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

Little more on safety, and some useful information.
www.Saami.org( good info)
The picture with shotshell standards all you need is first column( gauge) and last column( max pressure).

Ok next topic. Pressure. To my knowledge, and I’ve asked a lot of reloader’s about pressure and most don’t have a clue or even seem to care. Wrong answer. Pressure is an important part of reloading for safety reasons. Pressure in a shotgun happens in front of the chamber and by the time it exits the barrel it has dropped. Peak pressure can happen at various times after the primer is struck by the firing pin. Some powders have peak pressure very fast while others may take longer. The pressure spike is something that you can’t feel and can only be tested with expensive equipment. My point here is if you follow the load date it has all been looked at by someone above my pay grade. Remember fast burn powders will peak very fast and fall off fast. Slower burning powders take longer to reach peak pressure, but maintain for longer periods.

The crimp depth is one factor that affects pressure. The Hodgdon data uses .055 as a crimp depth. Some judge by the thickness of a dime. Below is a chart that Hodgdon published with the same load, with various crimp depths and the results. One last thing on pressure. Today’s shotgun barrels are tested at well above the Saami spec’s so even if you exceed the pressure in a shotgun load, your head it’s gonna disappear. The manufacture knows there are idiots out there and will push the envelope, so in order to protect you, and more so them, they are tested at excessive pressure. I have seen a barrel burst at pressure somewhere around 30,000 psi most are higher then that. Now if your shooting Damascus barrel gun it would not be in your best interest to push the envelope.

Just to satisfy my curiosity since I made mention of a dime thickness on crimp depth I decided to measure one and came up with .0485. So maybe those old timers knew a thing or two. Next I checked several of my reloads and found .0505 so I’m gonna call it close enough for me.
Next I measured some Winchester AA’s they are anywhere from .034- .043 so perhaps they didn’t get the memo.

The new monarch measurements are .075 crimp depth.
The federal measure .0185

Added a new brand today. Remington clay and field.
Crimp depth is .057 on one shell in the box. The rest of them have dishes crimps.

rio field 1 oz has a crimp depth of anywhere between .034-.042”

OAL( over all length). When I was reloading metallic cartridges this was a big deal for accuracy. Some riffles like the bullet further in the groove of the rifling then others. I will include it here, so as a reference. Don’t really see any reason this would be a problem for shotgun, as long as you load 2 3/4 and your chamber is 2 3/4. As a note for new reloaders. You can shoot 2 3/4 inch shells in a 3” chamber, but not vise versa.


New monarch-2.39”

Federal. 2.36”

Winchester. 2.37”

My reload( monarch) 2.38”

Rem clay/ field. 2.42”

Rio ( game load). 2.42”


Now what Saami says: as you can see 2.50 for a fold crimp and 2.56 for a roll crimp. Also noted TOL in the box states (picture) .250 unless otherwise noted. So basically that 1/4 inch would still be within spec.

So decided to look at the imperfection on the final crimp. This is a brand new die set that was ordered to convert it to 28 gauge. As you can see it causes a little ugly spot( don’t know what to call it) in the center of the crimp. Not real sure how to deal with that hole, looks like from the tooling that was used to make it.
And the other picture is of a different gauge, you can see it’s not there

I emailed mec this morning followed up by a phone that was less then pleasant. Talked to someone that told me all hulls are different length! I thought really, this one is sharp. Anyway I was told that the cam crimp punch should be flat by one guy and another said it’s normal. So I ask for an explanation of the damage to the center of my hull. None given other then must be the hull I was using. When I said I reload 28 in every hull available it got silent with I don’t know what to tell you. So very disappointed in mec. They did offer a new one at 10.50 plus shipping if I wanted to pay for it, but it would be the same. So I decided to chuck it up in the solder vise at work and do what they should have done. It looks a lot better to me and will try on another hull to see what happens.

One other thing I wanted to mention is what my grand dad called indexing. Not sure if that’s the proper word, but it works for me. Anyway when a crimped shell is fired, it will have a certain memory of those folds(crease in plastic). When it is in the pre crimp phase and using a 600 mark v the plastic pre crimp has legs on the inside. If these legs are aligned with the old fold the crimp will be much better. So I mark my pre crimp to make it fast and easy to line it up. Works every time. And yes the pre crimp is on a ball fixture that is suppose to find that prior fold, but it don’t always happen.

Next hull will be the heavy field load from rio. It’s a once ounce load. I ordered today and will be here next week. At 27 a box delivered I only ordered a box to try them out. Rio hulls are suppose to be good reloaders, but have no experience yet. Couple other toys will be here tomorrow. I finally bought a trickle scale. The rcbs. Not the one I wanted but with Christmas around the corner, and my daughters want list it was a hard swallow at almost 1000 bucks. The last segment of this thread will be pattern results of a factory shell vs a reload. If anyone wants to see a load, let me know and I will do my best to load some. I have about every powder and wad combination know to man. I’m gonna call it “ my slow joe plan”.

Range update. Shot the monarch reloads again. It breaks clays. No issues with 3 boxes. Pretty clean burning powder. The federals broke clays also but very dirty( knew that). The American clay and field was probably my favorite shell today.

new toy showed up today. Will have it up and running very soon. 10 loads checked with another scale. All drops within .1 grain

Ok next is to see what’s in each of the factory shells. All components will be weighed on 2 different scales and any discrepancy noted.

monarch 2 3/4 1200 fps 3/4 oz of #9
Shot- .746
Powder- 14.2 grain
Wad has an S in shot cup
Plastic base wad

Federal top gun sporting- 2 3/4 1330 fps max dram 3/4 oz #9

shot - .762 oz
Powder- 19.2 grain
Also has plastic base wad

American clay and field- 2 3/4 1250 fps 3/4 oz #9


Shot - .721
Powder- 14.9 grains
No apparent base wad looks just like it’s part of hull. Wad is. PT-28


Rio game load 2 3/4 1200 fps 1 oz #8
Shot- .996
Powder- 28.3
Plastic base wad
Wad is HV28

I played with it for a little while, seems to be accurate to the .1 grain. I needed something when I’m making a new load to automatically dispense powder. Some of these different powders don’t meter worth a shit on my mec.

The Gaep hull trimmer showed up today. Looks like another one I have seen. This one comes with adapters for all gauges. And several spare blades

So I had a chance to play with the gaep trimmer. This thing works like a dream. Would recommend it to anyone. This picture shows the amount that I cut off each hull and the finished product. Earlier in the post there is a picture of three hulls with a charge bar across the top to show the different length hull before trimmed. The last picture is of the same set up with trimmer hulls