10 Gauge Trimming Retraction!

[Harry Collins]

I made a mistake trimming all my Federal 10 gauge hulls to 2 3/4". I did this because the RST hulls measure 2 3/4". Some reloaded just fine and others had a "hole" in the crimp. I was reloading some SpredR's this morning and made the discovery. I do use an overshot card on non-SpredR loads so I am ok. I just wanted you to know so you would not make the same mistake. I think some of the Federal 3 1/2" shells have different base heights. That or they have swolen.

Again, my apologies,
Harry

[Richard Flanders]

You are correct Harry.Take a close look inside your Federal hulls. I bought a bunch off ebay that had a mixture of paper and plastic basewads... and all looked like the guy fished them out of a swamp after they sat there for some time. Some of the primers are corroded in and warp the brass base out to the point of destroying the hull when I try to punch them out. I'll not get many useable hulls out of that batch and will have to be careful to load them in batches based on the base wad... I discovered the short RST hulls also and will have to load them in a batch to get the load and crimp right. They should make a very nice 1oz or 1-1/8oz load hull

[Harry Collins]

Richard,

I am using a MEC 600 Jr with the short kit to reload the 2 7/8" 10 gauge shells. The short 2 3/4" RST shells load beautifully with 1 1/4 oz loads on my set up without doing a thing different.

I picked up my hulls off ebay and were in about the same shape as yours with rusty primrs etc. I am shooting them anyway and look down the barrels to make sure no base wad flew halfway down them. Shot sporting clays with the DH last weekend with 1 1/4 oz of shot and had loaded some SpredR loads. Made some looooooooong shots. If you wait for the pattern to develope, say about 60 yards or furher, the targets smoke....

Harry