4 gauge winchester shell

[charlie cleveland]

thanks bill for the info on the the loads...i m going to have to get me a 4 bore gun before i get to try out these loads....what i m interested in is how much powder one of these old 4 bores used in a factory loaded shell....i have a factory umc 4 bore loaded shell but the top wad does not give the loading in it...i looked in one winchester catologue it had some 4 bore boxes in it the old box i have is listed in it but know loading info was on them....any body have a 4 gauge shell box with loading info on it... charlie

[Bill Murphy]

You won't find a four gauge box with a smokeless load of a powder that is made today. You have to make up your own loads. It will be hard to blow up a four with sensible loads. It is hard to blow up an eight with loads that work in a ten plus about ten or twenty percent volume of powder. The problem is keeping the pressure up in the big bore. Just to be honest, I use my fifty years of loading twelve gauge shells, add the ten to twenty percent fast powder to make light loads in the ten, and don't progress to slower powders like Unique or Blue Dot until I want to load heavy loads in the ten or the eight. Even then, I go to the 12 gauge loading charts for my slow powder loads in the twelve gauge and add 10 or 15 percent for ten and eight gauge loads. The "big hole" makes the loads safe. Don't fall for the "boutique powder" trap. Use the cheap stuff we use for our other shells, like Red Dot, Unique, Blue Dot, 700x, you name it. Forget the powders that no one can find.

[Researcher]

Mentioned in C. John Sullivan, Jr's books the gentlemen shooting on the bar at the Carroll's Island Ducking Club were using 11 to 12 drams of black powder and 3 1/2 ounces of shot in their big 4-gauge guns. From what I've found in old ammunition catalogs only Union Metallic Cartridge Co. and Winchester offered 4-gauge NPEs. Peters and Western didn't bother with this very limited market. From what I've found the big ammunition companies didn't provide loaded 4-gauge shells. They were either loaded by the users or local loaders.

UMC 1887 --

4-gauge 1887 brass.png

4-gauge 1887 paper.png

UMC 1901 --

4-gauge, 1901.png