OT – Black Powder Shot Shell Reloading.

[cshold]

I stumbled onto this web site yesterday.
http://www.tbullock.com/bpsg.html

Because of this site I had the hankering to try it.
I gave it a go this afternoon with a 20ga. #4 shot High brass shell.
Carefully opened it up and dumped the shot into a 35mm film container.
Pulled the combined plastic shot cup/over powder wad.
Dumped the powder on the shop anvil, lit that off. (cool )
Measured out 65 grains of 2F, dumped it into the shell.
Cut an over powder wad out of thin cardboard, put this over the powder.
Dumped the #4 shot back into shell.
Cut another thin cardboard over shot wad, placed it over shot.
Carefully refolded the crimp back down and compressed it by hand
as best I could. (This is where a roll crimper would come into play, I
Don’t have one. “yet” )
Put the shell into the old H&R 20ga. Single shot and let it rip.
Did this in the garage, shot into 4 pieces of 1” pine planks backed up by
a 2” piece of oak.
After opening the garage door to clear all the smoke,
I realized the shot didn’t even penetrate the first 1” board.
Decided to see what an unaltered 20 ga. #4 shot high brass shell would do.
Needless to say that outcome was very much different.
The shot and including the wad went clean through the first 1” board.
The shot continued through the next 3 1” boards.
Stopped just short of penetration of the 2” oak board.

Now after all this my question is:
Does the crimp make that much difference even when using the fast
burning black Powder?

O and I am indeed accepting votes for this years Darwin Award.

[Cliff]

I have loaded 12 guage paper shells with black powder using the old formula of thirds. The space inside the shell is divided into equal thirds. One third space for BP, one third for wadding, this is over powder wads, cushion wads and over shot wads. The remaining third was the amount of shot needed to fill it up. It worked well shooting some trap, found out velocity was lower than smokeless loadings so had to increase my lead. You should put in the powder, then the overpowder wads, compress to about 30 pounds of pressure, add cushion wads then shot. A light paper wad on top of shot isn't needed if you are using a star or folded crimp. One thing to remembr is Hi Brass shells have more powder space, low brass has less. No biggy. If you want to shoot a number of shots 10 to 25 or so you might want to soak the cushion wads in a solvent to help clean out the fouling. I have used water soluable machine oil, mixed about 5 to one with water, one part oil and 5 parts water. Leave the wads in solution until saturated, then stack up a couple high on good surface, place a little bit of weight on top of them to wring out the excess liquid, leaving them dampish. It works well, don't know how long such a loaded shell will keep but it does reduce fouling somewhat. ATB

[cshold]

I have loaded 12 guage paper shells with black powder using the old formula of thirds. The space inside the shell is divided into equal thirds. One third space for BP, one third for wadding, this is over powder wads, cushion wads and over shot wads. The remaining third was the amount of shot needed to fill it up. It worked well shooting some trap, found out velocity was lower than smokeless loadings so had to increase my lead. You should put in the powder, then the overpowder wads, compress to about 30 pounds of pressure, add cushion wads then shot. A light paper wad on top of shot isn't needed if you are using a star or folded crimp. One thing to remembr is Hi Brass shells have more powder space, low brass has less. No biggy. If you want to shoot a number of shots 10 to 25 or so you might want to soak the cushion wads in a solvent to help clean out the fouling. I have used water soluable machine oil, mixed about 5 to one with water, one part oil and 5 parts water. Leave the wads in solution until saturated, then stack up a couple high on good surface, place a little bit of weight on top of them to wring out the excess liquid, leaving them dampish. It works well, don't know how long such a loaded shell will keep but it does reduce fouling somewhat. ATB

Thanks for the helpful info. Cliff
The first thing I am going to do is pick up one of those
old hand crimp rollers. They look like fun.
I'm not really looking to get into it big time. I just
want to tinker around with making some hand made
BP shells.