I procured over 50# of PB and 7625 back as soon as the word came out that they were to be discontinued. I use the 16SG wads from Ballistic Products. They are made to be used in the 2 1/2" hulls. I'll share my recipes here soon. Wish I saw this thread an hour ago, I was just up in the loft and loaded 80 of the 10g 2 7/8" shells. Movement over emotion.

John, I am glad you got some good advice on reloading for your Parker 16. I have a VH and a top action hammer 16 that I shoot regularly. I am in Rhode Island as well and often shoot at Peace Dale, Addieville and RIFGPA. We'll have to go shooting sometime.

This is a great forum...lots of great people and great information

Harry I purchased a 1916 vintage trojan. I shot a box of the 2 3/4 1oz winchester light loads that I purchased but there was evidence of excessive pressure on brass a I stopped. The RST ULTRA LIGHTS work great but too expensive. I'm trying to find a 16 ga conversion kit for a mec 600 I'm not using. Wondering if I should just try to find a used 16 ga mec.. there is one sporting clay facility still open here in RI..take care

Jay would like to do that some day.. I live in harrisville and shoot skeet and trap pretty regularly at wallum lake rod and gun club

My 16g 2 1/2" load is as follows-

2 1/2" RST (Cheddite) hull
7/8 oz shot
BP Sporting 16 Short wad
16.4g PB

For a spreader load I cut an X-Stream insert in half and drop it in before I drop the shot.

You may want to get a copy of Ballistic Products shotshell reloading manual. THOUSANDS of recipes in there.

Mike, just curious, why do you cut the X-stream insert in half? Does a whole one take up to much space for a good crimp? I have a bag of those, but haven't used them--bought them to open up my F/F Lefever G Damascus.

Harold, a full X-Stream in the short shells even with the 16 short wads will prevent a good crimp. I found cutting them in half still makes a good, effective spreader load.

Hey John, how's it going? Check out www.16ga.com -- lots of good info.

I shoot a 16 gauge Damascus Parker GH and have used the following load a lot for both clays and live birds:

16.3 grs of Unique under 7/8 oz of #8s

I'm using new pre-primed Fiocchi hulls trimmed to 2 1/2” and Ballistic Products "Sporting 16" wads loaded on a PW 375

According to published data this loads runs at 7800 psi

Ron, are you shooting 2 1/2" or 2 3/4" shells with that load?

Thanks for picking up on that — 2 1/2” — I’ll edit my post