8 ga loads

[charlie cleveland]

today i started reloading and shooting the 8 ga at 9.00 am and quit at 3.15 pm...i fired the 8 ga a total of 63 times....my main reson was to try and come up with a slug load for hunting deer with.....in todays trial and error i learnt a few things..i was reloading the whinster case and using bluedot powder and working with a 7/8 ounce load of no 6 shot....in my previous loadings i had trouble with the loads acting like a slug load..in other words shot would not scatter...today i found exactly what the problem was.. the wading i was using over shot was going inside of the wad...no air could catch the side of the wading thus it all stayed together acting as a slug load.......2nd thing i learned was thati am going to have to practice a whole lot before i can acuately shoot it.....my target was a 30 inch card board circle... the distance was 40 yards....the grouping was aabout 1 foot..which is not to good by any means....the old shotgun was a 8 ga parker lifter gun with barrels cut to 26 1/4 inches...choke none...the end bead site is huge but fits the size of gun that it is...wish it hadrifle sites but would look odd...ha......3rd thing i learned was that the man who said that a 7/8 ounce load and a 6 bore would pattern the best possible pattern must have been right.... i do not have a6 bore to experment with but through a 8 ga i do...some of the patterns were notreally beliveable..one of the patterns to day was all the shot in a pie plate at 40 yards....all my loads were not that good of a pattern still got to work on them...the test were also done with same gun....cly bore with the rite loads may be possible to have a long range load in the larger gauges....only through more test will i know if i have come up with some very close patterning shells with only using 7/8 ounce shot...one thing for sure i have me a slug load using 7/8 ounce of no sixs...if i can learn how to hit with it......4 th and final thing learned...after you have loaded the plastic shells about 5 timesignition gets poor...the gas seal is not good getting a blooper pretty often..you would have to get a nther shell case but i fond by wrapping the wading with3/4 inch scotch masking tap with four wraps to bottom of wadding letting tape extend 1.4 inch below wadding that a gas seal is made that there will be no poor ignition...hope this helps somebody sure did me... gotta get some sleep gotta get up early go squirl hunting.......charlie