I was very pleased to get hold of 16ga brass cases, though by whatever is the opposite of serendipity (Murphy's Law?), I "came by" the gun barely a day after the close of an online auction that listed 2 lots of original W.W. Greener 16ga cases that I never expected to need but came within a whisker of buying "just in case". Too prudent for my own good!
The Magtech cases weren't ready to load out of the box. The mouths were sharp, the primer pockets generally overnight and shallow, and the flash holes poorly centred and too small for even a .17 calibre de-capping rod.
So I tumbled them, chamfered and uniformed the pockets, and used my de-burring tool on the flash holes - which had to be done from both sides because of the double-skinned construction of the case head.
The other issue is the need for home-made wads, because the thin walls of the cases create an 18mm internal diameter that is oversized for regular 16ga wads, and because in the UK I haven't been able to find a commercial source of wads between 16ga and 12ga.
I can cut wads out of cork sheet up to about 5mm thick with a hand punch, but the 3mm sheet cuts cleaner. Either way, making up the space that would otherwise be occupied by felt wads is easier with corn meal than a stack of thin wads.
That said, any suggestions for tools or materials for making 12mm or 18mm felt or fibre wads would be welcome.
Edit: you may already have guessed, but the Draw is in black powder proof only.
Last edited by JulesW; 09/27/24 02:59 AM.
