shows how far that primer has gone. A properly resized shell should fit in the shell checker like so. And yes it will go in the no-go hole also but it drags and you must apply some force. The measurements I got from calipers are .624 on the go and .620 on the no go.

Next issue looks like the picture. Dished crimp. Couple things on this- either your shot column isn’t right( stack height), weigh it all again. Possibly a light drop of powder or more likely shot. My special 3/4 oz skeet bar drops exactly .722. That’s just a few #9 short but enough to cause problems.

Some people like to add Cheerios or overshot cards. If load data don’t call for it then it’s not needed. You have the wrong components in the hull, or you need to make adjustments, either charges or machine. I see a lot of dishes crimps, some from the factory. They will still go boom and break the target in most cases if you do your part. The problem you have is the crimp depth changes pressure. The current load with universal is 12,300 which is nearing spec for 28 gauge. Is the gun gonna blow up? Nope probably not but why take the chance.

The next hull is a new primed cheddite hull from BP. No adjustments made from the green monarch hulls. Wanted to post this one cause I have read that special tools are needed to make the first crimp. As you can see it’s not true, the mec starter crimp and final crimp do a decent job. The small hole in the center is typically an adjustment on the final crimp( needs to be lowered) In this case there seems to be an imperfection on the cam crimp punch. More on that at a later date.

Since I mentioned the “ special tool” I thought I should post a picture of one. It works, but needs some modifications that should have been done for 30 bucks. It does make the crease a little deeper and more defined, but mec gets it done just the same

Update on the monarch and cheddite hulls loaded with pt28 wad and 15.4 grain of universal They all went bang and broke clay targets like factory shells. The universal is fairly clean burning.

Thanks buddy. Still more to come. I’m gonna try and cover all the major hulls except fiocchi, which in my opinion are not worth picking up. Feel free to add or correct anytime. If my order gets here anytime soon there will be a 1oz load for the 28 added somewhere.

Nice. Yes those are good ones. I will be doing some of them soon. Wanted to save the best 2 for last, which are the Winchester AA(cf) and AA HS.

So back to the reloading bench to finish my quest to give a place for new loaders to have a place to go to see what’s the best hull to reload in 28 gauge and some of the problems with each hull.
Earlier I mentioned that the sts hulls have plastic under the primer pocket that the deprime punch will get stuck on and a fix is a #1 drill bit to do away with the plastic. The current hull I am reloading is the green monarch( cheddite). Remember each hull can be a little different and if you think your gonna make your adjustments for one hull and it work for all of them, I’m here to tell you that it’s not gonna work. So if your hull don’t have the plastic build up and it’s still sticking inside the support tube like the picture, then you need to adjust the deprime punch. Most likely if it’s sticking inside then the punch needs to be adjusted down. When the handle is fully raised the hull should look like this one. And the last picture is what it should look like when adjusted correctly for this hull

So your moving right along and you got 1/2 bucket of shells loaded and your smiling from ear to ear because your crimps look great and your thinking I finally got this. Then one these come out. Now your thinking wtf....... I need to make adjustments!!!!!
Not true. There are many reasons that this can happen. To much shot, shell not indexed, been fired to many times, hull length, adjustment screw on final crimp cam come loose.
Let me just say that I love my mec 600 mark v, but the bushings suck! They are not consistent. The number of bushing that they say is almost never correct for any given grain or powder. Powder meters different period. Some say a baffle helps, and would agree on some powder, some not so much. I’ve tried adjustable bar... not for me.. some weigh 10 rounds and then if they are within a .1 of a grain they call it good. Then on round 30 it drops .5 to much and they don’t know. No harm no fowl, maybe would be my answer. If your at the bottom of the pressure bucket, then no worries .5 you won’t even notice. If your at the top of the pressure, then that .5 could take you over the Saami spec. For 28 gauge the SAAMI SPEC IS 12,500psi.
Will the barrel go boom? Probably not with .5 grain over the spec, however, what if your shooting your old sxs and the stock cracks? What if it bulges the barrel on your 5,000 dollar hammer gun. Is it really worth it? NO
Keep your loads within the spec and you won’t have a problem. If your shooting old sxs, then do so at your own risk. Remember play with fire and eventually you will get burnt. I have never had a ftf, blooper or any other problems out of my reloads cause I follow the load data.

Ok another note about reloading, this just happened to me. Called my reloading supplier( avid shooter) inquiring about powder and primers. He sent back that he had Federal 209A ( Winchester clone), his words not mine. These are not Winchester clones, technically speaking there isn’t a hot and hotter primer. I understand how guys can refer to primers that way, but not true. Please read this before you just swap another primer into a load. Don’t believe what anyone says. http://www.armbrust.acf2.org/primersubs.htm

Back to the WTF shell(ugly duckling) I have cut the shell apart to find the cause. Powder measures. 15.1 gains. It was 15.2 when I first weighed. Then it set there for about 5 min and finally settled on the 15.1. Next I looked at the hull, as these were given to me and have been fired at least once. All hulls look ok. A quick check with a charge bar shows that there is a difference in the length of fired hulls. This load calls for 3/4 oz of shot. Weighed shot and found .818oz
So as you can see that drop was a little heavy and most likely the cause of the ugly duckling.
Word on hull lengths..... not uncommon to find different lengths in the same box, the length of a shell is determined after it is fired. For larger gauge shells you can cut to the same length to get better crimps. Some separate hulls to all the same length and reload in batches ( see pic in later post of hull trimmer). I have a bucket under the bench for WTF shells and that’s where the ugly duckling would have went, then when I have a 100 or so, I cut them apart and keep all the components.

Hull trimmer for 28 gauge. I emailed Rudy at creative reloading last night and this morning I received a reply. He is working on the 28 gauge trimmer, and will be ready in December 2020. I would guess around 50 dollars. I also emailed Charle's at gaep and he responded this morning also. He told me that they now have a multi tool that will cover several gauges. It's about 80 dollars with shipping from Italy. I have ordered one from gaep and would expect it by next week. Just received two emails from Charle's, the trimmer I emailed about last night is in the mail already. Now that's service.

creativereloadingsolutions@gmail.com(Rudy)
gaep61@gmail.com(Charle's) takes paypal

Let me just say from personal experience with both people, that they are both great to work with and will do what it takes to make you happy. The gaep is a little more expensive, but quality is outstanding, just like the products from Rudy.
One thing about Charles is his English is not his first language, you kind of have to read between some of his words, as translation is not 100%. I've never had an issue communicating with him and if you don't understand just ask. He is aware that English is not his language of choice.
The gaep products are available from BP(NEW CATALOG). They seem to have limited supply. I've had another tool on order from them for so long I actually forgot about it, if you want it fast email Charle's. you will pay more , but you will get it. Anyway when I receive it I will post some pictures and give my review.
Since on the topic, let me say that the Trim Doctor II from BP sucks. Don't waste your money. I don't dislike BP, they have good products, some are better then others. One such products is their hull vise. Its great and would recommend it if your going to do roll crimps.