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AKDan
PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2022 3:09 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 18 Apr 2018
Posts: 28
Location: Alaska

The absence of any published pressure test tables for 16 gauge loads indicating any dangerous pressure deviations for 1 ounce loads at or below 1200 FPS may reflect that nobody would publish such a load rather than that are are no such loads.
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Citori16
PostPosted: Thu Mar 31, 2022 5:08 pm  Reply with quote
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Joined: 19 May 2006
Posts: 309
Location: Too far south in New England

This is a good discussion and I’m glad it brought out some of the experts to explain their points of view, contrary or not. I do not consider myself one of them but coming from a testing background I understand the importance of reviewing data, understanding the theory behind it & looking for inconsistencies. I do not like subbing components, but at present time we are challenged with the lack of diversity, while facing a threat to our interests, whether real or perceived.

Some data points:
I have seen in some boxes of store bought ammo poor crimps, even sunken ones. Federal steel waterfowl in 16ga is the most recent one I can think of. I’m sure there is a QA department looking at the shells and rejecting questionable ones. But it is up to ME as a reloader to be my own QA, especially considering those that depend on me.

Last weekend I shot skeet with a man & his son, as well as one of our top shooters. Both reload a lot as they are in the leagues and shoot competitively. On station 6 of our second round, the guy fired at the first of the double and the report was very different. He seemed to think it was a blooper and so did our top shooter. I looked at the shell and noticed the primer sticking out a bit, so I picked it up and said “I believe it was the opposite” and showed them the primer sticking out almost 1/16”. The son then piped up and said he thought it was louder. Denial is an ugly thing, but I believe they all recognized the possibility of a double drop of powder, or similar. This man uses Longshot because it’s available, not because it’s his choice.

This past Christmas I sold my son most of my supply of 12 ga Hevi-Metal #2. On he went back to Louisiana and went duck hunting with his buddies. He fired 3 shots out of his semi-auto at some ducks, the first went fine, the second felt weird and the third shot the barrel off of the magazine bolt, and stripped the bolt to unusable. Luckily no one was injured, but I told him to throw out that box even the though the box hadn’t been opened before that day, and to inspect the rest of those boxes carefully and I would reimburse him for any bad ones, and of course he refused to accept any money. I’m sure he had a squib load. Maybe a shell got wet or maybe it was from the factory. We’ll never know for sure. I doubt he will ever fire a next shot if the previous one sounded different.

As for my future reloading, and my daughter’s who is about to start, we will be strategically looking at our inventory to maximize what we have based on recipes we use. I also intend to send some loads for testing using the components I have, with an eye toward using one recipe but changing one component, for flexibility’s sake. Thanks to researching some of the previous reloading posts, I will also now be a lot more critical of crimps, and other such means of ensuring a good reload. If all we get out of this latest hurdle in our sport is more good recipes then I think we have made things better for ourselves. If the supply chain comes back to normal then we are ahead of the game.

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16'er
PostPosted: Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:33 am  Reply with quote
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Joined: 08 Oct 2006
Posts: 1393
Location: Tappahannock, Virginia

http://www.16ga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24556
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makintrax73
PostPosted: Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:13 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 27 Oct 2017
Posts: 80
Location: Joliet, IL

Stx4wheeler wrote:
I’m a little confused by this topic, the 16 gauge community has many spreadsheets with 1oz data being the most prolific using many many different powders/wads/hulls.

So far I have not run into a load I wanted to make that doesn’t exist in these spreadsheets. There are surely powders that you would not want to push to 1oz 1200 ft/s.

Maybe I am missing the intention of the original posting.


Same. I bought 572 today off the shelf - Recobs in WI. There was 3 bottles still there when I left. I've seen Universal and 572 online in the last month. Seen people on forums buy ched and fio primers online. Bpi and precision have SG16 and or SG16S wads most of the time. I got a couple bags of ched hulls from bpi last week. It hasn't been easy, but guns are expensive and eyes and fingers irreplaceable. If you have to swap a primer or wad use common sense in load development and have it tested. Sometimes "it's not the odds, it's what's at stake."
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Old colonel2
PostPosted: Fri Jun 24, 2022 9:23 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 07 Jun 2020
Posts: 224

Variations from tested data is dangerous. Informed judgement will mitigate the risks, but is not fail safe. While lighter loads, 3/4 & 7/8, maybe safer to vary on as MSM notes, that cannot be said for 1 1/8 and especially not so with 1 1/4. As to the efficacy of playing with off data variation with 1oz loads, it is not without risks.

I shoot vintage guns and I am very careful with what I fed them. I believe it dangerous to encourage anyone without deep understanding to play off tested data is playing with fire.

I realize most are not hoarders as I am, that said search out tested data for the components you do have.
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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2022 4:21 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 16 Jul 2015
Posts: 2124
Location: Hudson,Wy

An interesting side note about the comment concerning a primer partially backed out. Sometime fire an empty hull with a live primer. No pressure, right? The primer will partially back out. Something to think about.

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harkom
PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2022 2:16 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 01 Mar 2017
Posts: 52

WyoChukar wrote:
An interesting side note about the comment concerning a primer partially backed out. Sometime fire an empty hull with a live primer. No pressure, right? The primer will partially back out. Something to think about.


Yes, seen it and done it. Also may see somewhat similar primer change in fired blanks/poppers for dog training.
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Citori16
PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2022 3:12 am  Reply with quote
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Joined: 19 May 2006
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Location: Too far south in New England

Good info! Never realized that would happen.

For my own “QC” station, I add up the weight of my components for a given recipe, then set up my scale to weigh each finished shell before I put it in the tray. It has saved me a few bloopers from a reduced powder drop. It also gives me a chance to assess my crimps. It’s never exact so I allow a tolerance, but a large delta either way gets thrown in the reject pile for analysis later.

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