doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Revisiting 410 Reloads

When I was shooting registered skeet, I loaded several thousand .410 shells a year. Early on,I found that I couldn't get a true 1/2 oz of magnum shot in a Win AA compression formed hull, so I went to the Remington ribbed hulls for reloading. I used WW 296 powder, Remington or Federal wads and Win 209 primers. I actually reamed out my shot bar to throw the maximum legal load for skeet and that is a bit over 1/2 oz when using magnum shot. Use of magnum shot pays off in the .410 with better patterns and more broken targets, much more so than with the 12 or 20. Be careful though about primers - Those little shells are already operating at max pressure, so a hotter primer will cause "bullets" with the whole front of the shell going out the barrel. The use of Remington or Federal wads was important because the wads for Winchester compression formed hulls wouldn't seal adequately. Those reloads worked well enough to get me into an AA class back in the day.

One other thing to keep in mind about the .410 is that the hulls are not all the same length, even in the same brand in some cases, like Winchester. Its not an issue if you sort them first and set your press up accordingly.

On the MEC 600 press, be sure to have the snap on gadget that holds the hull firm to the press in the prime station. Life w/o it is no fun. Polishing the inside of the drop tube is a very wise thing to do for less shot bridging.

FWIW, Federal & Remington both at one time made specific .410 primers. They were 'softer' or had less brisance. Before the new AAHS .410 hull, I got the best life from Remington hulls, the older Riefenhauser(sp?)ribbed hull, but it was easier to get a full .5 oz. load into the Federal hulls. I hated the original AA wads because they took up too much room and were not flared, Winchester finally began flaring them some years later. The unflared ones would come right back out of the case w/the drop tube and dump shot everywhere w/regularity. The flared one are easier to load & they tend to stay in the hull better. I like the older PC orange wads best for the .410.

I'm so old that I started reloading .410 factory shells cost just a few dollars per case moe than 12's. We started reloading with cards, then win as wads, blue trico wads with 2400, rem., fed., orange, yellow and green wads and any other odd wads I could find. Loading data was sparse. You could look for months and never see anything new.

If you liked shooting shells off just in front of the brass nothing beat the blue trico wads and 2400. You could still hit the bird with them. They would open up and leak some shot before separation. If the front portion hit the bird it just vaporized the part it hit.

Today's selection of powders, wads and shells is vast compared to what we had 30-40 years ago. Safe data is easily found in print or over the Internet. Loading small bore guns has never been easier to those who reload. And on top of that the saving is so much greate in small gauges to make reloading them a major cost savings.

Just a heads-up. This is slightly sideways from the topic, but I saw mention of NSI primers in an earlier post. After decades of using Winchester primers, I recently bought some Nobel Sport, only to find out that they are significantly larger than the Winchesters. So aside from dishing the brass heads, they ruined the hulls for future use with the old Winchester standbys. Apparently American primers are generally smaller than their European counterparts, though Cheddites are close. Plan ahead.

Tom Martin brings up a good point. If you are shooting for money, you want the most shot in a .410. The way to do that is to use the green shells that no one seems to like. As far as the 7400 psi load with the Remington primer, I would much prefer a little higher pressure like my favorite loads with the Winchester 209 primer. I have loaded tens of thousands of .410s with W209 primers, Remington or PC wads, in the green shells. The AA wads are worthless since the petals don't know whether to go in or out. One "inny" petal can cost you a skeet event. If you are interested in performance, you should measure the diameter of your .410 wads and only shoot the biggest for a better seal. The last time I measured wad diameters, I was satisfied with the Remington and the PC. I don't know what they measure these days because I'm still working with wads that I have had for some time.

The following is a copy/paste from a table I found on SGW.

Popular .410 bore wad (cup) dimensions:

Wad Total Height, Base Height, Base Diameter

CB1050-41A 1.455" (36.95mm) .149" (3.8mm) .384" (9.76mm)
CB5050-410HS 1.469" (37.33mm) .148" (3.77mm) .399" (10.14mm)
WAA41HS 1.478" (37.56mm) .186" (4.73mm) .402" (10.21mm)
Orange PC410 1.358" (34.5mm) .138" (3.52mm) .394" (10.01mm)
Rem. SP410 1.454" (36.95mm) .175" (4.44mm) .399" (10.14mm)
Yellow Duster 1.422" (36.12mm) .182" (4.64mm) .383" (9.73mm)

Total Height = Top edge of petals to bottom edge of base.
Base Height = Shot cup floor to bottom edge of base.
Base Diameter = At bottom edge of base.

Base width measurements were made at the base edge of the wad, and one petal was cut off so the base height could be measured from the true flat of the shot cup floor.

Couple additional points. The Rem .410 hull is only slightly larger in capacity vs the new AAHS .410s. There is no reason you cannot get the full 1/2 oz in a HS hull that will have a lifespan about 4 times that of the Remington, and at least twice that of the Federal.

Primers...... If you look at published loads you will see that what we consider "hot" primers in the 12 may not be so in the .410. The Fed 209A data is a prime example. I would not substitute primers based on my guesstimate about brissance.

Sam, you fail to understand that green hulls are free and I have so many that I will probably not have to load them more than twice before I die. AAHS hulls are a quarter apiece and we will never have more than a couple hundred and we have to load them over and over. I am through with anything other than the greenies. If I come up with a few hundred AA or AAHS in once fired configuration, I sell them for a bunch of money. Thanks so much for the dimensions. The Remingtons I use came in at .399, almost the biggest. Do you see why I like the orange PC? The base height is very skinny and allows me to "filler up". I'm not sure I'm NSSA legal, but my shells sure sound good.

Free is good. Have a ton of CF AAs plus about 8 unfired cases. Performance of HS factory loads is alot better, now equal to the RPs - wasn't always so. So we buy HS for registered and sell the empties, too.

Weighed the drops from my 502 1/2 oz bars w/Winchester magnum #9: 185 gr in the unaltered bar, 205 gr in one I slightly hogged out. Still shy of 218-219 gr.

Could probably use the 5/8 oz MEC bar with those RPs, but......

My charge bar for my green competition shells is reamed out to 230 or 232 grains. I can't remember what is a "legal" load, but this is what fills up my shell. I'm just not into factory shells for competition. I like my reloads much better.

Eightbore you are right to like your reloads. One half ounce shot is 218.75 grains. So your slightly over weight load is maybe six to eight pellets over the norm. But what your slightly heavy load does is I bet raise the pressure slightly and you get loads with less velocity variation shot to shot. In the .410 getting every shell to be the same helps because you have less margin for error. Or maybe you can use those extra eight pellets better than all the rest of us. They say you only need one lucky hit and you have eight. Still I'd have to read the regs to see what the margin is for loads. I think you are safe.