jim garrett |
05-12-2014 06:42 PM |
are RST RIO and Cheddite one and the same?
Cheddite and RIO are two separate companies. Cheddite is an Italian company with plants located in Italy and France and RIO is a Spanish company with plants located in Sp[ain, England and now has a new plant in McEwen, Tennessee in the USA. I shoot quite a few RST shells, particularly in a 2 7/8" 10 gauge, a 2 1/2" 12 gauge, a 2 1/2" 16 gauge and a 2 1/2" 20 gauge. When I started shooting RST's and subsequently reloading them, I also thought they were Cheddite hulls; however, on comparing the headstamps on the hulls with those of Cheddite and RIO I thought they were similar enough for further analysis. I then sectioned a number of shells and it was obvious, at least to me, that the base wad for the Cheddite and RIO shells were different. I then compared base wads in different gauges and determined that RST could be using Cheddite hulls in some of their loads, as is Nobel and Multi Hull by BP and RIO hulls in some of their loads, such as the 2 1/2" 16 gauge lite loads and the 2 1/2" 12 gauge loads...I had no 20 gauge Cheddit hulls to compare. I concluded that nothing is certain when you buy factory loaded shells and as an example, I bought some 2 1/2" hulls with Eley's headstamp that were shipped to Ballistic Products by RIO in a shipping error. The only way to be sure about a shotshell hull is to buy factory hulls from that company, section them, and examine the base wad for comparison with other shells in question. In conclusion, RST, Cheddite and RIO are not the same unless these companies have recently merged.
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