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My experiences with Remington black RGL's are just the same as MSM2019's: two or three reloads and some of the crimp folds crack all the way to the rim of the crimp shoulder. Up until that point they make great reloads -- great crimp memory, and very durable elsewhere in the hull construction.

The hulls that crack axially on the sides starting inside near the combustion area, are the small diameter ones with the slower burning powders, i.e. 28's and .410's. I haven't had that problem with shells of any gauge larger than 28. The crimp end tends to wear out first in any plastic hull, but with the 28 and .410 it's a race between crimp splits or hull split/burn-through.

In the paper days, hull life was a race between pin hole burn-through above the brass and crimp end thinning, mostly due to the shot abrading the mouth of the paper hull -- conventional wads let the shot do more work on the paper. Nowadays, with Federal 12 gauge papers, the hull mouth doesn't get worn so much because it is protected from the shot by the plastic wad/cup units we typically use. Modern Federal papers (only available in 12 gauge, unfortunately) fail because of powder gas leakage around the primers -- a feature of the rolled paper basewad. Old Federal papers, especially of 16 and 20 gauge more often fail by splitting of the brass head, but it was a race between that, burnout above the brass and crimp end thinning.

I always get a kick out of folks who say they can "full length resize" a plastic hull, or any other type of hull, for that matter. The only thing you can re-size is the metal of the head. Paper and plastic do not truly "yield" under stress in a way that enables resizing. Paper and plastic can expand to fill a chamber, but "yielding" is a phenomenon that mostly applies to something that has a ductile failure mode, i.e. mostly metals. Polyethylene plastic hulls will be thermally re-formed within the limits of the chamber, and paper will fail in mostly a brittle way -- it expands elastically till it breaks if it goes past what it's condition allows (embrittlement from burning/drying, for instance, vs. newer more resilient condition). Paper can't really recover from that.

With most metals, there is a relatively linear "elastic range", and then at the "elastic limit", yielding occurs. Yield is essentially a ductile continuation of deformation, with little to no increase in stress required. The "re-sizing" of a metal hull base or a metallic cartridge is a process of "re-yielding" the metal, i.e. stressing it again past its "yield strength" in the direction desired (compression), so when it "elastically" recovers from that stress it springs back close to the desired nominal new dimension. Polyethylene hull walls do not behave like that. There is no way some company's "full length sizing die" can constrict the diameter of a stretched poly hull enough to effect any kind of re-yielding. Mic a few fired hulls. The plastic is not much different in diameter from new. Then mic them after you reload them. Any expansion you'll notice is a local one, due to wad size or some kind of overload - probably mostly from trying to crimp an over-stuffed load. A die that could resize plastic would be way, way too tight to properly resize the brass.

The reloader manufacturers who brag about full length resizing are hiding the fact that the way they handle the hull requires it. Their full length dies actually are there to support the case wall during handling and crimping, and do perform a worthwhile service in the reloading process, but they don't re-size plastic. They also cannot keep over-filled hulls from buckling under the resulting overly high crimping pressures, a problem experience with any shotshell reloader.

MEC crimp dies support the case walls just as well as those of Ponsness-Warren or Spolar. The older short dies of P-W did not. So when P-W made the change for the better, they had to sell it somehow, so they keyed on an image folks have from experience with reloading brass centerfire cartridges, and tried to differentiate their method from that used by MEC. The very first MEC reloader, the MEC 300, 65 years ago, used exactly the same full length, brass-resizing support sleeve idea as the latest P-W's and Spolars. MEC went away from that separate sleeve method to a better, simpler and faster way to handle the hull and also provide a more adjustable crimp system, starting with their next reloader the 400, but not really refined until the 600, where it remains today. All those MEC systems support the case will during crimping. Those loaders and all subsequent MEC's press the primers in by supporting the base and pressing from the inside with a cylinder so the bade cannot be concaved during re-priming, and remove the crimped hull from its die by it's rim, so as not to disturb the finished crimp by pushing on it, while P-W and others are still pressing a primer from the outside without support of the inside of the hull giving the opportunity to dish the base, and pressing on the mouth of the hull to eject loaded hull from its open-ended die, which tends to bell the crimp end of the newly loaded shell.

