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Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 380 Location: Northeast Ohio

A buddy just gave me some once fired Noble Sport hulls. They have real fine ribs and are darker royal blue in color. Sorry, I have no digital camera. No stars on the metal head to indicate Cheddite. I didn't see the box but he said he thinks they are made in Italy. Six point crimp. They seem to be a decent quality hull, straight wall (?) with a steel head. They have a plastic base wad. They are inscribed "Hunting" and "Sportitalia" in black lettering with 71/2 stamped in a circle. 3 1/4 dram 1 1/8 oz.

I loaded up just a couple to see how things fit with my pet load:

15.7 gr Green Dot
W209
DR16
3/4 oz.

I have not shot them yet.

They look great. I'm figuring the above load should be safe in just about any hull, but I do prefer to use tested loads.

Anybody have any idea what these are and what recipes apply?

They even ejected out of my Model 12 but do indeed look just a tad longer than the RGL's and the same length as the Cheddites.

I have my fingers crossed that they'll eject from the Model 12 without having to be trimmed. He is going to give me the whole case...he doesn't reload.

Most of these generic Cheddite type hulls are manufactured in China under contract for just about all the Europen brands now. Thay are all about the same.

I'd split one down the center to the metal; and remove one side to get a view of the base wad and the thickness of the hull walls. Do the same with a Cheddite hull for comparison.

If the base wads are closely similar basically flat plastic discs and the hull walls of the same thickness and rigidity, then you can use the same data for either. Any slight difference in base wad height (thickness) or brass height won't affect ballistics to any significant degree. All you might need to do is to make minor adjustments to your crimping stations.

I've reloaded a lot of Nobel hulls. I treat them the same as the Winchester straight wall polyform hull. If you cut the hull from the base, you will notice the tube is about the same diameter as the Winchester and RGL. The shells I just mentioned are a little smaller in diameter than Fiocchi and Federal. The Claybuster ww 16 and DR16 wad fit nicely in these hulls. I use the loading data from the Hodgdon site for 7/8 and 1 oz loads. I did notice that Nobel hulls tend to split at the crimp when I resize them on the second reloading. I just reload them once and throw them away. Same as I do for RGL's. I get a little better life from the winchesters.

I sent Tom Armbrust loads to test with Cheddite, Federal, Australian Winchester and Nobel Sport. The loads were identical except for the hull. The results for all four hulls were tightly clustered and I now consider them to be interchangeable for reloading purposes.

I like these nobel sport hulls a lot for my 16ga hammer gun, mostly because of the low brass height, which doesn't stick in the chambers of my gun. If anyone has any of these they would be willing to sell, please drop me a pm.