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Joined: 28 Oct 2005 Posts: 126 Location: penna

Is there a plastic hull that gives a good crimp? Or should I go back to paper
And if so is there a paper that does not have a base wad that breaks free
Upon reloading?

Member Joined: 15 Mar 2007 Posts: 601 Location: Virginia

"Go back to paper"? I wish we could, but no one is making them for 16 gauge anymore. O temps, O mores!

Dan

Joined: 26 Apr 2010 Posts: 3177 Location: NCWa

I find the best crimps result from using the best hulls- in this case, premium hulls. The best crimps that I get are with Rem STS, Fed GM and older Win AA- What's that you say? those are in 12 ga. Oh, well so are the only currently produced paper hulls that I am aware of.

Member Joined: 02 Feb 2007 Posts: 371 Location: mpls mn

What are you trying to reload, what type of reloader are you using?
I have had really good luck with the Herter's 16s drs 7/8 of shot as well as the federals.
The new cb 16 wad work good for me in the Remington's with 7/8 of shot I'm loading on a mec 9000, mec 600 and a pw 375

There are a lot of options for 1oz and 1 1/8oz using bpi wads and the cheddite/ herters fioccihi hulls

On the other hand I had a difficult time loading the drs in the Remington hulls. The wad caught on the mouth of the hull and made reloading a frustrating task. My solution was a a turned aluminum plug which I chucked up in a hand drill and stretched out the mouth of the hull -a pain in the butt. I also had difficulty fitting in 7/8 oz of shot. Other guys on this site seem to have no problem with that combination

Member Joined: 15 Mar 2007 Posts: 601 Location: Virginia

My experience in loading 10K or so in the past 2 years is that the Federals crimp the nicest and the most consistent. I get quite a few reloads out of each but leave them lay when they start cracking a bit at the top. Only drawback IMHO is the paper basewad.

I think that the cheddite/herters/modern Winchesters work pretty well, but don't seem to crimp up quite as nicely as the Federals. They are widely available, low priced from Cabelas and you can load them with almost no change in the settings from Federals (at least that's my experience with my MEC9000. When my Federals are all shot up, I'll stick with just cheddites.

I only load 7/8 oz target loads with DR-16. Lots of guys like Remingtons, but I decided to stick with Federals and Cheddites since the press settings are so similar. RGL's are a lot shorter.

my 2 cents.

*Last edited by gloftness on Fri Mar 13, 2015 3:32 am; edited 1 time in total*

I had at least three 16ga Fed hulls that I recall that the basewad crept up the hull. When you look down inside, the primer was about 1/8" below the top of the wad- it obviously had moved. Never had one come out, and I didn't save those hulls, just tossed them. That was a hot green dot load from the spreadsheets- 1350ft/sec or something. I tamed way way down and have had no repeats. I still load Federals, but I toss them before they look too shabby.

It only takes one bad one in your barrel.

http://www.16ga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9002&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Never had a Federal of any kind come apart. With the "new" steel "brass" (new as of maybe 40 years ago), it's a strong case. In 16, I have better luck crimping Winchester Cheddites and Herter's Cheddites. New Cheddites crimp pretty well, too. Rem RGL's simply fall together -- they load great, but must be used with the proper wad as the hulls walls are thick -- no problem really, with SP16's and R16's if you can find them. Claybuster's AA replicas, as well as the new 7/8 oz. version also work well in RGL's.

There are lots of good 16 gauge hulls to reload. Old Win compression formed (CF) hulls load nice, but they don't really last that long -- they get brittle in the crimp folds. You hear a lot of guys pine for them like those were the good old days, but you're not missing much. They are nice because they have great crimp memory, but they don't have a lot of capacity, and produce high pressures for a given set of external ballistics. They were made for efficiency -- to get the best performance from relatively small amounts of Winchester's relatively slow-burning ball powders. Cheddites, on the other hand, have great capacity, many good wads work in them (B&P, Gualandi and Cheddite wads), and they produce great ballistics with reasonable pressures. Federals are similar, but have slightly less capacity (not a bad thing), and frankly, I find they don't have great crimp memory. Fiocchi's, B&P's, Nobel Sports, etc are similar to Cheddites and load pretty much exactly the same. There are older Fiocchi's with wound paper basewads similar to Federals, and I have some old 16's labled Smith&Wesson (!!!) that also have wound paper basewads. They load great, and last a long time, but again, you'll probably never see them.

