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Alliant's new reloading data really sucks! Confused

I went on their site to look for a 1oz load with green or red dot, only to find that they no longer publish 1 oz load recepies.
In fact the only thing available is 1 1/8 & 1 1/4 loads and they limit their hull choices to Frderal, Fiocchi & Remington. What a crock! I sent them an email asging them to improve their data. BTW their 20 ga data choice has also been reduced. I urge all to contact them to ask for a more data.
Cheers, John

Joined: 11 Jan 2006 Posts: 311

It has been several years since I talked to Alliant and Hodgdon customer service about the lack of reloading data. I was told by both companies that they just don't receive enuff requests for 16 gage data to make it a priority. Keep sending e-mails and maybe one of these days they'll expand their 16 data.

Member Joined: 16 Nov 2006 Posts: 1338

The Alliant reloading team is restricted by guidelines laid out by their corporate legal department. They are restricted to publishing only data developed with currently and readily available componants.

There has been only one wad available from a domestic company, the SP16. The original WW16 wad was withdrawn from the market over a decade ago by Olin. Since that time, the existing supply of the remaining stocks dwindled down to nothing. Other non-domestic wads have been available in small lots on a hit or miss basis, but not regularly enough to warrant the expense and the time to develop publishable data.

If the very new Claybuster WW16 wad remains available on a constant basis, Alliant will most likely develop new data or recertify old data and reprint it if the wad proves suitable. I'm certain they have not had time to do this yet. The wad has only been on the market for a few months.

I hope Alliant will also develop data for Nick Hammock's new wad once it is available. Since the small lot of R16 wads we managed to purchase from Remington a few years back have not been generally available to the market, Alliant chose not to retest it. This is understandable. Developing publishable and safe data is not cheap. it takes time and lots of money.

Alliant has been one of our better sources of data for decades. I'd continue to use their old data, and give them time to develope new data for us as new componants replace the obsolete or discontinued ones.

I bought 20,000 R16'S when they became available a couple of years back. Too bad Remington doesn't have a hull that you can get more than 2 or 3 relods out of. Been using the low pressure groups R 16 data to reload cheddites

Joined: 07 Oct 2008 Posts: 74 Location: MO Ozarks

I spoke to a gentleman at CB yesterday to ask if the CB replacement for the WAA16 wad had been optimized for any particular hull. He replied that it had not, but that it was slightly larger in diameter than the original WAA16 to allow for the currently available straight walled hulls.

We spoke about a number of issues at some length. One of the things he told me was that they had sent both Hodgdens and Alliant a large supply of the wads so that they could develop loading data. He had no idea when/if it would be available.

I would recommend that we all request 16 ga data from both companies for this new wad. That will ensure that CB will keep making it and good loads will be available from reputable sources.

Guest

Good idea having all of us asking for reloading data, the old squeaky wheel advice.

I am sure that 16 gauge reloading data is somewhere on the bottom of the list. Alliant makes a very wide array of powders, the great majority are not even offered to us as reloaders(They probably have more flavors of Blue Dot, than all powders offered to reloaders put together). They service their commercial accounts first. The reloaders come in second place.

Mark

Member Joined: 02 Oct 2007 Posts: 1975

This is a pure guess on my part, but I'm betting I'm on the money. Alliant has acquired both Federa/Estate and CCI in the last couple of years. The Alliant ballistics lab has probably picked up some if not all of the production ammo testing as well as the standard testing done for Alliant powders. Even if they are doing independant quality assurance testing of small lots to compararive check/certify a sister lab's results, that would still be quite a load considering how much product testing Federal generates.

It won't hurt to ask Alliant to get on it for us, but I also recommend anyone interested in loading the new wad to seek out Alliant's old data for the original WW16 wad. I really doubt there will be any significant differences between the two. I doubt Claybuster would have released them for sale without testing some. If there were any significant differences in results, they'd wait until new data is generated.

I think we are on safe ground here. We can also reduce a specified lower mid-range powder charge by one or two percent to see how it goes. I'd not get obsessive about this though, and I'd not recommend reducing any of the lowest specified charges. That is another way to occasionallly get into trouble. Charging a load with an insufficient amount of any progressive burning smokeless powder carries its own liabilities, especially when using the slower burning ones.

Joined: 07 Oct 2008 Posts: 74 Location: MO Ozarks

16gg -

When I talked to the gentleman (I don't recall his name) at Claybuster three days ago he told me that they did not have ANY loading data for this wad. They had sent wads to Alliant and Hodgdon's for testing, but did not have any results yet. He specifically stated that the wad was larger in diameter than the old WAA16 wad, so I'm not sure that just using the old data is prudent. It may be OK, but then again, who knows.

As stated in my previous post, I had called to ask if the wad had been optimized for any particular brand hull. I was told no, but that the wad had been made slightly larger in diameter to account for use in modern straight walled 16 ga. hulls. So while the wad looks similar to the old WAA16, it IS a different wad. How that will affect loading to the old recipes is open to question.

Incidentally, he was very gracious and took my name/address to send me a bag of sample wads. I have not recieved them yet, but don't really expect them for several days. Besides, given the weather conditions here I think Nanook of the North and his snowmobile would have a tough time delivering mail right now!

I did the same a couple of weeks ago and got the wads. If you check my back posts, you will find my write up. The only difference I can note between the old and new version is a slight flair of the wad base skirt to help seat the wad a bit better in straight walled cases. Once either one is fired, the bases should obturate and seal off the powder gases the same way for all practical purposes. This little bit of built in flair will not cause significant extra wad column resistance or "pull". I also doubt there is a significant weight difference between the two versions. So my opinion is we are good to go.

Many of us here have reloaded thousands of Claybuster's various clones in a number of gauges over the years without any problems. None of the CB clones are exact dupicates of their respective originals, but they are close enough so performance is not affected. Over the past 25 years, I've personally swapped back and forth between Winchester, Remington and Federal wads and their respective CB clones in every gauge they are offered in without one problem to date that could be traced back to the wad. Ballistic performance has typically been excellent right across the board. I've won my share of registered and league trap awards and purses with ammo so loaded. I've also done very well on the skeet fields and in the game fields with CB clones.

So I'm personally not worried about any problems with these 16 ga Winchester clones either as long as I stick to the moderate loads found in previously published data. As far as any near red line hunting velocity loads go, I'm always cautious. I'll wait and see the data for all top end loads. I'm not apt to get into any trouble if I follow this plan. I don't think any competant reloader would.

Member Joined: 02 Oct 2007 Posts: 1975

In the spreadsheet I have there ar a lot of loads using the old WAA16 wad. Used in just about all of the different hulls. I quess I'll buy some to see how they work. Anybody interested in them email me.