Rolling your own trap loads

[rhgunguy]

My friends and i are looking at buying a Mec Grabber press so that we can load our own shells. But we were wondering how much cheaper it is to roll our own compared to buying the the 100 round packs.

THanks.

[mscott]

This might help.

http://10xshooters.com/calculators/Shotshe..._Calculator.htm

[ebg3]

My friends and i are looking at buying a Mec Grabber press so that we can load our own shells. But we were wondering how much cheaper it is to roll our own compared to buying the the 100 round packs.

THanks.

I can load a box of heavy 1 1/4oz 12ga loads for about $4.50. This is not including the cost of hulls, I have a bunch I've picked up over the years. To buy a similar factory load would cost close to $10/box. Light 1oz and 1 1/8oz loads are hardly worth reloading when you can buy factory bulk. You can still load cheaper than you can buy factory.

EG

[Hank Ellis]

Using the calculator mentioned above my loads are:

Trap Singles:

Winchester AA hull (red or gray)

Claybuster 8100 (Rem TGT-12 clone)

Noblesport primer

Hodgdon Clays 19.2 gr

1.0 oz #8

$3.41 a box

Handicap:

Winchester AA hull (red or gray)

Claybuster 3118A (Rem Fig-8 clone)

Cheddite primer

Hodgdon International Clays 17.5 gr

1.125 oz #7 1/2

$3.58 a box

Hulls cost me nothing as I can pick them up by the bucketfull for the price of bending over.

The MEC Grabber is a good choice. It was my first shotshell loader and only upgraded to the 9000G because I got one at a steal.

[JD45]

Right now it pays to reload shotshells if you don't count your labor. Ammo companys are still robbing us on factory loads( cheap loads should be 39 bucks a flat by now).

Our club is getting Nobel primers for 107.00 a sleeve(5000). Group buys on shot has been as low as 22.00 a bag this spring. People are loading for under 3.00 a box, assuming the hulls are free. Lead prices are slowly going back up though, so you had best buy now.

[Hank Ellis]

Right now it pays to reload shotshells if you don't count your labor. Ammo companys are still robbing us on factory loads( cheap loads should be 39 bucks a flat by now).

I look at it a bit differently.

If I can reload for the price of the El-Cheapo Wally World bulk packs. Cool, I'm in. What I get in return is closer to premium target loads such as Winchester AA which I'm seeing for as much as $8 a box. Just try to find 1 ounce loads. You have to do some digging to find it. If I win the lottery then I'll order premium target shells by the pallet load. In the meantime I'll roll my own.

Our club is getting Nobel primers for 107.00 a sleeve(5000). Group buys on shot has been as low as 22.00 a bag this spring. People are loading for under 3.00 a box, assuming the hulls are free. Lead prices are slowly going back up though, so you had best buy now.

FYI to rhgunguy: Noblesport primers are a direct replacement for Winchester primers. As far as I know it's the only primer you can interchange.

Lead is going up. Just got my bulk shipment in a couple months ago. Shot was $25 a bag then, now it's $26. The biggest cost factor in shotshell reloading is the shot. I bought enough components to do 10,000 rounds and got a break on shipping, like free, and the HazMat charge, like none. Buy now to hadge against price increases.

JD45: Who is your supplier? Mine is Gamaliel Shooting Supply.

[JD45]

Our club has always ordered nearly everything from Gamaliel. I'm assuming that the Nobel primers came from them. Since we order clay targets by the truck load, we get good deals on components.

[MarkS_A18138]

I have gone to 7/8 load and have found my scores have gone up.....7/8 of 7 1/2 with 19grs of clays, very soft and I am getting 450 rounds per 25lbs bag of shot!!!!

[Hank Ellis]

Our club has always ordered nearly everything from Gamaliel. I'm assuming that the Nobel primers came from them. Since we order clay targets by the truck load, we get good deals on components.

I was wondering where you got lead for $22 a bag. Then I remembered that Gamaliel gives a break on shot orders of 1 ton or more. I couldn't get a group buy together so I just ordered what I needed. Yeah it hurts to write the $1500 check but I'm set up for the next 2 years.

I have gone to 7/8 load and have found my scores have gone up.....

It goes against everything you think should happen. "If I throw the most pellets I can at the target, hopefully 3 of them will find the bird and break it." Don't work that way.

In my case I found out by accident. Went to practice Trap singles. Was in a hurry and grabbed 4 boxes off the shelf and went out the door. Around box 3 I was noticing something different. The gun wasn't beating me up as much. Checked and found I had grabbed some odd, off-the-wall 1oz loads I picked up somewhere. Shot better than my average. Since then I've gone to 1oz loads for singles and dropped the charge on my handicap loads. My scores are going up. I believe it's due to the accumulative effects of recoil. Shoot lighter loads, don't get beat up, shoot better scores.