Federal paper basewads will outlast the rest of the case as long as they don't get water-soaked, so watch out for what you pick up. Wet ones can be dried, but look them over for swelling of the paper. I've used some pretty scuzzy ones, and never had a problem. Only base wad that ever got loose for me was the inverted cup basewad of an old paper Winchester Ranger 12 gauge from the early 60's that was reloaded many times before I foolishly reloaded it again. I caught it because I look down the barrels of my doubles before reloading. I have about 5 of those reloads left. they shoot great, but I'm damn sure to look now, you can bet, but I've never seen another problem. Federal basewads are completely different (wound around the axis of the hull rather than glued up layers transverse to the axis of the hull) and much more robust than old paper Winchesters and Remingtons (got a bunch of those Rem/Peters papers too, but only in 12 and 20). Only other paper basewad construction out there is the compressed/bonded ground-up fiber in the oldest Remington SP's -- their first plastic hulls (the first plastic hulls). They don't like moisture, and even if they are dry, they eventually flake after many reloadings, but seem to produce no barrel clogging chunks -- just a lot of flaky stuff that gums up the actions of pumps and autos. Anyway, you are unlikely to run into them. All those old Rem-Peters hulls need the small 57 size primer too, which is another whole issue. Stick to newer stuff and don't worry about it.

I load with MEC's. Have loaded with many others, mostly MEC. Started in the early '60's on a MEC 300, sold my 400 and 650. Now I only have five 9000's and seven 600/700's -- all in different gauges. One reading of a MEC manual, and one look at their site, or one conversation with their people will show you why they are superior to any other reloader manufacturer, and have out-sold them all. There are several good tools out there, but not one has as good a system or price or support as MEC for the same capabilities. I strongly advise against Lee Load-All's and Lyman EasyLoaders. It's a cheap way to start, and you can do OK with them, but they are not very versatile, and its just not worth the trouble to work around their little shortcomings. The bad taste they potentially leave in one's mouth might needlessly drive one away from reloading entirely. Start with a good tool -- MEC 600 Jr. If you find yourself loading more than a few thousand a year, get a 9000. Forget about the Sizemaster, the 650 and Grabber and just go from the 600's straight to the top.

Never had a Federal paper basewad ever come loose, in either a 12, 16 or 20 gauge.

I often wonder if the loose basewads happen with folks using reloading machines that don't resize or reprime as well, or in the same way as a MEC.

600's????? Sizemaster all the way for a single stage machine, Cool

HAHA!!

Of course to each his own, DC; I'm all for freedom of choice, but here's my take on the Sizemaster: It's basically the same reloader as the 600 Jr. except it has the collet re-sizer vs. the ring resizer, and an auto primer-feed. Those little bits of pizazz make the unit retail for $91 more, a price increase of almost 45% over a 600 Jr. So what's the value that makes it worth even one red cent more? In my experience, the ring resizer does the job just as well as the collet.

The reason for the existence of the collet resizer is in MEC's progressive system, where the ring re-sizer concept does not fit in. The example is the 650 progressive in which resizing has to be a separate operation from the normal 6-station sequence. To get re-sizing into the sequence, MEC had to use a collet, which produced the Grabber and it's descendant, the 9000. So OK, they put the collet into the single-stage line and up-graded and up-sold those people from the 600 to the Sizemaster.

Downside? The big one for me is the loss of the best feature of a single-stage reloader: Feel. One can really feel what's going on at every stage of the process with a 600 because he is not dragging around the resistance of all that hardware that makes up the collet re-sizer and the auto-primer. Other downsides? (but wait - there's more! as the infomercial says) 45% price increase and more parts, which means more adjustments and more parts to wear out. Though things last a long time on a MEC, a collet re-sizer must be closed 5 times on a Sizemaster for every shell re-loaded! On a progressive it closes once per shell. The collet re-sizer is just an un-necessary expense on a single-stage reloader. Auto primer feeds and charge bar shuttling arrangements are other un-necessary additions to single-stage reloaders that produce the same effects as mentioned above. And oh by the way, these features do not increase the speed or throughput of the single-stage system. Those features are necessary to progressive reloaders, but superfluous to a single-stage. Just my humble opinion, of course Wink

