Gentlemen:
Please consider this:
Any company who offers primed hulls and primers for sale to reloaders must accept liability for the safe use (repeated is implied) of those components. (and I know all about the disclaimer on the packaging) To assume that Federal only fired new ammunition in its tests fails to detect base wad dislodgment gives this fine company no credit for even basic legal intelligence.
Perhaps I should have included the text of my question to Federal so that their answer might be more fully understood. So here it is:
"Federal:
There is a rather anxious discussion on the Parker Collector's Forum about the base wads of reloaded Federal 10 Ga. hulls coming loose upon firing and traveling about halfway down the barrel of a double barrel shotgun to lodge and obstruct the bore.
At least two people say this happens with "target" loads.
I load your cases with VERY light 1 1/8 oz. target loads myself ( 21 grs of Clay Dot, BP Deci-Max wad and Win 209 primer) and have not had this problem. However, I am now concerned.
but I still cannot understand what kind of force would propel a base wad out of the case and down the barrel when the entire barrel has positive pressure until the shot and wads exit the muzzle.
Do you know of this problem with 10 Ga. base wads coming loose?
Do you know how it may happen?
One poster on the Parker Forum explained it this way:
"I have been told that this happens due to a poor gas seal in the primer pocket. The explanation went something like this, the shell is fired, the psi begins to build, the gas seal on the primer is not good, gas leaks by the primer, psi keeps building, higher and higher pressure is building down by the primer pocket BELOW the base wad, higher and higher and higher pressure builds, finally the primer pocket seals as the shell swells up and gets tight in the chamber and against the breech, high pressure is still everywhere in the barrel because the shot/wad has not flown out the muzzle yet and that high pressure is still down by the primer, which finally stopped leaking. Now the shot/wad flies out of the muzzle and the pressure in the barrel drops rapidly BUT there is still a little high pressure gas trapped below the base wad by the primer and the pressure wants to get out and get equalized so it pushes the base wad forward. It sounded like a good explanation to me."
I'd sure like to hear from the Federal experts on this because I rely on your 10 Ga. hulls for my shooting."
Under this circumstance, I don't think they misunderstood the issue.
While I do not doubt that some base wads may have come loose, the circumstances under which they did cannot scientifically be determined. Thus, they must remain suspect.
Best, Kensal
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