These seem to be the only hull that’s been laying around in buckets, so thought I would reload some and see if they are worth the trouble. The factory shell is loaded with 14.5 grains of unicorn dust, .853 oz of #8 ( pretty uniform) and a two piece wads. Yes a two piece wad( the one you can’t get). They also have the fiber base wad, some say one and done cause there were reports of them coming lose and being lodge in the barrel. Haven’t had any experience yet with that and I am on 3rd reload with some. I do shoot o/u so a look down the barrel prevents any mishaps.
I pulled my load data from Alliant’s web site and for 1200 fps it calls for 16.5 grains of green dot and 7/8 0z of shot, with the 20s1 wad. Perhaps the powder was different then but this hull is very roomy and suffered bad dished crimps.
I tried red dot, herco, international, green dot and all about the same. I adjusted my mec 600 until I gave up and nothing really changed. All components were weighed by hand as usual. And an exact amount of .875 0z of #8 shot was used. I then switched to #7 1/2 shot and it helped some. Then my anal retentive side took over, I don’t like dished crimps. So I added a 32 gauge nitro card under the shot. Crimps beautiful. Then I added 1/8 felt 32 gauge felt spacer under the shot. Same results. Then finally I added just a 20 gauge over shot card and the crimps were beautiful. I did some research in old 60’s load books and found most load data with red or green dot had some sort of nitro card, felt, etc, so maybe they really knew what they were doing back then.
Last but not least I wanted to pattern them to see if they matched the factory load. I also wanted to see if the felt, over shot card or dished crimps effect the pattern. So here are the results. I really don’t see much of a difference in the pattern and if you do your part...... you will have dead bird. Didn’t have time to chronograph them, but don’t expect to see 50/100 psi difference either way. The pressure may be another story, however, this load from Alliant shows 9300 psi, so for me no worries there. After each shot I inspected the barrel and got a clean burn and felt recoil was very close, with my shoulder. These were also all shot out of same barrel with skeet choke at about 40 yards.
Back to the reloading bench looking for a better match for the 20 gauge federals. I ordered some windjammers, and the stack height is pretty close to the two piece federal wad. The load from alliant web site calls for 15.5 gr of green dot, windjammer, 7/8 oz shot(I used #8) and a federal 209a primer, which I used a win 209. I don’t recommend you swapping primers as I did unless your sure what your swapping. The load shows 1200 fps and a little over 11,000 psi. The pattern board will show the true results, but things look much better. I dropped #8 shot .875 oz and then dropped .855. Most mec bars drop a little light, unless modified. That slight difference in shot drop should cover most bars, and it’s only a few bb’s in weight. The full 7/8 oz of shot will require a slight tap before the final crimp station to pack the shot down just a little, if not you will lose a few. The un modified bar should be pretty close. Crimp depth is .060
Finally got my package from Charles, no fault of his, gotta love the gaep bin 2. Don’t think it gets much better then that, in my opinion.
Back to the pattern board with 2 loads in the federal hulls. The first pattern was added to the others with the same load listed. I used 1/8 cork circle punched out of a cork coaster that I found at hobby lobby for 2 bucks for a pack of 6. This pattern in this post is with the windjammer wad. 7/8 oz #8 15.5 gr of green dot and a Winchester primer. Same shotgun and same barrel with skeet choke at 40 yards From the results I don’t see much of a difference in this gun and set up if you add filler, os card or have dished crimps. Eventually I will get these chronographed and see if fps is effected.
So a little more on the federal 20 gauge game loads( top gun) plastic shell with fiber base wad. I have heard rumors that these are one and done.This is the third reload on this shell, so I decide to cut it apart and see just how well the base wad is positioned in the hull. I cut the plastic down to the brass head. The base wad would not move with pick, pocket screw driver or anything else that I tried. Decided to cut the brass and see a little more. I cut about half a section out of the brass and the base wad was still secure. I shoot these in an o/u so not an issue as you can look down the barrel. The last picture is what would happen if the base wad comes loose and leaves the shell. From my experience with plugged barrels most of the time it is mud, snow when you fall while hunting. Probably still have bumps on my head from my grand father smacking me and asking if I checked the barrel after I busted my butt. When I first pulled the base wad out and looked at it, thinking maybe it would just fall through the barrel. Not the case.... IT WILL GET STUCK TIGHT ABOUT 2” IN FRONT OF CHAMBER. This would certainly be disaster.
Hey Ranger yet again a great post. Interesting with the plastic retention grip by metal shell base. Think mentioned before happened to my 15 yr old kid in a comp had a fiocchi 12ga let go after one reload and it got wedged right up behind the choke tube . I am paranoid now as we are super fussy with our comp loads. Luckily was with Citori O/U and he realised but would have been whole lot ugly with an auto.
