Poorly marked shotshells

[EricW]

I absolutely hate the new markings on shotgun shells. In the good ol' days, shells were smooth, red, and had a big black number with the shot size on the side. It was very easy to identify what you had pulled out of your pocket. Paper shells were the best. A white shot card with black lettering told you everthing you needed to know.

Now, manufacturers have gone metrosexual and put all kinds of advertising crapola on the side of the shell - leaving you to pick out a faint, tiny #4 in the lower right hand corner of the printing. Inevitably, you will get into a flock of something or another and pull out the goose load and stuff it into the gun and shoot a pheasant with it - hunting's equivalent of taking out an outhouse with a tactical nuke.

If I can't have crisp, black lettering again, at least color-code the shells so I could know at a glance what I've pulled out of my pocket. Thank you for listening.

[Intel6]

Eric, there are a couple of different options. I reload all my shotshells including slugs and OO buck and I load them in different shells which I then mark on the shell head so I know what they are.

It would be a bit of work but you can mark them yourself. And yes I know you really want them to come that way from the factory.

Marking shotshells:

Hull stamp kit

They (ballistic products) also had these thin stickers that you could write on and stick to the head of the hull for marking and then you just shoot them. I looked and couldn't find them.

Neal in AZ

[dajarrel]

If you are going to go to the trouble of marking them, save yourself the bucks of a stamping kit and buy a $.79 Sharpie in the color of your choice. You can mark on the plastic or brass as large as you like and once dry it is usually permanent ( and it can't be rubbed off either!!)

But, you are correct in your rant. I, too, long for the days of clearly marked shells.

FWIW

dj

[JD45]

I could not agree more. Shotshells used to look cool, and the farther you go back in time the cooler they get.

Remember when Remington Shur-shot and Express shells had that glossy semi-transparent dark green hull? Take a look at an old Win. AA from the 1970s and compare to the crappy new two-piece, super-thick, impossible to taper at the mouth ugly thing that we have today.

Don't even try to mention Peters old paper shells or any other of the era when the box was a work of art. I wonder how much it cost them to print those old boxes?

You would think that with the computer age and digital printing, plus all of the glorified slave labor that companies obtain from temp services, that we would see shells and boxes that were too pretty to shoot. I guess that would cut into the CEOs multi-million dollar salary.

I have come to believe that ammo companies are ran by 23 year-old city folks that have no clue about Americas history of hunting or what we like.

[EricW]

Pretty? Geez, I'd settle for legible.

Can you actually believe that we used to shoot those beautiful paper shells? Every one, a little masterpiece of art in its own right. What were we thinking?!

Now, I'm paying $2 a shell for POS bismuth round that leaks all the stupid buffer material into my pockets before I can get the silly thing in my gun.....and I still need a jewler's loupe to figure out what heck's inside the thing.

[Pierruiggi]

Now, manufacturers have gone metrosexual and put all kinds of advertising crapola on the side of the shell

[Duane Thomas]

I've always been fascinated by the old shotgun shells made of brass. Now there was a work of art!

[EricW]

I've always been fascinated by the old shotgun shells made of brass. Now there was a work of art!

Yes indeed. I bought a box of DU commemorative shells when I was 16 just because they were all brass. Still have 'em.