Brief History of UMC Loaded 8-gauge Shells

[Researcher]

I would be interested in seeing the same type of documentation for 12 and sub gauges.

Bruce,

That is nowhere near as simple and straight forward as these few 8-gauge loadings.

Just in my 1903 UMC catalogue as an example, for smokeless powders there are six pages of 10- to 28-gauge loads in the NITRO CLUB shell, ten pages of 10- to 20-gauge loads in the ARROW shell and two pages of 10- to 20-gauge loads in the TRAP shell. Then for black powder there are six pages of 10- to 28-gauge loads in the NEW CLUB shell. Then more pages of single ball, buck shot and scatter loads. Also lots of footnotes for longer shells, special wadding, etc.

A couple of other 8-gauge notes. It doesn't appear that UMC ever offered 8-gauge shells loaded with any dense smokeless powders. In the Peters Cartridge Co. and Western Cartridge Co. catalogues I've looked through for the period I don't see them offering anything in 8-gauge. I don't have any Winchester ammunition catalogues from the hay day of the 8-gauge, so perhaps someone else can tell us what Winchester offered.