It's been a while since I posted in the reloading section, so thought I would share a load I'm working on. The load uses blue dot, cheddite primer, #7 steel shot 7/8 oz and the B&P supersonic wad. The wad has four slits, and the shot is completely inside the wad. I will be doing the normal pattern test and over the chrono in the future.
I started with the federal hull with paper base wad. It loaded ok, but the federal like to split when putting the wad in the hull and then it causes problems with the crimp. The 6-fold is a plastic monarch with a plastic base wad. There is more volume in the plastic base wad hull so need a little extra power to make up the difference. The monarch shell is around 1250 fps and 10,000 psi. I need to make a few more adjustments to the pre crimp, but I think this load looks good.
These were done on a PW 375 with the new taper crimp kit. It has the plastic crimper, something like the Mec one. I'm not sure I like it as well as the gaep and this machine may be getting the gaep pre crimp in the future.
Ok Question time from the gallery! Not real converse with the 20g I am guessing it's a hunting load being steel and stoked up with blue dot. Is it for doves? Do you find 20g stoked up and pushing 7/8 Oz more punchy recoil wise than doing 7/8 in a 12 g Does a dedicated 20 g throw a better pattern or is it a weight thing having a lighter 20g for stomping around the field ? Sorry about all the questions keen to learn something.
I would ditch the plastic crimper too in favour of your Gaep or their metal blade crimper. Both are way better .
When I started thinking about these steel loads, my first thought was about lead going away. Then I thought what about a dove load, so yes, it's a dove load and one that I can use for clay targets. Blue dot and steel were my thoughts on powder, and I have both. I wanted a load around 1250 fps because that's my normal speed for just about everything. I really don't get hung up on speed too much. A pattern is way more important to me then speed. These loads went down the tube of light 20 with a skeet choke. It for sure is a nice light option for walking the dove fields. I started on the heavy setting, and it cycled completely fine. I tested them first on the skeet field. I was pretty amazed how well they broke targets if I done my part. I really can't say much about the recoil, it was very soft and had no problem doing 2 skeet rounds in a short amount of time. The pattern results are yet to come, not sure the 20 will throw a better pattern then the 12, but I think the browning invertor plus barrels are hard to beat. Just from my testing with the auto 5 barrels they throw very good patterns. I can tell you that I had a box of factory federal Walmart specials, 7/8 oz 12oo fps that I used on the last round and on the heavy setting the light 20 struggled to cycle with about 50% reliability, most of the failed cycle moved the bolt/barrel back about 3/4 of the way but did not eject the shell. Switching back to the light setting fixed that. There is for sure a difference in felt recoil from the factory federals and the steel loads, but very minimal.
One other bit of info that is important if you are going to load these 20 ga federal hulls. Since the beginning of time the federal 20 ga hull has had a fiber base wad, its brown in color. Federal recently decided to start using a plastic base wad. It is also in the 12-gauge Wally world special. Some say they look like lifesavers in the bottom of the hull. The plastic base wad hull has more volume, and you will need to adjust your load(change)to get the correct stack height. I thought all my hulls were fiber base wad, I grabbed some empties out of the bin and started reloading. I made it all the way to dropping the shot in until I noticed it was setting lower in the hull then the last one. Well, on the PW it's not so easy to just stop and pull the hull out and look, so I finished the process because I was cutting it apart anyway. When I finished the final crimp, it was so dished the shot would have run out, with a big hole in the center. I cut it apart and there it was, the plastic base wad that I thought I didn't have. So let that be a lesson to keep your hulls separated better than I. After pulling 10-15 random hulls and finding plastic base wads, I need to separate all of them, looks like another bin and a chore for a rainy day.
Well the gallery is more than satisfied with all the details and explanations. Very Good! Yes 20 g is off the planet expensive here to point of no go no way unless you light cigars with dollar bills. When did get to play once was with a beautiful loaner Superposed Dianna grade 4 barrel set. What I noticed at time was the 20 g AA factory skeet loads in 7/8 kicked perceived harder than 12 g 7/8 factory international skeet loads and both were 1200s. The barrels were all matched for consistent weight so without much exposure or knowledge of 20g always put it down to possible barrel harmonics or just being punchy by default that is why interested. Others have made same sort of observation comment to me when using briley 20 g tube sets in their "K" guns. Again tube sets present their own array of unique harmonics and patterning issues. Yes agree 100pc with you pattern and putting the gun in the right place with confidence far outweighs velocity and choke. Sort of realise now too your using in an A5 chassis so got to have suitable energy to make it all work reliably and when your hunting recoil is the furthest thing from your mind in the flurry of action.
Well you have peaked my interest in this recoil a bit. I am curious of the recoil from 12 to 20 with the same payloads. There are some 7/8 wads, and 13/16 wads. Not sure just yet how many bb’s that is but I will know this weekend. I will order some wads for 12. Not sure how close I can get with the weight on the 12, as the light 20 doesn’t weigh a lot, but once I have some numbers we can see if it’s an apples to apples.
That will be an awesome MythBusters comparison. Look forward to next installment . Recoil is not your friend!!! And it creeps into your game without knowing.
I finally received my gaep 6-point pre crimp from BP. I got it mounted to the PW 375. It took a little doing to still have the adjustment feature for 2 1/2 shells, but I managed to get it done. The pre crimp tool that I ordered will spin like the PW ones or the Mec, I just like the geap much better. The finished result will tell the story why I like gaep the best. The hull on the top is a fired monarch and the bottom is a new cheddite.
Nice upgrade. That is one very solid robust looking pre crimper. Much better option than any of the plastic crap ones. Could you be kind and post image of inside the Gaep what it looks like. Never seen one before and curious . Like what I see.
The set screw holds the two pieces together. The threaded hole is M6x1.0. The rotating head came with a 6 point and had a spring on the side like the PW, I don't like the spring locating my hulls, so that's what the lines are for on the crimp head. I just spin it manually and line up prior fold. Seems to work better for me. Like the PW pre crimp spring it seems flimsy to me and often misses the fold and then you have a fold line off the original fold, and it causes problems. It's a must for 410 hulls, so I am used to spinning by hand, so pretty normal operation for me.
Nice setup thanks for showing. Looks well made. Yes the side springs are a pain apart from being average and you don't really need them.
In closing on the gaep crimper loading these 20 steel loads I wanted to try several different loads to see which one I liked the best. I needed to change back to the gaep 8-point pre crimp. It takes less than a minute to change the crimp head. So here is what the inside looks like. You will need a 2.5mm Allen wrench.
The load for these wads came from Precision reloading. The loads are listed under the wad on their web site. All the loads are with blue dot, #7 steel shot and TUWSBL2024 wad. Some of the loads (3/4 oz) call for a 32 ga felt spacer under the shot. All of the hulls I tried required an overshot card to get a decent crimp except for the federal hull with paper base wad. That load requires nothing to be added. In the picture you can see why the over shot card is needed in the other hulls.
Update on the steel loads. I ran 9 shells over the chrono and all clocked 1300-1350. The dished crimped shells had the 1350 fps. The load from Precision stated 1250 fps. The loads with over-shot card seemed to pattern the worst. The dished crimped shells had no effect on the pattern, and if I had to pick a pattern with the best results, I would pick the load that had the dished crimps. The fps differences from my reloads to the precision load is most likely the depth of my crimp. I usually crimp .065-.070. I would also expect the pressure to be a little more than the stated load at 10,150, but still under the saami spec.
The load that loads the best is the federal with paper base wad. It requires no filler or over-shot card and patterns well at 40 yards with a skeet choke.