Auzzie: sure glad he was shooting o/u and knew to look down the barrel. Must be a reflection of his dad. Love it when kids learn things like this. I would say most shooters twice his age wouldn’t even look, so kuddo’s to him. I believe I read somewhere that federal got wind of the issue and fixed it, but I can’t find it anymore. Probably best to shoot the fiber wads in o/u. I’ve never seen it happen with plastic base wads but could see it happening. I have had Remington gun clubs separate in two piece, pulling the brass head off the plastic tube in an auto loader. Luckily it jammed the old auto5
That’s good info about the plastic and fibre bases. I am going to pay lot more attention to that aspect. Again I have learned something useful off you. Yeah I was proud of my kids common sense and smarts too particularly as it was his first away comp without me at arms length. The other thing was it happened shooter 5 last shot station 8 and all The officialdom had pretty much all but disappeared so he made some good decisions. His knowledge of reloading and components with how they go together probably averted disaster and triggered the alarm bells. We don’t get much option shell wise so it’s mainly eurotrash or whatever gets imported cheapest. We are bin divers and shell scabs but love our reloads and prefer over the factory crap that finds its way here any day. We mainly try to stick with cheddites but even they vary so much in plastic quality and thicknes. What is interesting is how poorly some of the euro shells behave in relation to heat humidity and recoil. Oh incidentally can you describe your process of chronographing shotshells as a post. I just got a pro chrono at Xmas but not into blasting it off the bench first go. I hear and read a few different versions of the right way for shotshells and am more confused than ever.
Auzzie: Glad you found some useful information, that’s what it’s all about, sharing and helping. I tend to like the euro trash hulls. I’m a hull whore also so I’m always looking for free hulls to stuff. I should have left these federals where they were, but I will get good results, just more work then I had thought. I just got a new chronograph and haven’t set it up yet, but I will do a post with pictures. I’m waiting on a couple stands to mount it too. I should have just made them, but they are cheap to buy, did t think it would be this long. Anyway go over to this web site and there is more info then you will ever want. www.claytargettesting.com There is a section on testing shotgun shells. Remember chronograph’s work off the mass of the projectile, so some shot, 8-9 may not get satisfactory results.
Ok thanks for that I will check out site. Will get back to you later if I have any questions. Keep posting I am a fan.
Little more update on the federal. I was not happy with the pattern results with the load from alliant. I have a selection of load books from the 50’s and up so I decided to look up the same load in them and found the load was different. The difference was the grains and the primer. The load from the 60’s was federal hull( hasn’t changed much) and 15 gr of green dot with federal 209( not 209A). And the windjammer wad. The load with the federal 209A was 16 grains of green dot. I loaded 3 shells with each load and went back to the pattern board. Excellent results. There was for sure a noticeable difference. I also loaded the green dot load from alliant at 15.5 grains and shot it again today. Once again to rule out myself as the factor for the difference. When I placed the pattern paper from last week on top of the paper from today they were almost identical( not good pattern). This old load has a pattern that will cause a miss on the skeet field( which is how we got here). Just to make sure I was at least in the ballpark I talked to some old reloaders that forgot more then I know. What I was told was that the most consistent velocity will result in the best patterns( agree). The best advice I got was this: find out what your girl likes to eat and feed it to her. I would not have believed that .5 grain would have made a difference, but the proof is on paper.
I also went prepared with a back up load in case the green dot failed to perform. That load was 17.5 grains of 20/28, fed209A, windjammer wad, and 7/8 oz of shot. That comes in at 1250fps and 8690 psi. I was very happy with the results. If anyone wants to see the patterns then let me know.
That's very interesting result. I would never have guessed that outcome. Read that Neil Winston link you gave me on the chrono from nose to tail couple of times and noticed he mentioned .5 grain resulted in 25 to 35 fps across his chrono. That load your testing must be right on the teetering point and only needs that little bit more for it to perform. Quite amazing as the inconsistency in bush drop and powder level in the bottle; batch density etc could almost be up and down that much.
Yes sir I have that link on my laptop and refer to it more then once. I’m pretty anal about my reloads so I usually skip the powder and bushing drop and weigh each on scale. It takes an extra second or two but once you get it down you don’t even notice. I have a new toy coming to help with the shot drops, so I will give a review once I get it
I wanted to add another load in the federal 20 gauge, one of the members here is getting started on reloading and 20 gauge federal was one of his hulls, so I ran across some load data with the SG-20M wad from ballistic products. A lot of their loads suffer from stack height issues so thought I would see how bad. I have loads from 13-18 grains of green dot. This particular one is loaded with 16.5 grains of green dot, win 209, the SG-20 M (medium) wad, 7/8 oz of #8. This should be about 10,500 and neighborhood of 1250. Their load data calls for over shot card with 16 grains. So 16.5 had slight dished crimp, but the gaep crimper fixed that issue.
