I found these on one of the auction sites recently and couldn't resist. I love paper hulls and I'm especially fond of my Ithaca Lewis 10 gauge 2 7/8". So when I found these new, never fired and never loaded paper Alcan Hulls I had to splurge.

Looking at that box of hulls I can envision upcoming hunts with ducks and geese tumbling from the sky and the sweet smell of gun smoke, fired paper hulls and wet dog.

Good find. I can remember turning up a few Eley capped paper cases a few years ago but not anywhere near that many. Can't understand why Magtech don't make 10 bore brass cases; and 14 bore for that matter. I'm sure there would be a high demand. Lagopus.....

And after every duck season, a bunch of swollen up soggy paper shells. I remember coot shoots the last day of every season to get rid of the paper duck loads which would not be usable the next year. Even if they didn't appear to be wet, after a season of being in the boat or blind every hunt they always expanded so they wouldn't fit the gun next season...Geo

Great find.
I have a CSMC SXS 20 ga and a Merkel 147E 16 ga. In both, I only shoot papers. I have about 250 federal yellow papers for the 20 ga and 200 black Fiocchi papers for the 16 ga. Eventually I will run our as the papers are only good for 3-4 loads.
I can't keep from taking a good sniff of smoke from them after each shot. Takes me back 50+ years.

I'll have to pore over my old manuals and the considerable 10 gauge data I've compiled to find some loads for these hulls. Might even have to try a black powder load or two.

How did you shoot them at coots, Geo, if they were too swollen to go in a chamber?

SRH

They wudn't swole up much yet, Stan. Wouldn't eject, but they'ed go in if you mashed'em and you could sort of dig'em out. They swole up bad and got too hard to mash in over the year between seasons...Geo

Nostalgia ain't always all it's cracked up to be. Could be it never was!

federal paper 12, 18 grains of red dot, 1 oz of shot. Shoots great, smells better.

bill

Great
I have been really enjoying the Alcan stuff


And just finished loading 1200 of these hulls

Skeet, that's a load of brass.
Geo, back before the lead ban, a local store sold Czech paper shells for a little less than $2 a box. Tough to use them in the marsh because of swelling, but we managed.
Stan, we'd buy them at downtown Cranmans. You ever shop there? Gil

Yep, went in there once or twice before it closed. Didn't have to go anywhere to buy shells until after '84. My Daddy had a really big country store, a general merchandise place, and he had a very good selection of shells and .22s. He closed it in '84 and went to work for the Georgia Dept. of Agriculture.

SRH

About 20 years ago I had a friend who worked with the USA Shooting Olympic team. He called me and asked if I wanted any Federal Paper Hulls. Said he had thousands of them. Asked him how much. Free was the price but shipping was not. I took a couple thousand. I think it cost about ten bucks a thousand to ship them.

About two months later he called me again. He had many times more. Better yet he had a deal with UPS that they would ship them for free. They became the official Shooting team sponsor for shipping. I loaded up. Took 30k and another 30k two weeks later when he still had a pile left and he sent another 15 just before he ran out or UPS stop shipping them for free. I gave about a third of them away but still have 10-15 thousand. Red dot works great and they smell best with a light frost on the ground.