10 gauge brass loads

Will Penny · 04-26-2015, 09:36 PM

My plan is to work up up a 1 1/4 oz lead load in thin wall brass hulls to shoot in my American Arms Whitmoure. My 1901 has volunteered to be the test gun. I understand that SR7625 and SR4756 are on their way out. I have good supply's of WSF and WST. WSF in the burn chart is between the two SR powders. My 9 gauge components are on the way here. I work construction and am gone 10 and home 4 and at this time I am not set up to access the internet, I will catch up on this next time I am home. The plan is to use the WSF first, then if I can not get a clean burn I will move to WST #35 on the burn list. I will load 1 at a time and chronograph each one hoping to get a load with the velocity of 1200fps. At that point I will send in some loads to be pressure tested. I know that there are plenty of very smart people on this site and I value their insight. As a side-note I started reloading when I was 8 and have been reloading 51 years. I also make my own jacketed bullets for my 416 Rigby. Thanks for your thoughts.
Will

wayne goerres · 04-26-2015, 09:59 PM

If you come up with a smokeless load for brass shells we would all like to know what it is. Several on here have tried to make it work without success. Lots of bloopers. Good luck. Hope you are successful. I shoot a 416 Rigby. Am trying to work up some cast bullet loads for plinking right now.

Paul Harm · 04-27-2015, 08:21 AM

I've tried without success but believe Charlie has with gluing in the OS card while putting pressure on it. From what I've read, the crimp is what allows the shell to build pressure. Without the resistance of the crimp you'd just get a dud. When I was loading 12ga brass shells with black powder I always used 10ga OP wads, 11ga cushion wads, and 10ga OS cards. The 10ga OP wads in itself gave plenty of resistance. You may have to go two sizes larger with the OP and OS wads. Just some thoughts - good luck. Paul

Paul Harm · 04-27-2015, 08:40 AM

I would add, brass shells look nice but are a PITA. The 300 12ga brass hulls I had were sold to a cowboy shooter because I got tired of cleaning them and not having success with nitro powders. I buy new 10ga Remington hulls for about $45/100. That is a little costly, but a couple a hundred will last me for years seeing how I don't shoot them every week like my 12ga guns. We have many 10ga loads on this site and your paper wads can be substituted for the plastic wads safely - the pressures will be a little less. The inside diameter of a brass shell is larger giving a bigger volume, so pressure will also go down a bit. Many of the guys like 19grs of Red Dot [ or Promo ] with a 1 1/8oz of shot in the 10. That's a mild 12ga load and if it's mild in the 12 it will be safe in the 10.

Elk Hunter · 04-27-2015, 10:51 AM

Quote: "I also make my own jacketed bullets for my 416 Rigby."

Off topic but, interesting! I also started reloading at about age eight and I make jacketed bullets for my 416 Rigby for practice. I use 30-30 brass for the jacket. Made the mistake of shooting a spike elk with one. Messy, messy.

As for smokeless loads in brass cases you'll most likely need cases that use modern 209 primers. I've heard the ones primed with pistol primers don't light up well. Good luck, let us know how it works out. I for one would be interested in trying some smokeless in brass cases. The military had 12 gauge buckshot rounds loaded with smokeless during WW-2.

Mike Franzen · 04-29-2015, 11:34 PM

From what I could find there is very little data on smokeless loads for brass shells. I wanted to use smokeless due to less fouling and I wanted brass hulls so I could reuse them over and over. I wanted to hand load hunting rounds for ducks, geese and turkeys. I wasn't going to be shooting high volumes like I would at trap or sporting clays. I developed a load which worked very well for my gun "Buster" the grade 2 top lever 10 ga hammer gun and it was proved on geese. Here's what I did:
1st - I ordered 20 brass hulls from Track of the Wolf in 2 7/8" They have the Parker head stamp. I also ordered their instruction manual "Hand Loading 10 Gauge Brass Shot Shells".
2nd - I found and purchased 10 ga hand loading tools on eBay consisting of primer punch, wad ram, powder-shot dipper, wad funnel and primer capper.
3rd - I bought the exact loading components listed in the instruction manual. The wads, nitro cards, over powder cards all come from Circle Fly Wads and the brass hulls are machined to fit them precisely and tightly. The primers are large pistol from CCI
4th - I decided to use PB powder because I had plenty on hand and that's what I use for my 12 gauge plastic hulls.
5th - I bought #1 Bismuth shot for water fowling because that's all I could find

I studied the manual to learn the proper sequence for building the wad - shot column. The manual is based on black powder loads, but it works the same for smokeless.
I cleaned and primed the hulls. I started with 20 grains of PB as that is my 12 gauge load I use in plastic hulls. I poured the powder into the hull and seated a 9ga over-powder card tightly over the powder. I tightly seated the ½” cushion wad on top. Next, I rammed down an over shot card then, I poured in 1 3/8oz of shot. On top of that I seated another over shot card and sealed with hot melt glue.
Test fired and as expected it was a very puny load for Buster. I began increasing by 3 grain increments until I got up to 40 grains. At 40 grains I was getting a good sharp report and recoil was manageable. I patterned the load at 40 yds and was confident it was sufficient to kill. There was still almost ¾” capacity left in the brass hull so I decided to try adding a second ½” cushion wad to bring the column up near the mouth. When I did that pressure increased somewhat and the pattern tightened significantly. I now felt I had a very good smokeless load for brass shells.
This load worked for me using my gun that has excellent Damascus barrels. I make no claim nor do I recommend anyone else use this load. I only list the procedures I went through to develop a load that worked for this specific gun. Good luck in your endeavor. MF

wayne goerres · 04-30-2015, 07:07 AM

Mike Have you tried those loads when it was real cold out side and did hot days have any significant effects on your loads. My next question is did you have to put pressure on the wad column wile the glue was setting up. I would like to try this load.

Mike Franzen · 04-30-2015, 07:03 PM

I hunted with those loads in sub freezing temps. Haven't tried them in the hot. I didn't have to put any undue pressure on the column while sealing. The Circle Fly stuff fits extremely tight. Charlie's hot melt glue is a great idea.

Paul Harm · 05-04-2015, 05:45 PM

When I was trying to load the 12ga brass I used 10ga OP cards, 11ga cushion, and 10ga OS cards. I used a Mec Jr because the wads were so oversized and I wanted a really tight fit from my muzzle loading days. Worked great with BP, but when I went to PB even at 30grs I got bloopers. I was afraid to go with more powder [ I have blown up a gun loading PB when I thought it was Pyrodex ]. Anyways, I'm glad to hear you found a load. You may want to try 8ga OP cards for a tighter fit - possibly with less powder. In plastic shells the crimp has a lot to do with creating pressure and I believe the tighter the wads in a brass shell you'll have better combustion and pressure because the final crimp with brass is just the OS card glued in - not a lot of resistance like a roll or star crimp. Good luck.