Chamber Length
 

Have a question about length of shells. Have one Parker 12 which per letter is chambered 2 5/8 and a pre war Sauer per gunsmith measures 2 1/2 chamber. Both are in good shape with non damascus barrels and have been checked out by gunsmith to be in safe shooting condition.......Are these o.k. to shoot with 2 3/4 low brass.....? Have been told they are so long as round will chamber easily.....What say ye? As a general proposition is this right.....i.e. if its "modern steel" barrel in good condition per gunsmith inspection....it is o.k. to shoot low brass loads............Thanks Pat....p.s. both do chamber std 2 3/4 easily.

IMHO, the 2 3/4 in the 2 5/8 - yes. I'd reload cut shells to 2 1/2 for that gun. "Low brass" doesn't mean anything, they can still have a lot of pressure. Not saying you'd blow anything up, it would put a lot of unnecessary strain on an older gun and " shoot loose " quicker. Paul

I agree with Paul, the Sauer should be used only with 2 1/2" shells while the Parker is good to go with the 2 3/4".

chamber length....shells
 

Thanks for the replies.....A little web research finds RST shells 2 1/2 inch 16 ga. 1 oz. 1200 fps what do you think?....no lup cup or psi information is supplied on the site.........10.50 per box not cheap...but reasonable..........Pat

good shells should be fine for the gun and good for trap or skeet or game...not a bad price for 16 ga shells..order in quanity the cost of mailing is high... charlie

Pat, you will not find better loads than RST even if you load your own.

10.50 per box? You will not find cheaper loads than RST (that are good for short chambers) unless you load your own.

1200 fps is great velocity for what they are. An awful lot of testing has gone into the many choices RST offers us.

I won't buy another brand - there's nothing better.

Dean, RST produces great shells and Morris is providing a necessary and wonderful service for aficianados of classic double guns.

That said, you have it backwards, nobody can find better shells then their own reloads. Reloading allows you to develop the best loads for any particular gun by changing the mix of variables; primer, powder, powder amount, wad, hull etc to get the desired performance. Reloading lets you control pressures and even use loads that are not commercially available or readily available such as 3/4 ounce 12ga. It also provides a wider range of shot sizes and shot weights than is currently offered by RST.

If you like to use your guns a lot factory shells are cost prohibitive in many cases. Just for my use in shooting crows over the past 12 months I would have spent almost $1100 for RST 2 7/8" 10ga, cost for the same amount of my reloads, $285. My savings over the course of the year is even greater if I threw in shells used for trapshooting and waterfowling with it.

Again RST's are great and it's the best choice for the casual shooter but the best shells for both performance and volume are reloads.

Can we agree to disagree?

Not arguing Dean just pointing out the facts of reloading vs. buying factory shells. RST's are great shells, but to make a claim you can't find a better shell including reloads is incorrect (unless of course you are selling RST's :))

I just shoot what I have.

Ah, but it's more fun to reload. I keep shot from buckshot to 9's and can have any load I want from target to hunting without having to wait for them or pay the high cost. And I also think they'te better than any factory load. Paul

No Pete, I'm not selling RST's.

I'm sure you're correct about reloading and I am a casual shooter so I have no reason to try to optimize my scores by reloading so I have never involved myself in reloading but if there was no RST I'm sure I would have by now. I have done a lot of casual shooting (where scores don't matter much to me) and the products made by Alex and Morris have always been more than adequate for my purposes - those purposes being dead gamebirds when I hit them and broken clays on the informal shoots I engage in.
To those who load their own.... :cheers: Power to ya :bowdown:

Dean my use of the term casual shooter is not in reference to one's intensity or desire to optimize their performance i.e. scores. Fact is scores are 95% shooter and 5% equipment. Casual was a reference to the volume of shells one uses annually on both game and clays. In 10 ga especially, at $1.20 per shell, the RST's do not appeal to a high volume shooter, in fact at $30 for a single round of trap they are unappealing to me.

There are also differences in the intensity of people who reload, for instance Scott was pattern testing today in the rain and snow for hours. Me I am a reloader who is satisfied to know what time it is, Scott on the other hand wants to figure out how the clock works :)

I noticed that about Scott...

At the New Year's Day shoot at Major Waldron's I asked Scott where the men's room was and he spent the next fifteen or twenty minutes telling me how to build mortise and tenion post and beam outhouse using scaled down hand-sawn lumber.... damn near wet my pants :whistle:

Yup, Thats Scott alright...Did ya ever notice that he orients his shells with the headstamp in the same place everytime he loads his Parkers?.....:whistle:

Dave, there is actually a shooter at Major Waldron's that does that. Seems like it might be a little bit OCD :shock:

now what did i do for all of this :shock: but with that said ,did you see my scores :rotf: i might be on to something:whistle: i did find out that i get my best patterns in my 10 ga with 1 1/2 oz of 6's 90 % the lighter the load the %'s drop down to 65 % with 1 oz, so thats that,and the post and beam thing ,you looked lost Dean,:bigbye: scott