16ga.com ~ View topic

Joined: 08 Mar 2022 Posts: 91

What a ride ! After reading about how everyone liked them when they first came out because of their decent price to where everyone hated them for their lack of quality, to where most everyone believed they were finished. Stopped in the local BassPro/ Cabela's over the weekend and the Herter's brand ammo is all over the shelves in most of the popular calibers. Found the original green box in 16ga. They had 6s or 7 1/2s @ $15.99/box. Loads are the present Win Super X 1oz/1165fps loads. Made in France, just like the current Super Xs. Hulls are black now & have 4 stars; Cheddites! I'll be using Ched data. BUT, they are shorter shells, not 2 1/2s but not 2 3/4 either. I thought i had finally gained some confidence over these last few months reloading all the different brands with very little adjustments to make up for varying differences to get a proper crimp. How would I handle these that are noticeably shorter? I'm using the Mec Sizemaster.

Joined: 21 Mar 2019 Posts: 523 Location: Texas

I think there are two ways to handle. 1- cut all your hulls to the same length and the other is to make adjustments when you change hulls. It's not really all that difficult to make adjustments. If you don't care about holes in the crimp or swirls, then maybe less adjustments.
Buy a bunch of Herter's hulls and set up another reloader for just them. I normally reload in batches of hulls. In my experience it's just a part of reloading to make adjustments. My 2 1/2 hulls have their own reloader and its doesn't change, until I switch to a different brand, which probably isn't going to happen any time soon.

Joined: 09 Feb 2015 Posts: 821

At 16.00 SMACKERS l believe I'll pass that up for awhile.
160.00 a flat from 59.00. Maybe wait 6 months or so.

Joined: 01 Oct 2007 Posts: 962 Location: Minnesota

Sure glad I have a few cases of the $59 variety oh Herters 16 ga loads. I shoot a couple boxes, reload the empties 3-4 times, toss the empties, and repeat.

Joined: 13 Oct 2015 Posts: 151 Location: SE Ks

Glad I’ve still got 4 unopened flats of the $59 delivered variety. They don’t load as many times as a couple other types, but do well for the money

The irony, right. We are starting to see the ammo shelves fill up again will all sorts of offerings -- but the prices are crazy, ridiculously high.

Joined: 08 Feb 2009 Posts: 1309 Location: Western WA

Joined: 12 Sep 2010 Posts: 1973 Location: Maine

Not the worst I've seen, but at $10/box more than they were before Cabela's went Bass Pro, I can wait.

And recall, Cabela's/Bass Pro went to sourcing the Herter's ammo as American-made as part of the justification for ditching the "old" Herter's line. Now they're back to buying wherever they can get them.

BTW, I was hunting up in Aroostook last week. I was in a store with ammo where they had high brass Winchester 16 ga #6 for only 29.99.

Joined: 08 Mar 2022 Posts: 91

"BTW, I was hunting up in Aroostook last week. I was in a store with ammo where they had high brass Winchester 16 ga #6 for only 29.99."

hahahahh.. I think i'll pass on that. Made either in Australia or France .
Late last winter I stumbled on some Rio's & Nobles w/#6s and they were "only" $17/box. Bote shot great & hulls were highly reloadable. I'd buy them again instead of the winnys. [/b]

So, at $15.99/box, a couple rounds of trap would run almost $45 with range fees. Yikes! I'll pass, and keep reloading my own.

Joined: 08 Feb 2009 Posts: 1309 Location: Western WA

$15.99 is a high price, but let's look at today's cost of reloading. The prices per round below reflect our club bulk pricing which is a best case scenario:

Hull: 5 cents, assuming 4 firings and BPI price of 20 cents new (first primer is free).
Primer: 7 cents, our club rate for Cheddite. New shipment of Nobels will be lower.
Powder: 10 cents
Wad: 5 cents (BPI)
Shot: 16 cents, latest club rate for new West Coast

Total: 43 cents per round, or $10.75 per box. This is likely a best case number because shipping and HAZMAT fees are not included.

The empties from the new factory box are worth 15 cents each, assuming 3 more firings, so the net price of a new box is $12.25. The cost savings for reloading is therefore $1.50 per box, at best. I can reload 4 boxes per hour in my 600 Jr and make $6 per hour at that rate...which I do under Chester's supervision. That compares to $7 per hour which time and motion experts have calculated to be the hourly rate for picking up pennies off the ground.

Now some will say "my basement is full of lead shot and I have 32 pounds of powder in the garage". Fine. You could use some of it to reload 16ga ammo, and let the next owner of the house take the rest of it to the hazardous waste site - not the best plan. Or you could take it down to the local gun show this weekend and get a 20 percent premium on everything and take home enough to buy a new Fausti - a much better plan.

Bottom line: Shooting has become much costlier than a couple years ago.

V/R

B.

Joined: 13 Oct 2015 Posts: 151 Location: SE Ks

Shot cost has me thinking about a shotmaker. I'm sitting on about 800 lbs of cleaned and tested range lead as well as quite a bit of linotype. I don't shoot as much cast bullets as I used to so might as well use it for shotgun use.

Joined: 09 Mar 2016 Posts: 754 Location: Mn.

Joined: 09 Feb 2015 Posts: 821

I've been lucky so far this year. Since I just shoot trap games the shooting I've been doing has paid me back a little. By that I mean the winning has paid for all my games each night I shoot plus maybe 20 to thirty dollars take home money. I figure that paid for the better part of my gas. With the supplies I have bought up for the last 5 to 6 years will do me for a long while. On top of that I will be making my own shot coming spring. I had a friend that was leaving this world to go to the big time shoot in the Havens left me. So I'm good for a couple years. But by that time their may not be any clubs left. I think thats the plan our sinister politations have in mind and most voters refuse to see the corruption. Anyway I hope I'm wrong but sad to say the last 30 years I've called it right. Bill

Joined: 16 Jul 2015 Posts: 2126 Location: Hudson,Wy

It's all pretty ridiculous anymore. I still stick to reloading, especially since I can have control over what is going into the ammo I use and the monetary savings are greater from my perspective when I consider what premium hunting ammo costs rather than "this is the cheapest stuff I can find".

An interesting side note. The biggest part of cost in loading ammo is still the shot charge. This is why my target practice stuff is only 5/8 oz. It makes a big difference in the cost per box. However, steel shot hasn't seen near the hike in price that lead shot has. My cost of reloading steel ammo hasn't risen terribly over recent years. Ironically, my lead loads now cost almost the same to load as my steel shot loads, thanks to $65/ bag WC or Lawrence mag lead. I'll just say that it's a good thing I went debt free about the same time all of this nonsense hit.