Larry, here is some more advice for a beginner MEC user. I know from experience!

Pay close attention when you are filling the bottles with shot and powder. Don' fill the powder bottle with shot and don't fill the shot bottle with powder. Heck of a hard time separating the shot and powder when their mixed together.

You'll have screw ups where you forget to put the wad in or the machine malfunctions. A good trick to separate powder and shot is to use the wife's kitchen strainer. It's usually a round basket with screen door mesh. Hold the strainer over a container, pour the powder shot mixture in the strainer and agitate it over the container. The powder will fall through the holes and the shot says in the strainer. You can separate most of the powder from the shot this way. Any powder remaining with the shot won't matter. Poor the shot back in the shot bottle. Bin there done that many times:banghead:

Also, any shells that don't look right, cut the shells open with a knife, separate the components and reuse them. You can punch out the new primer, just take it slow.

If you don't have a scale, you need one. Don't rely on MEC's bushing chart for powder drop. You can file out the powder bushings to get more accurate drops if you don't have a bushing for the correct amount of powder or buy an adjustable charge bar. The adjustable charge bar is great.

Larry,

Ballistics Products Inc (BPI) offers a great digital scale for about $26 if you need one. Even if you do not, buy one of these... You will thank me!

http://www.ballisticproducts.com/BPI...tinfo/6880300/

Mark

Thanks to everyone for their tips on reloading and I hope you all got a good chuckle at my mishap. I showed this thread to my wife last night and she laughed like crazy.
I never used to pay much attention to the reloading post so I am thankful for the "search feature" so I can go back and see what I missed. I am looking forward to the process of loading and patterning various loads to come up with a round that works well in both of our target guns.

I have one of those scales and they do a great job. BPI is a great site and very nice people to work with.

I never trust the powder bushings on my Mec. I only dispense powder using my Lyman Automatic scale. No worries and perfect weights every time.

Reloading can be a relaxing and rewarding endevour, but, as you can see, everyone starts out at the bottom and and growing pains will result. The good news is that there are a whole lot of great people who are more than happy to offer advice and tips. That's how I learned and I am more than happy to pass along what was passed to me.

MEC powder bushings USUALLY drop light, more so on progressive presses because there is less movement up and down (compacting the powder) before a powder charge is thrown. MEC bars USUALLY drop lighter than advertised shot weights. Some of this is due to magnum vs chilled lead but it's mostly due to shot size (they are volume measures). Lighter loads 1 1/8 ounce bars and less are made for small target size shot, 1 1/4 ounce and up bars for larger size shot. So the 1 1/8 will throw lighter loads of #4 and and 1 1/4 ounce bar might throw a heavier load of #8.

We are loading for shotguns not rifles, close is good enough, you will not go wrong following the MEC bushing chart, there will be no noticable difference in performance.

I have a PW and pretty much the same applies, especially for the shot.
One of the things I have been doing is taking a bushing one size larger and then lining the inside with small strips of this copper flashing tape you can get at any good roofing supply house. just a small strip about 1/8" at a time is enough to get a to your desired powder drop. As a disclaimer, I do not know how well this will work on a MEC, so your MMV.

Pete, I am sure you are correct 99.9% of the time on this, and I realize that shotgun reloading is different than rifle reloading, but I did have a bad experience some years ago with a heavy charge, so I just decided to use my Lyman. Maybe a little more work, but it works for me and I get great results every time.

Steve, my point I was trying to make is directed at Larry and any brand new to shotgun reloader is to trust the guidance from MEC, make some reloads and shoot them, i.e. focus on and get comfortable with the basic process and then expand into it via scales, modifying bars etc. There is a learning curve and my advice is to keep it as low as possible and not worry. There is no harm in weighing each powder charge but if you shoot any kind of volume you will give that up pretty fast. Powders do vary from lot to lot and initial weighing of a new canister is good idea but again most have no issues by not doing it. I and others on here cut our teeth reloading 40 or more years ago using the old Lee handloader that used nothing but a glorified measuring spoon pushed through loose powder. The powder variation from load to load was well beyond what a MEC or PW reloader is throwing and I have not heard of anyone blowing up a gun (albeit) they were all fluid steel from using a Lee Loader and it's powder scoop. Shotguns do not require the precision needed in rifle reloading, they load just like they shoot, plenty of room around the center of the target and it's still good.