16ga.com ~ View topic

Joined: 26 Dec 2005 Posts: 79 Location: Round Rock, TX

So I have about 300 rounds from about 1990 that were submerged in water for some time due to improper storage. While cutting them up to reclaim the shot, I learned some interesting things.

First there were the purple Federals. They're the older hulls with the deeper ridges on them. The plastic is much thicker and stronger, and it uses an odd two-piece wad. The cup is separate, then there's the powder cup, and it has a palm tree-looking protrusion that fills the space in the hull. I think I'm going to keep some of them because they look so interesting.

Then there were the Remington-Peters black game loads. They're 8-fold, and the plastic again seems much thicker than the modern Remington black hulls. These provided some R16 wads Smile

The other 150 or so hulls are all 12 ga steel loads of various shot sizes; that's tomorrow's project. I was mainly surprised at how much more robust the hulls were than the modern ones.

BR, what you are seeing is evidence of the anti-reloading policies adopted by the Big Two ammo manufacturers in the last decade. They have been slowly withdrawing from the componants business over that time. Federal was never a big reloading business contributer until they were acquired by Alliant a while back.

Both Remington and Winchester have been steadily cheapening their line of shotgun ammo, over the last decade, especially the field loads and hulls. They have been withdrawing or have withdrawn from reloading powder manufacturing, marketing field load wads, shot, and even primers now. This has allowed more independent competion. Don't be surprized to see better made, reloadable hulls from other sources appearing on the scene just as the independent wad manufacturers have.

The Big Two's decision to do so was in compliance with the anti-gun, anti-recreational shooting, policies of the Clinton administration, as well as their own greed and need to control the ammo market. Of course, as usual, anyone who follows the federal government's lead gets his ass handed to him sooner or later.

Since the bush administration took power, anti-gun policies have been on the wane. Now Remington and Olin are paying the price. Like all big entities, its impossible to reverse direction in time to stop the collision. In this case, its a collision with the realities of the changing market as it swings back toward reloading again. We consumers are beginning to benifit from a wider selection of componants already. However, things take time.

Good analysis 16gg. Hopefully the void created by the big R and W will be well filled making the consumer the winner with the potential for more diversity and responsiveness to our needs and less dependence on the big boys.

Hc

what ??

Bush did something good??

why i thought he and his administration were responsible for lack of rainfall in the southwest, tornados forming in thunderstorms, movement of the jet stram and its effects on el nino, etc etc..

at least that what i hear from the press....

Smile

rayb

You bet ! President George W. and his predecessors for the last 25 years are surely responsible for the effects of about 12 million "El Ninos" ! Mad

Member Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 3438 Location: Illinois

I gotta ask----did you try to shoot any before cutting them up???

Joined: 26 Dec 2005 Posts: 79 Location: Round Rock, TX

Good question--I did not. The heads on almost every one of the ones that I cut up were too corroded to fully chamber. I tried cleaning up a few of them with a steel brush, but the rust was too bad. Plus, I didn't think it would be wise to shoot the paper basewad ammo knowing that they had been wet for so long. There was rust around the primer pocket on many of them. In the end, I saved about 8 Remington game loads because they somehow showed no sighs of water, but that was it. The 12ga steel loads that I still need to cut up look even worse; I think they were at the bottom of the bucket.

It killed me to cut up all those 16 ga hulls, but it was only about 100 and I've got about 1,200 or so good hulls already. I don't have that many 12 ga hulls, however, and the 12 ga are older Winchester hulls that look a lot stronger than the flimsy modern ones.

Sad

Member Joined: 26 Apr 2005 Posts: 743

Federal still uses the 2-piece wad. Remingtons . . . if you go back far enough, they actually made a 16ga target hull. However, it also took a different size primer no longer available (unless you can scrounge around and find some in a dusty corner of a gunshop, or at a gun show). I bought 500 of them, primed and unfired, back in the late 70's I think. Reloaded those for quite some time.