Joined: 21 Mar 2019 Posts: 523 Location: Texas

Maximumsmoke- thank you. Very interesting. I’m thinking the only option to get lots of reloads out of the same shell is metallic. I haven’t loaded any of those, but have fond memories of my grandfather loading them. I looked into some metallic shells, very expensive and a pretty long wait, unless you want magtech.

Joined: 09 Feb 2020 Posts: 64 Location: Southern Illinois

Maximum,

Wasn't the 250 before the 300?

The 250 is still a good loader, did a couple boxes on one a couple of weeks ago.

Nope, Hamishtheirishamish. The 250, Super 250 and the 310 came out about the same time as the 600 Jr., or just after. Note their design. They are quite different from the 300 and 400 (the Speeder and the Super Speeder). Their frames look a lot like that of the 600, with a circular platform mounted on a column style base like the 600 Jr. They were intended to be entry level economic reloader alternatives to the 600 Jr. They weren't very successful, because clearly, it cost just as much to make them as to make a 600, and they were a lot less convenient to load with. If you Google them you can find the manuals and see the details. Note they have the same lever linkage as the old 300 and 400, while the 600 Jr. has a more advantageous lever linkage -- same one that has been used on all subsequent MEC's.

Just before the 600 Jr. came out, MEC brought out it's first progressive, the rare 500. It had another fairly unique crimping setup, kinda like that of the MEC 400, and not the cam crimp method of the 600 Jr. and all subsequent MEC's. While it was a progressive, it was manually advanced, and the charge bar was manually operated. It had the same lever linkage as the 300 and 400.

When the 600 Jr. came out, MEC simultaneously brought out the Super 600, which was a 500 updated to use the cam crimp parts of the 600 Jr. and also the lever linkage of the 600 Jr. In addition, it's charge bar actuation was changed. It was spring loaded and while you had to release it manually for powder, it was cammed over automatically for shot, whereupon it became latched again, ready to charge powder into the next shell. The Super 600 also was the first MEC with an auto primer feed. The 250, Super 250 and 310 came out just after the 600 Jr. or right about the same time. The Case Conditioner came out with the Super 600, I think. It was a resizing option since resizing on the 500 and Super 600 progressives was not possible in the normal progressive scheme. It used the same ring resizing method of the 400 and 600 Jr. etc, and the same linkage geometry as the 600 Jr. It also deprimed the hull.

The next loader from MEC was the 650. It was simply a Super 600 with a fully actuated chargebar. With enough parts, 500's and Super 600's could easily be converted to 650's.

The MEC 700 was next, at first simply a 600 Jr. with a different cam set-up to enable a longer ejection stroke for the deprime punch, an improvement that made loading high brass shells easier. Later the 700 got an auto primer, etc, but still later all those features were put into the 600 Jr. we have today, eliminating the 700.

The next frontier for MEC was the collet resizer. Using the collet resizer made resizing part of the normal 6-station routine of their progressives, and the Grabbers were born. Shortly after, the 9000 was born, with it's assisted advance mechanism, and that's where MEC is today. The collet resizer was then employed in the new SuperSizer to replace the Case Conditioner, and finally that same collet resizer was grafted into the 600 single-stage loader to make the Sizemaster.

There!

One more bit of trivia -- Notice the single stage MEC chargebar parts are a 300 series part number, and the progressives are a 500 series? That's because the MEC 300 was their first single stage loader and the MEC 500 was their first progressive. Actually, today's chargebar P/N's are 302's and 502's, a variation on the originals to include the powder bushing feature. I'm always amazed at the backward part compatibility of MEC reloaders, and the ability for older models to be updated to newer versions, or for the new ones to use so many of the same parts as their predecessors. I think the designers had amazing foresight.

Joined: 09 Feb 2020 Posts: 64 Location: Southern Illinois

An outstanding reply, thanks very much!

I'm also very gratified by the "Model T" simplicity of the MEC reloaders. Continuity of design and commonality of hardware make conversions and repair a painless hardware store trip, as I recently found when converting a couple of disparate aged 600 12's to 20 and .410.

I agree about interchangeability. My original 600jr first was 12, then converted to 20, then converted to 16. When I got tired of single-stage reloading, I found a tired 650 in 12ga. That got converted to 16 by only ordering the rotating shell plate for 16ga. All the other conversions were done with the parts kit. Except of course the wad guides.