Joined: 28 Oct 2005 Posts: 126 Location: penna

I waited for numerous help before I reply. I lost a barrel due to a lodged base wad.
It was a semi/auto and unlike my break open guns that I do look down, but not always!.
My equipment is mec no complaints. I shoot a lot of crows , in one setting and frantically go thru a bunch of ammo in a short time., it's like a war. No time to check barrels I do if I can. I come home Beat and need to reload easy with little hassle and good crimps. I can not tolerate Loose shot and lost ammo afield due to a poor crimp during a crow shoot. I carry as much ammo as I can bear and every round must count. That's why I like a 16 I can carry more shells than a 12 per weight. My favorite crow killer is 311 28in. Full mod.

I have both a 600 Jr.and a Sizemaster.

Not sure why you need to feel anything, as it is a machine, and reloading doesn't need feel, as the handle must move through it's complete range on every stroke smoothly. If the collet is adjusted properly, it does not interfere with the whatever feel there might be in the machine, as the collet is supposed to work on the metal head of the hull and not the collet fingers. The auto primer only works on the final crimp and it offers little to no resistance, you can make it operate by pushing up with one finger on the final crimp die.

The collet is nice because you can adjust it, you can't adjust resize rings. The primer feed speeds stuff up quite a bit

I am not a fan of the shell kicker on a Jr. at the resize station.

I guess it is mostly personal preference. Cool

Mark, you probably load some higher-brass hulls, and have an older 600 with the regular hex-bolt kicker at the resize/deprime station. You need the shell-kicker from the 700, which works for tall brass. It retrofits on all old 600's, and is standard on the newer one's, since they discontinued the 700 and put all it's features on the 600. Cheers.

MaximumSmoke posted:

"...here's my take on the Sizemaster: It's basically the same reloader as the 600 Jr. except it has the collet re-sizer vs. the ring resizer, and an auto primer-feed. Those little bits of pizazz make the unit retail for $91 more, a price increase of almost 45% over a 600 Jr. So what's the value that makes it worth even one red cent more? In my experience, the ring resizer does the job just as well as the collet."

Both collet and ring type resizers work just fine on hulls with brass rims. Not so when resizing hulls with steel rims. Ring sizers just don't cut it in my experience.

The type of sheet brass used to form shot shell rims is malleable and does not spring back much after being squeezed back down to OEM specs in either a collet or a ring sizer. The mild sheet steel used to form shot shell rims is much less malleable than sheet brass, and it springs back far more when resized.

Ring sizers are not adjustable and are designed primarily to resize brass rims. Since all 16 gauge hulls have steel rims now, I've found that an adjustable collet sizer is not an unnecessary expensive option but mandatory. It is the only tool I've found that, once properly adjusted, will always reliably resize steel rims back to OEM specs every time. That is a must if we want our reloads to reliably chamber in any of our 16 ga guns.

Just how it is now. It's what MEC saw coming when they redesigned the MEC 650 to include a collet sizer and first offered the Grabber to us around forty years ago. They were way ahead of the curve on this one. The Grabber and the 9000G have become the best selling progressive units on the planet and for good reason. They do the job extremely well and are much more economical to buy than any other progressive unit being sold.

Here is my personal testimony. I bought my first '76 Model Grabber used/rebuilt from the Orange County Trap and Skeet Club in the mid-1980's just before they shut down for good. That old Grabber had been used to reload many, many thousands of 12 gauge trap rounds before I got it. I've continually used it to reload many, many thousands more. It still has the original collet resizing fingers and adjustment ring in it, and they still do the job to perfection. I replaced the old style wad guide w/ the newer version about a year after I got the unit. The replacement guide is still there doing it's job. I ask you all. What more could I ask for. You tell me.

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As far as rolled paper base wads go, they work fine if they have never been exposed to moisture and the hull rims are always properly resized back to OEM specs. If not, then a rolled paper base wad just might end up in a bore. That is never a good thing. Only once in a lifetime can ruin your life for good.

I advise prudence and caution. Look all your hulls with rolled paper base wads over very well, and resize your hulls properly. Don't be an El Cheapo either. Reload hulls with paper base wads a few times then toss them. They were never designed to reload as many times as a plastic one piece premium target hull. The money you try to save by overusing them will never amount to what you could lose through being foolish. Why gamble with your well being for peanuts.