RhGunguy: Here's a couple more things to ponder in making the decision to reload shotshells. Those 100 round bulk packs are typically 1.125oz at 1200 fps, 3 dram loads. Shoot 100 singles and 100 handicap at a registered shoot and toward the end you will feel the recoil beating you up. Back it down to at least 1.125oz at 1145 to knock the edge off the recoil. Additionally the shot used in those bulk packs is soft. I've seen pellets literally bounce off birds with that stuff. Pay the extra 50 cents a bag and use magnum shot. Another cool option when you reload is that you can play around with components to get the performance you want. Different wads do give different performance. Some open faster, some slower. Different powders can give different felt recoil also. As always, follow published load data. A simple primer switch can send a load overpressure.

[bofe954]

Can you reload any hull? I could get a lot of spent hulls free but it seems like people only reload certain types, which are the types no one shoots...

If you buy new hulls how many times can you reload them?

I am kind of debating getting into this too, for the lighter loads and to save a few bucks, but I don't have that much time to reload, and I don't shoot shotgun that much. I do shoot trap with a double though so I can save my own hulls.

I could get a limitless supply of cheap bulk pack hulls if they were useful.

[Hank Ellis]

Can you reload any hull? I could get a lot of spent hulls free but it seems like people only reload certain types, which are the types no one shoots...

No. Shotshell reloading is different from metallic reloading in several ways. One of which is that the components in the recipe are absolute, no substitutions. Go to the reloading data section of www.hodgdon.com and take a look at the list of hulls in the dropdown menu. That's pretty much it for reloadable hulls. The best of them all is Remington STS but not a whole lot of people shoot it in my area. So I go with second best, Winchester AA.

You'll find here and there on the Internet people reloading the bulk packs. My gun, fingers, and eyes are worth a bunch more than what I'd save on hulls. Unless the data is published by a reloading components manufacturer, I don't use it.

If you buy new hulls how many times can you reload them?

Have never bought a new hull. However I've shot a bunch of once fired hulls. 5 or 6 reloads before I get cracks at the crimp roll and folds that I can see daylight through.

I'm a hull whore of worst kind. When the supply gets low I'll get to the range when it opens and clean up from yesterdays shoots. When I show up in the afternoon I clean up my trap and leave it cleaner than when I came. Always come home with a 5 gallon bucket load which is about 350 hulls. Check with the pullers. A lot of those young men sort out hulls and sell them off to make extra cash. It's just trash to most clays ranges.

[JD45]

Hank probably already knows this, but the cheap black and green Remington hulls reload great(gun clubs, dove loads, etc..). They are one-piece hulls, and can be reloaded many times.

[sargenv]

I too will add that I like loading the 7/8 ounce loads for skeet and trap. I can push them a bit faster and still have little recoil compared to the heavier payloads. I'm also happy that my Goild will cycle those lightly charged loads where other guns generally fail to cycle them. I think I am using 7/8 of 7.5, 18.5 red dot, Claybuster silver hulls, and Old style Win AA's or STS's.

I still have about 500 pounds of mixed stuff that I purchased a few years back at $16 a bag. And last season someone gave me about 100 pounds of mixed 2's and 4's.

[Hank Ellis]

Hank probably already knows this, but the cheap black and green Remington hulls reload great(gun clubs, dove loads, etc..). They are one-piece hulls, and can be reloaded many times.

Yeah, I should have been clearer. Remington STS, Nitro 27, and Gun Clubs are all usuable as reloadable hulls and use the same data. Confirmed by two reloading sources. One of my sources also lumps the Rem Premier RXP in with the other three.

FWIW: The red and grey HS Win AA are interchangeable as well as the older style Win AA. I use any of the four in whatever I'm loading at the moment.

I too will add that I like loading the 7/8 ounce loads for skeet and trap. I can push them a bit faster and still have little recoil compared to the heavier payloads. I'm also happy that my Goild will cycle those lightly charged loads where other guns generally fail to cycle them. I think I am using 7/8 of 7.5, 18.5 red dot, Claybuster silver hulls, and Old style Win AA's or STS's.

I still have about 500 pounds of mixed stuff that I purchased a few years back at $16 a bag. And last season someone gave me about 100 pounds of mixed 2's and 4's.

Locally we call mixed shot and reclaimed shot "gravel". Not a demeaning term, really. One hot shot sporting clays shooter I know uses 'gravel' for all his practice and uses new shot for when the scores count. Why? Cost control is the only reason. If I could get it cheap I'd use it for practice also.

One of the elder statesman of Trap had me try a couple of his loads last practice session. 1oz at 1140fps. It barely locked the bolt back on my Beretta. Any lighter and it wouldn't have. I hadn't cleaned the action in a couple thousand rounds so that may have influenced that. Broke the birds just fine. My 1oz at 1200fps cycles my gun great even when dirty.

Took a while for me to come around but I'm a firm believer in light loads for Trap and Skeet. Handicap, I'm still not convinced. What I'm using now, 1.125oz at 1145fps is doing the job at short yardage but I wonder how they will work at mid and long yardage. I'll worry about that when I get a few punches on the yard card.

For 3-gun it's a whole different matter. As far as USPSA is concerned anything 20ga and above is good to go. For IPSC there's still the 480PF which means a 1oz load at 1100fps would make power. I wouldn't run anything that light. A slightly low or off center hit and the steel isn't going down. I'll stick with 1.125oz at 1145fps. Gives me some wiggle room. But then what do I know about 3-gun? I'm just getting started and haven't figured it all out yet.