10ga brass shells

[Paul Harm]

About 15yrs ago the wife and I use to shoot SASS and I wanted to use brass shotgun shells. Even went so far as to make up the tooling to prime and deprime on a Mec. Problem was that I never could get nitro powders to work, just BP. So I sold about 250 brass shells and the tooling. Now, today, a friend in shotgun bought the tooling to roll crimp 12ga brass shells with a RCBS press. Same results. We discussed this later on and I got a bright idea. Went home and measured the ID of the brass shell. It was .650. Circlefly recommends a 11ga wad - .650 and I figured this wasn't big enough. So I loaded it for a 10ga. My plastic shell 10ga load is 23grs of GD with 1oz of shot. I had to beat in the 10ga OP wad, slide in a 10ga plastic wad with a 16ga cushion wad inside and 1oz of shot. Glued in the OS wad and BANG, everything was good except a dirty barrel. Alliant list 21grs of GD/1oz of shot at 8800psi in the 12ga and 28grs/ 1 1/4oz at 8800psi in the 10ga. So because we went to a 10ga, we can load another 1/4oz of shot and 7grs of powder and get the same pressure as a 12ga. I will test again with just the 10ga plastic wad and maybe 26grs of powder but don't really like how loose the plastic wad slipped in. It would make life a whole lot easier if the 10ga OP card didn't have to be installed. Actually a 3/4" punch to make your own 750 wad would be just great. Circlefly doesn't offer that diameter wad. I feel I was finally successful because I went to a really tight wad. It gives the resistance necessary for a somewhat good burn.