Reloading 12ga Mini shells

[dnotarianni]

Anybody have any loading data for reloading mini shells? I like the Agulia minis but want to load my own. Any loading data?

Thanks Dave

[fastmtnbiker33w]

Anybody have any loading data for reloading mini shells? I like the Agulia minis but want to load my own. Any loading data?

Thanks Dave

I haven't done it yet, but I'm curious as to how you're going to do it. Do you have a different crimp die, or does yours adjust down far enough? Can you buy shorter wads? I'm assuming you are using your old Aguila shells...???

[dnotarianni]

plan was to cut down some Rem STS hulls and butcher up an old Mec Jr. Haven't got to wads yet. Any ideas?

[fastmtnbiker33w]

plan was to cut down some Rem STS hulls and butcher up an old Mec Jr. Haven't got to wads yet. Any ideas?

I've been brainstorming ways to cut down shells. Saturday I watched a guy shoot a full case of high brass 3" and leave it ALL on the ground. Not having anything to put them in, I left them. It would be tempting to trim those down to 2 or 2.5 inches and since they are high brass, you could run some fast powder to get a pretty decent load if you could find the right wad.

I was thinking of a dowel or a piece round metal that you slide the shell onto, then trim it off with a razor blade using the insert to allow a straight cut.

Could you trim the back portion of the wad? Or trim the ends off, but that would mean less shot. I'm assuming you'd want to have an ounce of shot still, but less powder or wad between the powder and shot.

Before butchering your loader, see if you could have a local machinist make inserts or extenders for your dies. Keep the same die but insert and extender or spacer between the die and the press parts..???

Keep us updated.

[a.roberts]

Here's how I'd go about it..

I'd use something like this to trim the hulls to size.

Or make something like it. Two short pieces of wood with a hinge on the end and a hole drilled between them to accommodate whatever gauge you wanted. Maybe offset the hole a bit so that the razor blade cuts instead of crushing the hull.

Then, for wads either a plain over-powder fiber wad or something like one of these two:

Link

Link

For a crimp, either an over-shot wad w/ a roll or a star crimp.

I think the roll crimp might be a little easier to get right at the beginning, but either would work fine.

As for your press, I was thinking about putting a block of sorts under the shell to lift it to the proper height.

For actual data, I see no reason why you couldn't use any current published data.

[RiggerJJ]

There are wads designed for 2" and 2 1/2" shells available. Look in the Hodgdon reloading manual and there are load recipes and wad nomenclatures.

good luck!

jj