Pressure

[C.O.B.]

I just found some 20ga shells made by an Italian company called Clever. These by all accounts seem to be low pressure shells. They are 2 3/4, 2dr equivalent and 3/4oz of shot at 1200FPS. There is NO recoil to these and I've shot them successfully from my fluid steel barreled guns. Using the load data on the box would anyone have any idea of the pressure? They seem very similar to my 3/4 oz reloads. I can't find anything from RST as to how much powder they are using for a comparison.

[Double Lab]

Send me two flats and I will test them for you.

[C.O.B.]

They aren't expensive about $55/flat. I have one set aside for you.

[Mark Beasland]

You can send some to Tom Arburst and he will pressure test them for you.

I thought the same thing about Herters 12ga LR 1oz loads. Had Tom test them and they were 9000psi

[Craig Larter]

Clever makes a low recoil 7/8oz in 12ga load that is very soft. I paid $60. Per flat at the Sarasota gun club. I wish I could get them in NY.

[Harold Pickens]

Wow, those would give me alittle more time off from the reloading bench if the pressures arent too high for damascus. I currently shoot 3/4 oz using 15.5 gr 20/28 at around 7800 psi per the reloading manuals. I will look out for some of those.Thanks for the heads up

[Quigley97]

9000 lbs. seems kind of high for damascus. I have been loading 7/8 oz. with 17.5 grains of Clay Dot with a clay buster 4100 wad. According to Alliant's web site it's rated at 5800 lbs. 1150 fps. Been using this for two years now. The load doesn't have much recoil and as mentioned the pressure is well within the ball park for use in damascus barrels.
Tom

[C.O.B.]

Does anyone know what dram equivalent of powder your using? The Clever shells are 2 Dram Eq. How does that translate into grains?

[OH Osthaus]

Originally Posted by Rich Anderson

Does anyone know what dram equivalent of powder your using? The Clever shells are 2 Dram Eq. How does that translate into grains?

since the archaic "drams equivalent" is just an approximation of the power of that load compared to black powder

2 drams equivalent is equal to the power generated by 55 grains of BP according to the chart i have

do any of the reloading recipes give that?

[StubTwist]

Rich,

The best and smartest thing to do is to send 5 shells to Precision or Arburst. Precision will get you results in a week once they receive it. This way you know for certain what the PSI and velocities are.

I couldn't find anything what the dram equivalent of a 2 DR 3/4 oz twenty gauge load but I came across this from the Remington website. Note the warning when trying to guess powder grains in relation to dram equivalents.

Dram equivalents were originally developed in the early 20th century to allow sportsmen an easy method of comparing the "new" smokeless powder loads to the then more familiar black powder loads. In effect, a shotshell with a 2-1/2 dram equivalent rating would be equal in velocity to a shell loaded with 2-1/2 drams of black powder--making the assumption that both shells contain the same amount of shot. Overall, the most important thing to remember is that the higher the dram equivalent, the higher the velocity for a given shot weight and, as a result, the more powerful the charge. There are no real dram equivalents for loads that didn't or couldn't exist in the black powder era. Key examples of these are steel loads and some of the heavy magnum turkey loads.

WARNING: Dram equivalents values have no relationship to the actual powder charge in a shell! These values should never be used in determining smokeless powder charge weights!