Reloading Shot shells for 3gun

[Chills1994]

For What It's Worth !

Unless you have nothing but time and a fat WALLET, Trying to load for 3-gun is looking up a dead horse.

I have a Hornady 366 and 2 single stage presses and a resizer.

Em folks that sell supplies have really got greedy, shot-$49 a bag primers $40 per K wads $18 per 500 = HasMet.

Here, don't know about other areas, we are getting close to $100 to shot a 3-gun. Now thats gasoline, food, drinks, entry fees, shot shells, slugs, OO, Rifle ammo .223, and .40 S&W.

Not much use pissing and moaning about a few dollars for shot shell.

A local shop here buys shot shells by the skid, I have been stocking up on shells and supplies.

Hard to predict what's going to happen now.

With the best goverment that MONEY will BUY.

Perry

I made my own shotmaker from scratch. I can also cast my own buck and slugs.

[Aircooled6racer]

Hello: I have been looking to upgrade. I have been looking at a Dillon SL900 and a Spolar Gold. It will be a used machine if I can find the right one. You can fine tune your loads and now with my son shooting trap I need to load more. If lead keeps going up I may look at casting my own shot Thanks, Eric

[Tom Freeman]

Hello: I have been looking to upgrade. I have been looking at a Dillon SL900 and a Spolar Gold. It will be a used machine if I can find the right one. You can fine tune your loads and now with my son shooting trap I need to load more. If lead keeps going up I may look at casting my own shot Thanks, Eric

The Dillon is a great machine, if you are going to stick with 12 gauge only.

If you are going to play with any other gauge, get the Sploar for sure.

I did that exact thing about 5-6 years ago. The good news is that the Dillon held its value and I didnt lose much $$$ on it.

[goat68]

With the current panic and lack of ammo availability, reloading slugs etc may be the only way left to guarntee you will have shotshells for pratice or matches.

[perrysho]

Goat68.

Wonderful IDEA, but I QUIZ where you gonna get supplies ????

There's just not much out there to buy, good luck. Bought any powder, primers, bullets lately???

Perry

[warpspeed]

Goat68.

Wonderful IDEA, but I QUIZ where you gonna get supplies ????

There's just not much out there to buy, good luck. Bought any powder, primers, bullets lately???

Perry

I don't seem to have any problems getting shot shell components.

Even during The Great Primer Scare of '08/'09, 209 primers were easy to get.

Edited March 13, 2013 by warpspeed

[perrysho]

Mr Warp,

But you live in Californiaaaa.

Have you ever been to East Tennesseeeee????

We got HogHeaded Hillbillies, Bib Overalls. Hounddogs, Mules, and BIG AZZZZ MOUNTAINS.

Where I live we get Monday Nite Football on Thursday.

Hope you have fun with em plentiful supplies in the big city.

Perry

[fastshooter03]

Most matches I go to have a #6 limit and lots of little plates.

If only REM and WIN would'vd made #6 light and heavy target, then I wouldn't have started reloading shotshells.

I still don't know why they don't have a "3-gun load" to sell the crap out of.

I got my outdated MEC progressive press pretty cheap used after I couldn't stand using the single stage POS anymore.

I busted the sizer collet screwing up so many times accidentally dropping shot with no shell in place.

Luckily I had a supersizer I found cheap at a gunshow so I just size and run through the press.

I've spent a couple years trying to perfect a medium-slow burning powder 1-1/8 and 1-1/4 oz #6 gamer load and it has paid off.

Plus the cost of those high vel heavy 1-3/8 oz for the mgm swinger is not much more than a normal load.

I wouldn't reccommend trying it unless you really want to put some serious time/money into it.

I am lucky that I found used parts and get quality once fired hulls for nothing.

Getting the hulls, wads, powder, shot and crimp to come together and make a reliable shell is not as easy as loading pistol/rifle.

Nick

[Smokecloud]

I had been kicking this around for a few years. I knew the cost savings on regular shot was not worth the time to me. Savings on regular low base bird shot was about .50 cents a box savings. But when I started attending 3g matches that had high slug round counts, I am shooting upwards of 400 slugs a year and was getting tired of surfing the net for weeks trying to find that one smoking deal to keep slug costs low. Most of my purchases for slugs have come in around 189 for a case of 250. I decided to try my luck with reloading my own slugs.

