black powder shotshell reloading

[jim garrett]

This will be a new thread. I shot in the Heritage black powder event at the Southern this year and enjoyed doing so. That was my first time shooting black powder and I decided,...why not! I am in the process of buying black powder reloading supplies and I would like anyone's black powder reloading experience for shotshells. By the way, I was shooting an 1880's vintage Parker hammergun. Jim

[William Davis]

I load BP for my Parker Lifter. Got a head start from a friend of mine who shoots a lot of black powder, saved me some trouble with loads, here is a quick recap.

You can load plastic hulls but they burn out fast, Paper is better, fellow gave me a bushel basket full, old though, get some separations so watch them after each shot. Always a good idea to look through the barrels before loading a fresh shell

Regular primer, 209W for me

Bulk Black 2 F bought from a Re-enactors supply house works as good as more expensive pound cans

Loading on a PW 375 except don't use it to throw the powder charge, throw with a Lyman 55 in a empty shell then pour the powder in the hull with a funnel while the hull is in the loading die. Most 375 bushings and I assume Mec's are not large enough for black charges

Ballistic products sells wads for stacked loads. Nitro Card over the powder. Then a fiber wad to take up space. If you get 1/2 inch wads they can be split to make the stack height come out right. Less wad for larger powder and shot loads more wad for light. I am putting a thin overshot wad on the shot before fold crimping. Old Paper cases rough at the mouth are not crimping clean, without it get leaking shot.

If you roll crimp you need the O/S wad anyhow. Rolling is another thing. I roll some of my 10's so far don't need to with the 12. I may roll some spreader loads for it.

Load is taken from a old Parker ad for light loads that was posted here. 2 1/2 Drams 2 F 1 oz. 7 1/2 shot. Good target load, hunting I would bump up to 3 D 1 1/8 oz

One tip my buddy gave me that works well is keeping the barrels wiped. I use a small squirt bottle, car glove compartment eyeglass cleaner size. 50/50 Anti Freeze-Water. After a station, 4-6 shots a small squirt in each barrel. Then one push through each barrel with 1/4 piece of a paper blue shop towel. Towels and bottle fit in my shell bag.

I carry the gun station to station with a wood wiping rod that has a large ball handle dropped in the open breech. Drop it beside me on the ground. shoot wipe then back in the open gun. If you keep it wiped you can shoot all day.

Had it with me at the Spring Southern but rain keep my Sunday shooting short never took the lifter out of the case.

Good luck

William

[Snap Cap]

Jim, William gave you a really good and important piece of advice when he wrote "Always a good idea to look through the barrels before loading a fresh shell". I cannot emphasize how important that step is, particularly if you are shooting reloads using hulls of the older paper base wad design. Even though the target may be broken and the recoil and sound may be normal on a shot, the base wad may occasionally separate and be left in the bore. It can then form an obstruction on the next shot through that tube.

Thanks William. HTH Fred.

[William Davis]

Agree probably should have put more emphasis on it.

Without keeping count my guess is I have had 3 or 4 case head separations with paper hulls. One paper tube left in the barrel would probably cause it to burst or at a mimum bulge.

Look every shot !

William

[Hammer Fan]

What gauge are you shooting? It is also important to find out what your actual bore size is. Many Parker shotguns pre (If I remember Austin Hogan's research correctly) about 1885, have larger than modern bore sizes. Many 12 gauge guns have bore sizes around .750, and 10 gauge guns have bores .790+.

The reason I point this out is that if you gun does have the larger bore size, it will perform better if you use thin walled brass hulls and card wads. For example if you use the thin walled Magtech brass 12 ga. hulls, you load 11 gauge (.754) card wads in them which will give you good compression and efficient powder consumption in the barrel. It can be difficult to load 11 gauge card wads in plastic or paper hulls, which were designed to use .729 wads.

If you have a 12 gauge, you are in luck because the Magtech brass hulls are cheap (about 1$ each) and last forever if you take care of them. If you have a 10 gauge, it is more expensive because the hulls available on the market are lathe turned, and not mass produced. Loading brass hulls will require getting some specialty tooling, like a hand wad press/de-capper, and wad tube, which luckily, are very easy to find on Ebay.

I think Ballistic Products produces a booklet on reloading black powder in brass hulls, if you are interested.

As already mentioned, many use modern hulls, and 12 gauge card wads and get good service out of them. Which is very fine for breaking clays or light game shooting. Another plus, is many people already have some of the components to get started if that is the route you take, i.e. hulls, press, 209 primers...etc.

