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Joined: 17 Jan 2007 Posts: 76 Location: north Texas

Charles,

That W-540 powder is still available as Hodgdon HS-6. They're identical powders.

I still have that old Winchester Reloading Pamphlet with those 1400fps W-540 loads in it, and that load had a nominal working pressure of ~10,000LUPs - fairly high for a 12ga., so not for the vintage stuff!

I have a hard time throwing away good loading data references! That same manual has several "magnum" 1 1/8oz. and 1 1/4oz. 16 ga. loads using the Rem. R16 and SP16 in AA compression-formed cases.

xtm

Joined: 17 Jan 2007 Posts: 76 Location: north Texas

Britgun,

Yes. sent you an email.

xtm

Hello Xtimberman & britgun:

yep timber I know it is available today and if longshot had not come along then I would still be shooting that load today , but the longshot load is leaps and bounds above the old load , yeh I know everyone say's blown patterns but as I learned long ago , forget hearsay and forget math when shooting a shotgun

Rule # 1
ONLY PATTERN A SHOTGUN ON PAPER THAT YOU ARE GOING TO SHOOT AT A STATIONARY TARGET ( ie TURKEY'S) per ole BILL STAUBE

Rule # 2
AND NEVER , NEVER , NEVER , PATTERN A SHOTGUN MENT TO SHOOT A TARGET FLYING . GO SHOOT TARGETS AND SEE WHAT IT IS DOING THERE FOR REAL ( ie 3 dimensional cloud of shot that does not connect with the target at the same point in time, you have to match a load with speed and timing for the way YOU SHOOT, NOT ME this is why we reload ) Per ole Bill Staube

Rule # 3 NEVER BREAK RULES #1 & #2

Hello Britgun :

I dont remember the transaction , but perhaps I have at one time or another but my name in the shooting circles is well known by many my name is Charles Nick Hammack and I normally go by Nick but on the phone whith my Hillbilly accent everone thinks I say Mick so I let the people that know me well call me that and on the puter and the phone I go by Charles to reduce confusion LOL * dang ole accent LOL*

Regards Charles

Thanks for the wisdom Chas, I'm gonna try out some of those speedy, small shot jake killin loads......

b'gun

Joined: 20 Dec 2006 Posts: 46 Location: Illinois

Guys before using 7 1/2 shot for turkeys.Read the energy in ft/lbs. charts in the lyman 4th edition manual on page 128 and 129.It takes at least 2 ft/lbs. for ducks and 4 ft/lbs. for geese.IF you still want to use 7 1/2 on turkey all I can say is good luck.

Member Joined: 06 Nov 2006 Posts: 128 Location: NE

Well, I think I will take one of my 16's out for turkey this year. Since I didn't have anything else, I always used one of my 12's.
Now I've never bought into the hype that you had to go buy a new 3 1/2" superfull-choked gun in the latest camo-du-jour throwing over 2 ounces of lead just to kill a turkey.
The load that I have used for years in my 12 gauge shotguns for turkeys is the same as my choice for late season pheasants (1 1/4 oz of#5 or #6) based on the simple reasoning that I wanted sufficient patten density of a heavy enough shot to do the job out to 45 yds +/-.
I have a variety of 1 1/8 oz. loads (4, 5, and 6 shot) now for my 16's and I will pattern a couple of them out of my two 16's, and probably bring my maximum range limit down a little closer although I always have tried to get them as close as possible and have never shot at my max range limit.
I know of only one other person that recommends 7 1/2 shot as the absolute best there was for killing turkeys. He also said that a full-choked .410 shooting those 7 1/2's was the absolute best turkey gun ever made. "'bout like usin' a rifle, you either kill 'em or miss 'em clean." He killed a bunch of turkeys with his .410, probably more than I have with a 12.
Doesn't make either a .410 or 7 1/2 shot the best choice for tukeys.

berg

Hello Crowkiller :

your right if you go by all the books and do the math , but you know what before steel went into effect I used those exact loads on ducks and geese as well, and anyone that knows me and has hunted with me in the past years knows just how effective those loads are on just about anything that goes

lots of people have seen me kill coyotes with this load out to 50 yds with a couple of these pumped in him during turkey season , we kill coyotes when we can .

All I can say is that I was indeed skeptical years ago but after killing so many things that everyone says cant be done with this load and still doing it and proving it to many people every year when showing them how and what to shoot is important because just because math says it cant be done

Math is not always applicable in real world just try it before saying I got this out of a book and it says it cant be done .

That is why I shoot 3/4oz loads quail and pheasnt hunting and as my Doctor hunting buddy has learned this year ( he shoots a Merkel sxs has a matched set one in 12 and one in 20 ) he shot the 12ga in North Dakota in Oct and was pushing 1 1/4 OZ # 4 shot well I was shooting the Marlin 90 in 16ga shooting 3/4OZ # 7 1/2 @ 1370 well ask him just who killed our limits of pheasants with less cripples and boy did we get into the pheasants althogh it was a dissapointment we were going after Sharptail only seen 1 group of 10 or so birds and were they wild as a deer no luck there after walking 12-15 miles the first day looking for them and found none so we went to shooting pheasants instead .

Regards Charles

OK, Charles, I'm going for it, it's just that wild kinda out of the box, against the grain, color outside the lines sorta thing that blows my hair back, and it'll work slick in my 5 pound double.....I BELIEVE brother, I BELIEVE..... Very Happy

Duncan

Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 36 Location: Southern Indiana

Last year I went out and bought a 3 1/2 inch 10 gauge. I shot at 2 birds inside of 30 yards and missed both(The only 2 turkeys I have ever missed). I then went back to my trusty 12 gauge and I leveled a 25+ pound bird at 68 yards. I did it again with my 12 this past fall at over 60 yards. I'm going to try this 16 gauge load this spring. I loaded up some federals the other day with a similar load at 1400-1550 fps. They kicked like nobody's business, but they were smoking clays out to 45 yards. They made them into dust.

Member Joined: 26 Jun 2005 Posts: 376 Location: North ID.

I probably wouldn't hesitate to use the 7.5 load on a called in, fairly close, spring bird, I know it would do the job well!. I think I would be a little hesitant to try it on a hung up bird at 40-50 yds!

As a kid I shot tons of ducks and a fair number of geese over decoys with 1 3/8-1 1/2 oz load of 7.5. I'd still use it if lead were legal, but the ranges at which the birds were shot was probably not beyond 30-35 yds. I knew the limitations of the load, and used larger shot for pass shooting. The penetration just wasn't there for longer shots. My 2 cents.
CH

Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 22 Location: NE Tennessee

Thanks for all the replys. This has been very interesting as well as educational reading. I do not post much here but I read as much as I can. This is one great place.....