I have a large supply of wheel weights and already cast bullets for pistol, so this was where a large savings would occur. I do some trade for Lee slugs, but I decided to purchase a lyman 525 gr mold and use my existing Lee handles for it. I ordered a Lee Load All and picked up a couple of different types of wads based on advice from other slug loaders, but while I was waiting for my Lee Load All to arrive, I found a friend that had a Mec 600 MKIV that was used and missing parts, he had no use for it and gave it to me. $25 in parts from Mec and its running. I still have no bottles for it, but dont need them for slugs as I get my powder off a electronic scale with auto dispenser for better consistancy. With a couple of bottles of powder and wads, primers at scalpers prices these days, I am into my slug reloading setup for around 200, so its a wash this year on savings. Using once fired hulls I have been saving, or collecting from the range (its hard to get enough of one kind though) cuts cost and I figure my slug cost will be in the area of .16 cents per round, instead of closer to .75

If I can save over .50 cents a round loading my own and be able to tune the load a little, I am happy. When primer prices come back down, my cost will drop some too. There are features I like about the Lee press, cost is one of them. Another huge drive for me to go to a shotcup style slug is that my shotgun leads horribly from foster slugs. Shooting the slugs in shotcups pretty much cures that. I am still pretty new into the shotgun loading stage, but am hopeful and it may save my bacon this year. I ordered a case of slugs 3 months ago and it still has not showed up and im off to the Ironman in a few weeks. If the slugs dont show, i will be running my home rolled ones for sure. My shotgun is currently at the Service center getting some warranty work done and is due back anyday, so I can start testing the new slugs I have loaded up. If they are a winner, i will run them instead of the factory ones even if they show up in time.

I do have to say that the Mec is a lot nicer reloader than the Lee and If I were to order again from scratch, I would probably pay the extra and order the Mec. One of my friends has used the Lee for almost 20 years though and shoots quite a bit, is an avid duck and goose hunter and has never broke his reloader, so as cheap as they seem, they seem to work just fine. I have both set up side by side on the bench and keep playing with both for different crimps or if im having problems with a crimp with a certain type of shell. 2nd year, should be all savings as i figure it will take about one year for the cost to even out after purchasing the stuff to load.

[RiggerJJ]

I tried those lyman hourglass shaped slugs...couldn't get them to get anywhere close to the same accuracy I get with Fiochii or B&Ps or federal low recoil.

Good luck, & let us know how they work out!

jj

[Smokecloud]

I have a friend that has shared his recipe with me and has been very sucessful with those slugs in two different shotguns. He said he could not get them to shoot out of a smoothbore either, so he put in a rifled choke tube and was getting stellar groups. I have ordered the Rifled choke for my 930 and am waiting to try them out.

[Old3GNR]

I've loaded 1000s of Lyman 525 gr slugs for 3-Gun. 23.5 Universal Clays, Win 209 Primer, WA12F114 Wad, 1170 fps. With 24.5 Univ, 1272 fps.

[Smokecloud]

which hull?

[kostner]

Sounds like a mec Sizemaster is your best bet. Affordable and well built.

There is one on ebay for $128 now.

[slymantis]

i load cast lee slugs using the lee loader. Not a great loader but it does the job.

[freakshow10mm]

I've spent a couple years trying to perfect a medium-slow burning powder 1-1/8 and 1-1/4 oz #6 gamer load and it has paid off.

Medium-slow powder like HS6, WSF, Longshot burn range? I've got some local guys that are wanting some 3 gun shotgun ammo loaded (I'm a small commercial loader selling to locals). I have those three powders on hand and was going to start there just because that's what's on my shelf.

[Smokecloud]

After failing for about 1 1/2 years at producing an acceptable performing load, I have finally have a recipe I'm happy with. In a smoothbore 18" 870 it hung about a 7" group at 90 yards. I swapped out to my JM 930 22" and accuracy was about the same, both guns seem to print this slug right about 5" though, no matter what powder, wad or velocity I throw it out at. I tried my rifled choke tube in the 930 and the group came back to center and tightened up about an inch, so 6" group yesterday. Keep in mind this is with the stock bead front sight. I still need to get a set of adjustable sights on it as all slugs, even my handrolled ones, shoot about a foot or so high.

Win AA hulls

Longshot powder

Fed 12s4 wad, trimmed down to match the height of the slug

paper square overpowder piece around the base of the wad to minimize powder migration

hot glue fill the base of the Lyman slug

win 209 primers

Load data for 1 1/4 oz shot out of Lymans manual, but my slugs are underweight, so a bit of a safety margin

approx. 1350fps

I shot an old water heater at 159 yards, the slugs were still tracking nose first through the side of it, I recovered both and was amazed it was still stabile at that distance. im just going to make up about 300 or so and be done for a while and move on to the next reloading project.

[fastshooter03]

I've spent a couple years trying to perfect a medium-slow burning powder 1-1/8 and 1-1/4 oz #6 gamer load and it has paid off.

Medium-slow powder like HS6, WSF, Longshot burn range? I've got some local guys that are wanting some 3 gun shotgun ammo loaded (I'm a small commercial loader selling to locals). I have those three powders on hand and was going to start there just because that's what's on my shelf.

