Roll crimping Federal paper

[Hammer Fan]

I'm hoping someone might be able to give me a little advice. I just picked up some Federal paper hulls that I plan to roll crimp. I tried some practice crimps with my usual drill press mounted crimper, and a couple of my antique hand operated bench closers, and didn't have very good results. The mouth of the shell that has been previously fold crimped seems to have been weakened, and when I try to roll crimp it it wants to collapse upon itself. To me it seems like it needs to be retreated with wax somehow to stiffen it again.

I thought about trimming them, but I will be loading with black powder and card wads in a gun with 2 3/4" chambers and don't want my cards to jump a 1/4"-3/8" gap if I can help it. Anyone have a trick for roll crimping these hulls?

[Keith Parrish]

You may want to do a search here on the site. I thought someone posted a trick on rewaxing these paper shells and heating them to get them to crimp better. If I might ask where did you pick up these papers? I am looking for some paper shells to give them a try on my roller....

[Hammer Fan]

Originally Posted by Keith Parrish

You may want to do a search here on the site. I thought someone posted a trick on rewaxing these paper shells and heating them to get them to crimp better. If I might ask where did you pick up these papers? I am looking for some paper shells to give them a try on my roller....

Picked them up from Ballistic Products. They also sell new Cheddite paper hulls which since they are new, crimp great. The only difference is the Cheddite hulls have a plastic base wad which I don't want to load blackpowder in. For smokeless they work fine.

I did a search on this topic but nothing jumped out at me. I'll try paging through some of the various threads, it might be buried in a topic that isn't directly related.

[Hammer Fan]

Yup, found the info I needed. It was in a thread titled "Roll Crimping Tools". Got my cheap curling iron on it's way already.

[Keith Parrish]

Have not the courage to try Blackpowder yet for I do use my reloads in my newer shotguns.

Would there be any repercussions on firing a blackpowder charge in say a rem pump or a savage?? I am intersted in trying this out.

I will order some of the paper shells my local gun stores don't sell the paper rounds ( I have made numerous request for a couple of cases of paper shells and they refuse to order these) I may have to resort to an online purchase. I like the looks of the RST's paper and have heard great reviews about this line of shell but nothing of reloading these.

[Hammer Fan]

There is nothing inherently wrong about using blackpowder in most guns. The only drawback there might be to shooting it in a pump or auto, is that it may be more difficult to clean properly. In a muzzleloader or double gun, the barrels are more easily cleaned as a self contained unit. There are more hard to reach crooks and crevices in the action of a modern pump gun, although most of the fouling "should" be contained within the barrel. An auto gun might be worse, and I don't know if I would ever try shooting blackpowder in one. Just too many places for fouling to get into.

One warning though, once you start loading blackpowder, you might never switch back to the new-fangled smokeless stuff, which is probably just a fad anyway

[Marc Retallack]

Keith, if you're looking for loaded Fed paper loads, Roger's seems to have the best price around on them http://www.rogerssportinggoods.com/i...product_id=347 Also, Federal is running a $2.00 box rebate.

Cheers
Marcus

[John Farrell, Charter Member #33]

If the Fed papers have been reloaded a couple of times you do have to rewax the mouths to stiffen them. Remember to stand them up in the 170 degree heated oven to allow the excess wax to flow off them. JF

[Paul Harm]

John Browning thought his greatest actomplishment was the Auto-5. Black Powder or Nitro could be used. Even a cut shell should work with the old SxS's as most have a short forcing cone. Measure how long the forcing cone is and see how high the wad column is- you may get by. Paul

[Paul Harm]

I never had much luck trying to roll crimp a paper shell that had been star crimped- just cut that part off.