John;
I have never heard of a cartridge (rifle or shotgun) contracting once it has been fired. It doesn't make any sense what with all the pressure, heat and expansion of ductible materials (think of "fire-forming" rifle brass in chambers slightly larger than the designed-for cartridge in order to expand the case to fit a larger chamber).
I recently had a terrible problem with reloaded Remington Premier STS shells in 28ga. I even ran a box thru my humble MEC 600 Jr., which probably has the best full-length resizing die made on a commercial press, to check whether or not it was my MEC 9000G progressive press not adequately full-length resizing (this after I tore the 9000G down and readjusted everything. No difference whatsoever! - they still stuck after firing, even resisting the very powerful ejection systems of both my Belgian Brownings and my Citoris, arguably some of the strongest in a double gun.
You could see the bulges around the upper orbit of the case head, which is made out of some mystery metal, like the rest of the hull. Bad hulls give bad crimps, and I had plenty of those also. I finally just heavily lubricated the chambers with way too much oil and everything worked great, except the cleanup was a little messy.
Your comment on RIO shotshells is right on - they are my ammo of choice in both the 28 and .410 ga. Every once in a great while I'll get a hull with no shot in it or some other weird thing, but for price and volume shooting they are my favorite.
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