new to 20 gauge reloading

[J.B. Books]

Originally Posted by Bill Murphy

After sixty five years of safe and fulfilling reloading, I am confused about straight wall and tapered wads and shells. I have no idea which is which. Is there harm involved in using the wrong type of wad in a shell? What combination would be harmful? What is the harm?

I believe the biggest potential problem comes from using a wad for a tapered hull in a straight wall hull. I have read that this allows powder to migrate past the wad seal along with a poor seal upon ignition resulting in squib loads. However I have been shooting the newer Federal hulls from the 100 rd boxes sold at Walmart (straight wall hull) using the Claybuster 3/4 ounce wad designed for AA hulls (tapered hull wad). That wad is needed to get a proper crimp with 7/8 oz loads because the of the greater internal capacity of the Fed hull. I have not had any issues with that combination whether skeet shooting or hunting. Your mileage may vary.

On the other hand when using the BP1044 wad in a Federal 10ga (straight wall) hull I would get quite a few squibs. The 1044 wad is undersize and does not provide a good gas seal. The solution has been to put a thin nitro card or plastic gas seal under the wad.

BTW I found you can get excellent results by placing a 12ga wad on top of the BP x10x plastic gas seal. The trick is using a 12ga wad that gives the proper stack height for a good crimp. Patterns were excellent.