28 gauge round ball loads, turns your shotgun into a musket. Kind of.
Two cut-aways.
Shell on the right, this was loaded with a Ballistic Products (BPI) brush wad, their generic round ball (.505), and I used 15.0 gr. of DuPont PB.
Shell on the left, my improved version. This was loaded with a later version of the BPI brush wad and a 230 gr. .535 Speer round lead ball that was more closely matched to the choke in my NEF single shot gun. This one is powered by 14.0 gr. of Unique. In both cases, Fiocchi pre-primed hulls were used.
The difference in length is due to a change in the brush wad height, and I used an overshot card on the longer one.
I also have a 12 gauge and a .410 bore shotgun each but I don't load for them. I keep stocks of factory ammo on hand for those. I also have factory 28 gauge ammo, but I hand load for that as well. Because specialty rounds for 28 gauge are few and far between. So the hand loads I make for 28 are round ball, Foster slug, Traditions 240 gr. lead sabots (made for black powder), and #4 buckshot. I experimented with steel flechettes (in Vietnam we called them "nails") and they worked through the 28 but I couldn't get much payload in the 28 hull.
When I say handloaded, that includes no shotgun press. I use a little shotshell vise that I got from BPI years ago. I don't make all that many of these. First of all, I don't resize used hulls. I buy a bag of pre-primed Fiocchi hulls which for my uses lasts a while. Once fired, I throw them away. When I load them, I charge several at a time, then I seat the wad with a small arbor press. I only use the vise to secure the hull while I finish up with a roll crimp.
Two cut-aways.
Shell on the right, this was loaded with a Ballistic Products (BPI) brush wad, their generic round ball (.505), and I used 15.0 gr. of DuPont PB.
Shell on the left, my improved version. This was loaded with a later version of the BPI brush wad and a 230 gr. .535 Speer round lead ball that was more closely matched to the choke in my NEF single shot gun. This one is powered by 14.0 gr. of Unique. In both cases, Fiocchi pre-primed hulls were used.
The difference in length is due to a change in the brush wad height, and I used an overshot card on the longer one.
I also have a 12 gauge and a .410 bore shotgun each but I don't load for them. I keep stocks of factory ammo on hand for those. I also have factory 28 gauge ammo, but I hand load for that as well. Because specialty rounds for 28 gauge are few and far between. So the hand loads I make for 28 are round ball, Foster slug, Traditions 240 gr. lead sabots (made for black powder), and #4 buckshot. I experimented with steel flechettes (in Vietnam we called them "nails") and they worked through the 28 but I couldn't get much payload in the 28 hull.
When I say handloaded, that includes no shotgun press. I use a little shotshell vise that I got from BPI years ago. I don't make all that many of these. First of all, I don't resize used hulls. I buy a bag of pre-primed Fiocchi hulls which for my uses lasts a while. Once fired, I throw them away. When I load them, I charge several at a time, then I seat the wad with a small arbor press. I only use the vise to secure the hull while I finish up with a roll crimp.
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