8ga arived today

[wayne goerres]

WOW what a beast. I remember seeing an 8ga precussion muzzle loader when I was younger and thinking it was a little biger than a 10ga. I guess my memery is faulty. This gun is huge. It tips the scales at 14 1/2 lbs. It has 36in barrels( so it is a little muzzle heavy ). The bores are a little pitted and the lock up needs a little work (slight bit of looseness). The exterior of the gun is pretty good. Its not a parker but at least its an 8ga. I will attach some pictures. Charley I will need a little loading info it would be greatly appreciated.

[Rick Losey]

wow - where do the wheels attach so you can drag it through the woods :rotf:


looks like fun - can't wait for the first shooting report

[wayne goerres]

Had simaler thoughts my self. Maby cross sticks would be of some help. Got to feel sorry for those squirles.

[charlie cleveland]

welcome to the 8 ga club wayne..your really going to like this old gun..will be glad to help with reloading info i have..the pitts will not hurt the shooting unless there super bad as in unsafe..all of my old 8 ga s are pitted pretty good but they have plenty of thickness left as im sure yours is...one thing for sure you gonna have plenty of fun with the new cannon..i love those 36 inch barrels what size chambers do you have. most are 3 1/4 ..i have one i got from destrey thats a old fa loomis its got 36 inch barrels and 3 1/2 inch chambers...i seen one listed the other night with 4 1/2 inch chambers..can you imagene...do you want lite load recipes or hunting loads...charlie

[wayne goerres]

Charley I am going to have to measure the chambers. I need the dementions for an 8ga shell then I will do a chamber cast. that will give me the lenth. I also will need a roll crimp tool. I have a 10ga and a 12ga tool but no 8ga tool. I beleave light loads will be the order of the day. Barell wall thickness is massive so it should not be a problem. I can get hulls and wads from precision so there is no problem there. any help will be much appreciated.

[Eldon Goddard]

It is awesome. I mean who would not want an 8 gauge.

[charlie cleveland]

you can get the roll crimp tool from precision also..i shoot smokeless powder mostly... charlie

[Daryl Middlebrook]

Consider just glueing the over-shot card into the hull instead of roll crimping. It works for me and saves a lot of wear and tare on those expensive 8 ga hulls.----Daryl

[wayne goerres]

I thought about glueing them in. what kind of glue are you useing. I would be vwry interested in your light 8ga loads charley. Do you use the once fired rem. hulls or the new win. hulls. seems like I remember reading about a set of pliers for resiseing the hulls.

[Daryl Middlebrook]

I use two part epoxy glue. It is available at any hardware store. You need to swedge the industrial hulls. Pliers will not work. I built my own swedge tooling using a metal lathe and some scrap tool steel.-------Daryl

[Bill Zachow]

Check and see if Rocky Mountain Cartridges is still in business. 10 or 15 years ago the were making CNC machined brass shells that were awesome. I purchased 20 3 1/4" 8 gauge abd 20 2 1/2" 16 gauge brass cases from them. Price, at the time, was pretty reasonable at around $6 each. They take 209 primers and are very easy to load and reload. I used them with black powder and used water glass to "glue" in the overshot card. Excellent cases and appear to be indestructible. The shell walls on the 8s are close to 50/000 inch thick.

[wayne goerres]

Rocky Mountain is still in business although I dont now wy. The person I talked with was so rude that I just hung up on him. I refuse to do business with people like that. I may have to make a die to resize with. dose any body have the dementions fo a unfired 8 ga hull.

[charlie cleveland]

wayne the glueing in of the top wad is a good idea of darrels...i use a hot glue gun myself sometimes..this is good for shooting clay targets and cans but for hunting loads i have learned to roll crimp the loads dont have near as many bloopers... darrels swaging tool is probably does a factory looking resizeing one the hull but the pliars i made work just fine..i use both the remington hulls and thewinchester hulls with the winchester being my favorite hull the clear one it sure makes a pretty looking shell loaded the first time but it will get dark after a coupla loadings.. here is the lightest load i have for 8 ga. this load was taken from tom armbrust book 4 and 8 bore loadings... shell 8 ga 3 1/4 inch winchester polyformed yellow plastic basewad..primer win. 209... powder30 grainhodgdon clays... wad remington sp-8 plus 12 ga .135 nitro card.. crimp 6 fold velocity 1227 fps.. pressure 6800... forgot 1 1/2 ounce of 7 1/2 shot..... charlie

[charlie cleveland]

i dont have the dimensions myself..i have seen it on the internet but never thought to write it down. i ll try and find the size of shell...just use the old paper index card cut to size of chamber insert it in the chamber and push till it stops at forceing cones and mark when stopped..this will give chamber lenth...hope this helps.. charlie

[wayne goerres]

Charley would that be the win. case sold by precision. And do you have an 8ga press or how are you useing a 6 point crimp. Is there a tool for doing that without a press. Thanks for any information.

[charlie cleveland]

yes that is the winchester hull sold by presicion..i do not have a press i used the roll crimp instead of the 6 point crimp...i use a 10 ga lee hand loader to knock out primers and push wadding in with bought th=e roll crimp from precision..it does not take a lot of costly equipment to load these 8 ga...its slow but heh all i got is time..it would be fairly easy to adapt a 10 ga 3 1/2 inch mec junior to a 8 ga set up..a guy use to make and sell them but he did not have many people wanting them so he quit.. go ahead and order you some hulls and we will get you going real quick theres a bucnch of us 8 ga guys here to help you... ps get both the 1/2 inch fiber wads and the plastic wads also...and trhe thin top wad... charlie

[wayne goerres]

Will do.

[Charles Brooks]

Wayne, I have 3 original 8 ga. shells and they all mic 0.922-0.926 at the base. I have the John millar setup to swage the base of the industrial hulls to about 0.917. I'd be willing to sell some of my shells for $1.25 for the remington, or $1 each for win. I agree with Daryl, an overshot wad works fine for light loads

[Bill Murphy]

Charles Brooks, where do I get one of those John Millar swages?

[Eldon Goddard]

John Millar, assuming he is the same John Millar that built a Jones under lever 4-bore, is a great guy. When I was younger I read his article about building the 4 bore so I wrote him a letter asking him about it and he wrote me back answering all of my questions, which with my knowledge at the time were probably pretty obvious questions, along with giving me a lot of good information on bore rifles and building them.

[Bill Murphy]

Eldon, thanks for giving me information about the Millar swage.

[Eldon Goddard]

My apologies, Mr. Murphy I know he made reloading tools for large bores and I believe I still have his business card. If I find it I will pm you the information.