HS6 won't burn cleanly unless you load on the high end of pressure--but it is the softest per velocity I've seen.

I just got WSF mid last season and didn't get much time to develop. It seemed like it might be a good choice the few rounds I tried.

I can't remember what happened with Longshot for lower velocity but it prob didn't work. It does work for higher velocity spinner 1-3/8" loads though.

I've been using Unique lately.

I try to shoot for 1-1/4 @ 1000-1100 fps and 1-1/8 @ 1100-1200 with the Moss 930 ported 26" w XRAIL and mercury.

This year will be a different game using the versamax w semi-integrated XRAIL. It will cycle just about anything--even 1oz under 1000fps. Might be a lot of testing this spring.

Just have to make clean burning load in a lower velocity range.

Nick

[CaptCoffee]

Been loading shotshells for 30+ years... Mec-600, Mec Sizemaster, Ponsness Warren progressive (bad experience for me), Dillon SL900, PW DuoMatic for 'specialty loads'.

For me, the PW DuoMatic for single-stage loading is a keeper. I run a Dillon SL900 for Sporting Clays loads, but this press is not suited for loading small batches of specialty loads (which is why I keep a single-stage press on my bench).

I enjoy loading, buy shot and wads in volume at discount prices (size 8-1/2 is my preferred shot) and I like the ability to customize all my loads.

I would recommend a MEC600 or DuoMatic for a new shotshell handloader.

Capt_C

I'm getting a couple of entries each day and I just got caught up on confirmations. If you entered and have not received a confirmation email, please fire me a line. I am having fun planning the match and am really looking forward to an exciting event.

[Jim Norman]

Just started loading Shot. I bought a used SL900 a few years back, set it up and then let it sit. Prices weren't high enough to matter. Now I am finding that I can load at about the same price as I can buy, but the difference is I am loading an AA equivalent for about the price of a Wally-Word load. Now I will admit, i had to RTFM a few times to get the adjustments right. the previous owner apparently changed a few of the settings. with regard to the initial and final crimp dies.

My only issue is that the shell feeder doesn't align perfectly with the tube an dI have to make sure I have shells feeding in. That and you have to keep the primer tray full.

Speaking of which, it is a shame that Dillon couldn't use the SL900 primer system for loading handgun rounds,

[yellowfin]

Loading birdshot loads doesn't interest me much but casting 7/8 oz slugs to load them for low recoil and ease of supply (rather than the 2013-2014 "Oh crap, the store has nothing on the shelf of exactly what I want when I want it!" scenario) interests me greatly. Are 7/8 oz Lee cast slugs accurate?

Edited May 22, 2015 by yellowfin

[reloader901]

On 9/14/2012 at 7:42 PM, warpspeed said:

MEC makes some very nice stuff. I have loaded on them as well as the Ponsness Warren line of presses. Properly adjusted, they all make nice reloads.

Currently I have a Dillon SL900 as my high volume press but it is a PITA for loading buck and slugs on. It can be done but uhhhggggg. I have a Hollywood that I can use too but just haven't.

Anyway, the MEC Sizemaster is the one you want. You definitely want to resize the base. You can also go with a MEC 600 jr but find a MEC Supersizer to resize the base.

 

I'm toying with the idea of a 12 gauge loader (shot and slugs).  The SL900 is **MUCH** more than I need, but so is my Super 1050.  I've looked at Ponsness/Warren, MEC, something Gold, Lee, etc.....  *yawn*.  It must be the Blue Dillon Koolaid, but the Dillon and its mechanism interests me more.

What is difficult about loading slugs with the SL900?  I'm not looking for accuracy.  Thinking of making slugs using the Lee molds.  I would think rather than placing a wad in the press a wad/slug combination would work fine if the "thingy" that pushes in the wad was readjusted or replaced with something fabricated.  Not possible?  (I haven't read the manual yet).

 

 

[Tmcfarland]

On 9/13/2012 at 9:32 PM, pjb45 said:

So there is a guy who posts here who started loading shotgun shells with a MEC. He picked up a Dillon, sold his MEC.

Just saying, most shotgun reloaders love MEC, etc. That is all they know. My dad was one, every had a MEC.

It seems to me, those who have experience with the Dillon 650 adapt very easily to the 900.

Dillon 900 is the way to go, picked one up on the cheap and has saved me a good deal of money as a lot of supplies came with the deal. Shotgun club has all the AA free hulls I could possibly pick up. Love my Dillon 900

[Snap_Shot]

thanks for all the advice here,  I was going to post a question bas icily the same as the OP did 5 years ago... unless i come across the deal of the century i think ill just buy em up in the meantime.