[Paul Harm]

This is just my 2 cents worth, a little different than Williams. I have bags of Federal paper shells and more than enough plastic shells. The paper shells will get pin holes around the base - you have to look carefully. It doesn't matter to me which I use because they all get thrown after one shot. I haven't really noticed this problem with plastic, but then I don't remember checking them too close. The paper just look cooler than plastic when shooting smoke. So does a roll crimp if you want to take the time. I've used both a Mec single stage and a progressive presses to load BP. Been doing it for over 10 years without a problem even when using the press to drop the powder. I have two 46 bushings, one cut in half. They throw about 70grs and 84grs - or 2 1/2 and 3 drams. And I also use a bar with no bushing for around 95grs - when I want to make a lot of noise. If you use 3F the powder charge can be reduced. For skeet I use 70grs of 3F and 7/8 or 1oz of shot . The 84 or 95 is with 2F and 1 1/8oz of shot. Always use paper wads unless you want a really big mess to clean up - the plastic wads melt in the barrel - after a 100 or so shots it looks like spaghetti growing in the barrel - don't ask, I know. I never carry a cleaning rod, just one more thing to worry about, and it doesn't take all that long to clean at home [ although the squirt bottle sounds like a good idea ]. For clean up I use two one gallon buckets - hot soapy water and hot clean water. Put the barrels in the soapy water, pour some water down the barrels, and use a tornado brush 4 or 5 times up and down. Rinse the brush in the bucket and switch to some wet cotton cleaning patches on a jag to pull the water back and forth in the barrel. Then put the barrels in the clean water and use some new wet patches again to swab up and down in the barrels. Then I use a couple of dry patches, a couple with WD-40 and then one with Rem-oil. Takes about 10 minutes. Most shoots are a 100 to 150 birds in one day, so they get a bit dirty, and when shooting 5-stand, because it's so fast, the barrels get hot enough a glove is needed on the hand holding the barrels. Had to get one by station #3 - couldn't open and close the gun. Anyways, it's lots of fun shooting smoke a events. Oh, www.circlefly.com is where you can get fiber wads probably cheaper than anywhere else. You'll need a .125 nitro card, the 1/2" cushion wads, and a .028 OS card only if you roll crimp. Don't use thicker OS cards - with me it blew patterns if I went thicker. Have fun - Paul

[Paul Harm]

Forest could be correct about bore sizes, but it's not something to worry a whole lot about. I use 10/12 Gaugemates to shoot 12 ga shells in my 10 and haven't ever noticed a performance problem. Of course brass shells look way cooler than plastic when shooting the old SxS's. At one time I had a 100+ brass 12ga shells and set up a Mec 650 to reload them [ not crimp ]. Even had a friend make up the parts so I could prime the hulls on the press. Got tired of cleaning the brass, and not figuring out how to load nitro in them; I sold them all to a cowboy shooter. Oh, save your money on the BPI booklet - you'll learn all you need to know, and more, right here.

[Mike of the Mountain]

I'll load 2 1/2 dram of FFg Goex or 2 3/4 dram of FFg Goex under 1 oz of 7 1/2 or 8 shot. Nothing but paper hulls, felt wads and over shot card. I use a Lee Load-All just for these shells. I use a old dipper for the powder and everything else runs through the press. Use them in the BP events at the Southern shoots and they crush targets. I'll use the 2 3/4 dram loads once in a while for bird hunting when I'm feeling nostalgic too.

[jim garrett]

I sure am glad I posted the thread ( why do they call it a thread? ) requesting information on loading for bp shotshells. I have received some great information and I will be able to use most or all of it. I measured my bores tonight (on the shotgun) and Austin was right. My gun was made in 1882 and the bores measured rt .758 and lt .753 so it appears that I will be using brass shells to go with the 11 gauge wads. I am also going to use a teflon wrap around the shot as the barrels are a little rough. I have some ffg on the way so maybe I can give a progress report for anyone interested. I recognize some of the names and I am sure that I would recognize the faces as I have shot in the Challenge at the Southern for the last 3 years. Thanks guys, Jim Garrett

[Paul Harm]

The bores on my Parker hammer gun are .750 and it shots just fine with plastic or paper shells with fiber wads/BP or the plastic wads/nitro. You can use the brass shells but I think you're worrying a bit too much about bore size. JMHO - Paul