doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Brass shotgun shells

If this subject has been addressed here before, my apologies. From searching the usual sources online I can see a few different options. Has anybody here gone down that road? Is there a reasonable and economic approach to this question?

The options I'm presently aware of are: Rocky Mountain Cartridges (RMC) and MAGTECH. Are there others? The idea of almost perpetual reloading capacity is intriguing, albeit with reservations. Constantly policing your hulls in a "hot moment" would be a challenge I suppose, but it does reduce dependency on systems that haven't proven to be so reliable of late. The initial costs are significant but... the investment might very well be worth it in a long-run situation.

What says the cognoscenti here?

For a single box, loaded with classic Black powder, I think Brass is an option. But if you are willing to use nitro for Black, there are far easier ways to go. I cutdown 5,000 12 hulls and loaded them all with nitro powder with pressure levels of 6,000.6,500psi. My hulls cost me $104.00/5,000. $104.00 won’t buy you many Brass shells. I could have gone even lower pressure but have decided any gun I own that will not safely handle 6,000psi does nit need yo be shot. And I have a few which should not and are now retired.

If you just want to load Black powder, fiber wads and be more turn of the clock back to the 1890’s there is a lot of fun to be generated by loading Brass. But went progressive loading 50 years ago and have little interest in one at a time much anymore. I altered a Spolar die set to load short shells. Not cheap but a great investment long term. One die head is dialed in for 67mm shells and conversion takes five minutes from one gauge to another.

I use RMC for my 10 gauge and Magtech for 12 & 16 gauge. I use real black powder for all the gauges in Cowboy shooting.

RMC: Uses 209 primers and standard sized wads. Some cowboy shooters have reported 3000+ loading; Hulls are very well made, but expensive and delivery times MAY be slow. If using BP de-prime soon after shooting, primers can rust in place and then you need to drill out the primers. RMC are CNC'd out of bar stock and come in different lengths

Magtech: Uses large pistol primers and requires using oversized wads: 11 gauge for 12 gauge & 14 gauge for 16 gauge. Hulls are much cheaper, however may be hard to find since Covid. The hulls appear to be stamped and the thin brass can make reloading the shotgun fast tricky. Hulls for 12 & 16 gauge are 2.5" only.

RMC quality is very good, but the last time I looked you could get a box of Magtech for about the same price as 3 or 4 RMC hulls

I have been reloading RMC .410 brass for the past 8 turkey seasons. It seems to shoot better patterns in my gun than plastic; others report no better than plastic hulls. Reloading tools for brass are simpler than what are used for other type hulls. Gil

In the brass hull category

I use ALCAN, Win, and REM-UNC all brass hulls for 10, 12, 16 and 20 gauges

I use Magtech in 32 and 24 gauges.

Mike

Mike: All I can say is "wow". After a lifetime of accumulating hunting and fishing tackle in a small room here, I'm about out of room. I can't begin to imagine the pile of stuff that you've accumulated...32 and 24 gauge? and in brass? It's probably not economic but it sounds like it might be fun. On the hunt now for a box of Magtechs.

KYJohn and Chantry are spot on.

All brass hulls are not the economic way to go, but they are fun.

Both RMC and MAGTECH can work well, though I excessively favor RMC.

They both may offer durable hull solutions, but they are not cheap. I recently went to order some two inch RMC only to discover they are currently $105 per ten and 2 3/4 are $128 for ten. I ordered 30 instead of 50.

RMC is a crack habit, and expensive affectation, I really enjoy using them. While their durability is incredible. That durability only helps with part of the supply problem. Primer and powder availability is more a problem than hulls for me anyway.

Lastly the availability of tested data for both MAGTECH and More so RMC is limited, very limited. There is a degree of informed experimenting in deriving data.

For what it's worth, Chantry is also right about availability. Magtech hulls are out-of-stock in all the usual places. The search continues.

Precision Reloading had some. Looks like I'm all set. Had a bunch of large pistol primers hanging around here from long-past gun episodes so...all set there too. My greatest fear is that by having these handy I can really get into trouble with the "old stuff" now. Is that how it works, Skeettx?

NO issues
What gauge?
What gun?
What game?
What, what, what

Black powder or smokeless?
What wads
https://circlefly.com/

download their wad sizing chart

Mike