8 Gauge Reloading Made Easy

[Big Friend Ten (BFT)]

There seems to be a little more interest in shooting 8 gauge shotguns with every year. I started a few years ago with a Parker DH 8 which Brad Bachelder returned to as new condition. With 36” barrels and weighing 14 and half pounds, this old Parker really handles heavy loads.

My favorite target load is an ounce and three quarters of number 7.5 shot. This is listed in Tom Armbrust’s book, “4 AND 8 GAUGE SHOTGUNS AND LOADS”. If you want to shoot 8 gauges you owe it to Tom to buy his book! In it you will find almost all the information one needs.

Modern 8 gauge hulls have an industrial band to keep guys like us from shooting a factory high pressure load for kiln guns in one of our old fowling pieces. If you want to know what a kiln gun is then apply modern magic via a Google search. The industrial bands must be swaged so that the hull will fit into English and American chambers. Guess what’s next? Right, American chambers, at least those found in Parkers, are tighter that English chambers.

How to swage the band? Some people use a reamed out nut. I suppose this works but would make for a long day to load swage hundreds of hulls. I you want to bag a turkey with the old 8 gauge then save some money and make your own loading tools. If however one is taking an 8 gauge to a SxS rendezvous then they will need a few hundred rounds! Me, I figure if one is buying a $7,000 to $15,000 Parker 8 gauge one should plan for good support equipment to swage and load efficiently.

I found two products for the swaging. Both require the use of a metallic cartridge press such as the RCBS Rock Chucker I received for Christmas when I was 15 years old. That was a while ago…

C-H makes a set of swaging dies. Their 2-dies set will swage hulls to the English chamber size. A third die is needed to reduce the band a few more thousands to Parker size. An alternate is the 2-die swaging set and removal press. This works faster than the C-H dies which require the use of a dowel rod an a dead drop hammer.

Reloading is quick and easy thanks to a converted old style solid base MEC 600 JR.

The contact information for the press swage and converted MEC 600 are found in Armbrust’s book. Hint, hint,… If you promise to buy his book but want to order early then send me a PM and I’ll give the info. No, I do not know Tom Armbrust. I do however think that we owe a lot to guys like him who blazed the trail into the past.