Hmmmm .............
 

Loaded a hand full of 8 gauge with 000000 buck (.415”) . Eight pellets to the shell . Deer gun season opens Saturday hmmmmm !

If I don’t get to busy at the shop Thursday I wanna load four of the .775” punkin balls and four of the .775” slugs .

Just finished the six punkin balls and six slugs . Slugs on the right punkin balls on the left .

I pity any deer that gets hit with any of those.... :shock:





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that sure is a nice crimp on those shells...what range do you expect to get out of these loads....my old 8 ga is only good for about 30 yards with round ball loads my mold is .835my guns muzzle is .842...I guess I need to tighten up on the round ball some way....charlie

Craig, I'm not familiar with the apparatus on top of your sizer die in the second picture of the buckshot series. What function does that perform? Excellent looking loads.

I have 700 hulls ready to load. I just had a 8lb. jug of powder delivered the other day. The only issue now is where to find primers.

The buckshot our to perhaps 35-40ish , the punkin balls and slugs 25-30ish .

Let’s see that’s an old Herters press with the swagging die screwed in the handle on top is a lever to ram or punch down into the hull to knock it out of the swagging die . A Tom Armbrust - Ken Burns innovation . Thing works pretty slick . On new or kiln fired WIN hulls they pop in and out with not much effort , new Remington’s take slightly more effort and the kiln gun once fired Remingtons take the most effort and sometimes require a little Imperial Sizing Die Wax .

I’ve got 100-130 WIN hulls and approx 500 TEM hulls of which 200 are new unfired . I’ve got two avenues I’m pursuing for new WIN hulls and if I ever get 500 or so of them I’ll be flush for 8 gauge hulls .

I dunno I’ve got a 730 grain mold for the 10 gauge I’ve plunked deer with and a couple more not quite as heavy that have done the deed as well . Used 0000 and 00000 buck in the 10 gauge to take deer . If I can do one in with the 8 gauge quick I might work the little 28 in the rotation just have to decide whether to use Brenneke factory or my home cast slug or #1 #2 or #3 buck .

I ve always thought a 28 ga slug would really work well on a deer...I have some 28 ga slugs in my ammo collection and some factory round balls...got to get me a gun to try them out on deer some day....charlie

Those slugs will leave a mark on both ends!!

They’re not that bad . The 2 1/4 ounce shot loads however can be a skoosh stout .

A 730 grain slug equates into about a 1 5/8 ounce load so as you can see the payload is a good bit less than the 2 1/4 ounce load .

it should be a good load to shootmy 8 ga round balls weigh 2 ounceswith 45 grains of bluedot there not to bad to shoot....I have shot a 3 ounce load and 57 grains of bluedot it will kick pretty good..you will usally take a step backwards...not a pleasant load to shoot...charlie

I use pretty much the same charge of Universal Clays for the slugs and punkin balls that I use for 1 1/2 oumces of shot . Not unpleasent , the 1 1/2 ounce shot loads are okay for sporting clays provided the course owner doesn't object to a cannon . I shoot at one place that the county told him nothing larger than 12 gauge period , shot charge etc is unimportant just no larger than 12 .

That wouldn't happen to be PG in Glendale would it?

No it's Central Virginia Sporting Clays in Palmyra VA . When Brad went before the Board of Supervisors in that county some other folks that were kinda against him opening got them to say nothing larger than 12 gauge .

Now get this I can (if I wanted to) shoot a 12 gauge 3" throwing 2 ounces of shot , but my little cream puff 10 gauge 2 7/8" 1 1/8 ounce low pressure loads are breaking the rules .:banghead:

I'm surprised you get any kind of decent patterns out of buckshot that big. I could never even get satisfied with 000 when I hunted deer with shotguns and hounds.

Last thing I saw shot at with 000 was a coyote at about 35 yards with my old 32" truck double. He was standing still when my son took the shot. I saw buckshot hit the ground on both sides of him, above, and below him. IOW, there was a coyote sized hole in the pattern. Never touched him.

You must not be using any choke at all with the six oughts.

SRH

:clap: That there is funny!! Coyote sized pattern!! Stan, I'm laughing with you, not at you. I can imagine the look on your son's face when that dog ran off unscathed. :shock:

Some people don't have the sense God gave a goose. :banghead:

Rule of thumb is tighter the choke the smaller the buckshot . Over the last ten to twelve years I’ve found that isn’t necissarily the case . I’ve patterned a bunch of 10 gauge guns that are choked quite tight and my 8 gauge which also has plenty choke . Anyway using my 10 gauge loads in the tight choked guns I’ve killed deer with every size buckshot from #3 up to and including 00000 . 00000 is about .400” mine after rolling are usually .396-.398” . Strangely the rule of thumb for this stuff isn’t as rule of thumb as you might expect . But you need to take in account a persons parameters . I’m typically after a decent pattern at 25 yards . Don’t think I’ve plunked a deer with buckshot much of any over thirty yards . I never used buckshot until about 2008 when I inherited my grandfathers W&C Scott crystal indicator 10 gauge and I started loading 10 2 7/8” , in the past id loaded 10 3 1/2” but this short stuff was kinda new . The Ross Seyfried article in Handloader back in the mid 90’s that I’d saved got me started . He used a 1 1/4 ounce load with 30 grs of SR7625 and I’ve modified it some for bismuth buck and slugs . Anyway the long and the short of it is you can sometimes you may think unlikely if you try and work a little out of the box .

Thanks, that's interesting.

Best, and tightest, patterning buckshot I ever used was copper plated 00. I think it was loaded and sold by Federal, but that's been over twenty-five years ago that I used it.

SRH

buck shot is a great round for deer pigs coyotes and other things...one thing for sure you need to know the range your gun is effective...charlie

I've got a Grade 2 top lever 10 on a 3 frame with 32" full and full barrels , that guns poisen with 0 handloads matter of fact I got a double with that gun shooting those handloads 4 or 5 years ago .

I've got a factory original EH 10 28" thats rather stout with 00000 buck . The first gun I ever shot handloaded buck in was my grandfathers circa 1881 W&C Scott crystal indicator 10 with 00 handloads . The Scott is way undersize for a 10 gauge at the muzzle but somehow it would throw a decent 25 yard pattern with 00 , But then when I started doing this 00 was the only size I messed with .I've got another EH 3 frame 32" full and fuller yet that does very well with 000 handloads and has taken a couple deer .

I have never shot any of the federal buckshot with the flite control wad but I ve watched you tube and them boys got really good results....been going to get some and try it....charlie

Took a friend to the range today so I thought I’d shoot Brutus at 25 yards from the bench with both slugs and punkin balls two shots of punkin then two of slugs from the right at one target and the same from the left at a different target . I honestly wanted to refresh my memory on POI related to POA . Right barrel seems the ticket for both followed by 000000 in the left barrel .