Winchester AA's -Reject

[William Davis]

Some of my AA's used with low pressure loads show a line outside of the shell Right were the lighter color inside powder area and wall of the shell joins. Does not seem to be any link to how many times the shell has been loaded or which barrel/chamber it's been fired in.

STS empty's are made in one piece never see this line. Is the line a reason to reject that shell ? Cut a few open they seem sound with the line

Bill

[10 bore]

line the before reloading? are you using a mec sizemaster type resizer?

[William Davis]

Old 76 Grabber,I don't know if the line is coming from the sizing. I don't think it's from the guns chamber.

Loading up some now will pay attention to not putting any in sequence with the line, see if any appear in a finished box.

Bill

[10 bore]

I have it too, I think its from the top of the sizing collet ???

[William Davis]

I could be putting too much pressure on the crimp too, causing a bit of a wrinkle were the two parts of the shell join. But the line is more a crease than wrinkle

Bill

[J.B. Books]

Originally Posted by William Davis

Some of my AA's used with low pressure loads show a line outside of the shell Right were the lighter color inside powder area and wall of the shell joins. Does not seem to be any link to how many times the shell has been loaded or which barrel/chamber it's been fired in.

STS empty's are made in one piece never see this line. Is the line a reason to reject that shell ? Cut a few open they seem sound with the line

Bill

Bill many times when you see auctions for empty AA hulls some sellers will state "old style", which in my opinion are better than the "new" style AA which have a tendency to produce this line around the hull. It's because they are a two piece hull and the old style was one piece of plastic. The newer hulls came out quite a while ago, early 2000's maybe, I forget. Anyway when they came out many people including myself suddenly started seeing this in their reloads. The problem was so prevalent Winchester has the following information on the reloading portion of their website.

How can I get a good crimp with the new 12-gauge AA high strength hull?

Winchester has designed the new 12-gauge AA high strength hull to reload with the same reloading data as the old AA hull. However, on some reloading machines, even though the components and reloading data are the same, there may need to be a minor crimp station adjustment made. Please contact your reloading machine manufacturer if you need assistance adjusting your crimp station. Shooters have found that after making a slight adjustment to the reloading machines good quality crimps and long reloading life are consistently obtained with the new AA high strength hull.


If I remember correctly the adjustment to eliminate this line is moving the pre-crimp station down so it nearly closes the hull and moving the final crimping station up until it's just enough to close the mouth of the hull.

The STS hulls load like the "old" AA's and IMO are a superior hull. As far as shooting the hulls with the lines I have shot lots of them over and over without issue. I hope this helps.

[Kensal Rise]

This notorious "line" seems to be of only cosmetic interest. I've fired many thousands of the new AA hulls with no failures related to the "line." Most new AAs fail when the mouth crimp creases split.

[William Davis]

Thanks,

That makes sense, these came from a military skeet range all Once fired AA hulls. I may see if I can adjust it out. Finished up 2 boxes tonight handful had the line. Makes it harder to correct.

Bill

[Richard Flanders]

I agree on the "new and improved" AAHS hulls. Not anywhere near as good as the old style. I find them very sensitive to crimping and get wrinkled hulls far more than I ever did on the old style AA's. The current STS hulls are better than AAHS hulls - more pliable and split less - but still not as good as the old sturdy AA's. I save my old style hulls for special loads for special guns. Has anyone trimmed the old AA's and roll crimped them? I bet they'd really take and hold a roll well