A nitro card (from Ballistic) costs more than an eighth ounce of lead shot unless I did the math wrong. For those of you who are looking to fill up the hull for a good crimp might consider using a few cheerios in lieu of three overshot cards. Seems to work well if you put the cheerios over the shot. If you put it into the wad first, sometimes it is picked up by the drop tube and clogs it causing a mess.

One 1/2" cushion wad will work and can be cut for the correct length. The cheerio, navy bean or pop corn also works. Some guys don't like the cheerio because it can smash.

I have always been concerned the navy bean will interfere with the pattern. Although the cheerio tends to smash down a bit, it is hard enough to help form a good crimp and when you fire it disintegrates into harmless cooked oats. No mice in the loading room yet!

I had .125 14 gauge card wads left over from a muzzleloading shotgun. Two of these cards in the bottom of the shot cup work fine but I still need a thin overshot card on top of the shot to get a good crimp. I was afraid this would affect the pattern, but from what I have researched this should not be a problem. 16 gauge cushion wads in order.

when i use a Cheerio - j put it in before the shot and just don't push the loading tube all the down- i get a good crimp (i have also had good luck with bamboo curls left over from rod planning - they don't add any weight at all) the point is to take up volume without adding weight

in the 10 ga loads Red Dot i had tested (results were posted in this forum) - i did the same as Ed-- used .125 cards from my percussion shotgun - you can get them from Circle Fly at a very reasonable cost

You're filler, no matter what it is, should be added before the shot. That way, the bean or whatever used, being lighter than shot , will fall back from the shot column and not disrupt the pattern. If it where on top the shot I could see where it might mess up the pattern. JMHO. At one time I was reloading brass shells with fiber wads and couldn't hit anything. I was trying a thicker OS card - .060 - so it didn't have to be glued in. I patterned it and was getting a donut pattern. The hole in the center had to be about 12". I believe some guys load a thick OS card and get away with it, but I just use the .028 card from now on. I also found too many cushion wads hurt the pattern. I was using three 1/2" cushion wads trying to build up the load to the top of the brass shell . Went back to one and no more problems.

Paul - so are you saying the thin OS card will not blow patterns? I received my 1/2’’ 16 gauge cushion wads. The resulting crimps are much better and do not require the thin OS wad to get a good crimp.

All my roll crimp shells, and all those made in yester-year by the factories had thin over shot cards and didn't have blown patterns. In the past some guys claim they used half a nitro card for over shot and didn't have a problem. I was just saying in my experience a thicker than .028 card was giving me poor patterns. Like Rick, when loading shells be it 10 or 12ga on a S.S. Mec that needs some sort of filler, the trick is to seat the wad then let up on the handle and add the filler. When you pull the handle back down to add shot don't go all the way down. My 10ga press has a 12ga drop tube so the 16ga wad doesn't get stuck in the drop tube quite so easily.

Craig L., have you sent any test loads to Armbrust since 2017 when you had the 19 grain Red Dot loads tested?

Bill M I have not. I have settled on the Cheddite load, I love their 10ga hulls they outlast the Remington hulls by a wide margin and they don't have a paper base wad like the Federal. I buy all my 10ga bismuth from Morris.

Morris has supplied me with ten gauge shells for years. I am a reloader of Federal and Remington hulls because the RST shells are too pretty to shoot.

Back in the early 70's I worked with the DuPont ballistics lab developing buffered turkey loads utilizing Rem hulls. We were having trouble keeping the pressures where we wanted them. They suggested tying Federal hulls. The switch lowered the pressure by 1000 psi all else being equal.

gary what caused the pressure to go down...I would have guessed it to be the primer...charlie

Charlie, the components did not change. Just the hull. According to the ballisticians at the time, the difference was in the composition of the plastic used in the hulls. Federal plastic being more elastic.

I have been under the impression that hulls with composite base wads produced less pressure than an all plastic hull with all other factors being the same.

Tom Armbrust ran test on the effect on velocity from hulls which were new, once fired, up to about 10 reloading. Lowest velocity was the new hull. He theorized that the fired hulls were scuffed up from the firing, and created higher pressures/velocity from the reloads

I think this is the article about that test, loading various hulls up to 12 times. As far as I can see pressure and velocity stayed pretty consistent from new to loaded 12 times for most of them.

http://www.armbrust.acf2.org/caselife.htm

It's been a long time since I read the article. The Winchester tests describe what I was talking about

Hey, do you load your bismuth same as lead?