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My current lead shot hand/reloading is limited to 28 ga. and 2” 12 ga., both of which are either prohibitively expensive in 28 ga. for high volume shooting commercial loads or currently unobtanium in the 2” 12 ga. load. I own two 85 year old 2” 12 ga. doubles made by Skimin & Wood but rebadged by other English gunmakers. Why shoot them? Because that’s what I want to do. They are perfect woodcock and quail guns over dogs which is my preferred method of hunting. Both weigh under 5.5 lbs. In handloading the 12 ga. loads, I relied on BP’s short hulls brochure for ¾ and 7/8 oz. loads. Both guns were proofed in England for the 7/8 oz. load. A friend in England sent me a recipe using fiber wads and Vectan AS which was tested by an English proof house. I bought 4 lbs of the powder two years ago from Graf at a clearance price of $14 per pound with a lowered hazmat fee. I am trying different powder weights to reduce velocity. His recipe is in addition to the ones from BP.
The BP 3/4 oz. load utilizes nitro card and cork spacers. It wouldn’t shoot consistent velocities and had several hundreds of fps differences. The 7/8 oz. load using the plastic gas seal of BP was consistent. However, I want a velocity consistent load using old school fiberwads without plastic. Another reloader and hunter from AZ unselfishly sent me a short article published in 1961 in the American Rifleman. The author described a metal cardboard wad punch and die. The author used heavily waxed cardboard from milk cartons which are now covered with plastic rather than waxed. The AZ reloader (borderbill) has skillfully made his excellent tool and die from steel on a lathe. The article mentions hardwood tool and die as being useful but perhaps not as durable. A friend turned and made a press for me out of hardwood. It produces the wads. Since my loads are primarily for quail and woodcock, durability shouldn’t be a problem as fewer shells are used in the field than on a skeet field. My cardboard is cut with a punch out of a cardboard box with cardboard thickness .019”. I impregnate it with paraffin wax by shaving bits of it on a sheet of aluminum foil on the cooking surface of a cast iron skillet. I place the discs on the melted paraffin until it fully penetrates the material. The cup shaped cardboard gas seal was initially difficult to insert in the shell. It resisted efforts to keep it a right angle to the axis of the hull. I solved this by making a tube out of a low brass unfired hull in which I was able to insert a wad backwards into the tube. With an antique rammer, I moved it to the opposite end of the tube. To keep the tube with the cupped wad flush with the to be loaded hull, I made a bushing from another section of hull and split it down one side so it would open enough to hold both the wad tube and the hull to be loaded in proper alignment. Pushing it with the full diameter rammer into the hull to be loaded was accomplished with it riding at right angle until firmly seated into the powder, open end on the powder. A nitro card followed along with a 3/8” thick Alcan Bluestreak fiber wad.
I collect old reloading tools. I like the French tools as they are made from European boxwood which is a rock hard wood. It is also beautiful. One tool that I find useful is a tapered rammer which expands the mouth of a fired roll crimped plastic hull to where it is easily reloaded. One such hull is in the photo of three tools. The man who made my wad press also made a maple tapered rammer which will round out the mouths of the fired 28 ga. hulls and the 2” 12 ga. hull facilitating reloading. The antique tapered rammer bottomed out on the 2” 12 ga. hull and wouldn’t fit in the 28 ga. hull. If I don’t round out the 28 ga. AAHS hulls, my PW 375 loaded wad intermittently will snag a star point resulting in a defective crimp that sticks in the sizing die making removal without cutting the hull impossible. The tapered rammer cures it. The tapered maple rammer works in hulls 28 ga. through 10 gauge.
I chrono the loads with my 870. I don’t want to risk the old doubles. Once I get a consistent, satisfactory velocity, then I will have them professionally tested. Until then, more development is needed. I believe the cardboard cupped wad will help with consistency. Preliminary results are encouraging. Both the man who sent me the Rifleman article and I believe inconsistency is caused by the nitro card’s tilting causing non uniform pressure of escaping gases against the load. Plastic wads are far more forgiving with their gas seals. There is good reason that they replaced the old technology—at least as evidenced by my loads so far. Gil