Best advise I ever got, or gave about reloading, is the need to buy a good set of scale and use them. Most of us just check powder and forget to check shot weight too often. With the endless amount of free time I now have on my hands, I decided to check all my shot bushings and make a few in between bushing as needed. So I could have bushings for 1/2, 9/16, 5/8, 11/16, 3/4, 13/16, 7/8, 15/16, 1, 1 1/16 and 1 1/8 ounce bushings. That would cover 410 2 1/2", .410 3, 28, 20 in both 2 1/2 & 2 3/4", 16 and 12 in 2 1/2' and 2 3/4".

For years, when loading on MECs, I used adjustable charge bars and dialed in the powder and shot charges. Spolar, like most re-loaders, use bushings instead of an adjustable bar.

I load on a couple Spolars for the most part and they use Hornady bushings. The shot bushings you buy from Spolar are fine tuned by them I am told and now understand why. Every Hornady factory made shot bushing drops light. Do not take that to the bank and just grab a bigger bushing. Weigh them and make sure. I have adjusted several shot bushings to drop closer to the required shot amount but never expected them all to be off by a wide margin. The powder bushing do much better and I always check them every re-loading session. And they make so many different powder sizes that I almost always have a couple close sizes to pick from.Plus I still have a complete set of MEC bushings with an adapter to use them in the Spolar loader.

Now before I started, I understand no two bags of shot can be exactly the same and small shot and larger shot drop different amounts in the same bushing to some extent. And that is why Hornady makes different size shot bushing, for different sizes of shot. I bought them all, 17 in total, and I had seven different sizes of shot and three different brands of shot to test.

I weighted every Hornady/Spolar shot bushing I have from 1/2 ounce #9 shot to 1 1/8 ounce with #9 shot, then with 8 1/2, 8, 7 1/2, 7's, 6's or 5's. 17 factory shot bushings in total. I tested them with four to six different sizes and types of shot. Not all got tested with large shot sizes because I do not need #5, 6 or 7's in many small gauges.

None of the bushings were as expected or as marked. The .410 1/2 ounce, #9 shot bushing was the worst being 192.3 grains or 12% light. That is 26.5 grains short of the expected 218.8 grains. The best .410 1/2 ounce #5 shot bushing was light 5.1 grains when dropping #9's you don't want to know about #5's. 26.5 grains is a big deal because in the .410 you need all the shot you can get. That is 35 (1/16ounce), out of 292 pellets or about 7/16 ounce shot. The best .410 bushing drop was 2% light which I can live with but to get that I had to use a bushing that was .024" larger which was designed for #5 shot not #9.

The 1 1/8 ounce bushing was almost 1/16 ounce light. So all of them were off. On a percentage basis the larger ones were not as great being only 8% light and to be honest when you get past a full ounce, 8% is not that critical. Still you want your loads to be near what you are working for.

Now my solution was two part. First find out what they really drop for shot sizes from 7 1/2, 8, 8 1/2 and 9. I checked a few of the larger bushings with 5 ,6 and 7's but not all of them. Then create a chart of bushing verse sizes of shot and weight dropped for each size. Then after seeing how they seem to cover everything, I decided to turn a few extra bushings, to fill in the most obvious gaps. I have a chart that gives me a starting point to work from.

Now I have started turning in between sizes on my metal lathe, using some shot bushings I bought off EBay. Never knew why I wanted 20 of the 5/8 ounce .410 #5 bushings. But as a starting point they work well. When I am done, it looks like I will have a set of bushings that will be about 95% complete to my needs. So far I have turned nine extra sizes. Looks like I will end up turning 15-16 in total. The advantage will be in having several bushings several thousands apart. Go to the chart and pull the closest bushing and check it. The go up or down as needed. God, I need to get back to work.

Good set of scales is the key. Beware of cheap digitals. For turkey loads, I individually weigh and load powder per shell. I noticed in one session that the shot was too far below the wad opening to be correct. It was the scale. I've had for four decades an old RCBS 10-10 balance scale and completed the loadings with it feeling secure with its readings. I have upgraded digital scale to a Lyman which checks out so far as excellent, but I verify every few loads with the RCBS. Gil

I use old MEC 600 jr presses in three gauges. These always throw light shot charges with the shot I use, which is primarily 7,7-1/2, 8. The charge charts I use for the powder bushings are generally light also, but it depends upon the powder. I weigh my charges to get them right when I begin using a press. I often need to vary from the chart bushing to get what I want. The chart is almost always low on powder. Now I wonder how accurate factory shot loadings are.

I went thru all that with the shot bushings several yrs ago. I never had one of any brand throw anything but light. To me there is no mystery there - I never load chilled shot (almost pure lead) and all of the hard shot is hardened with something lighter than lead. Get a bag of something more like pure lead and the drop by volume will likely be closer to what is marked. TabA/SlotB
I opened up a few extra bushings to the real weight but that unfortunately made no detectable difference in my shooting performance.

just a thot

I load by volume--5 gallon buckets! I scale only when making changes.
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The only one I messed with was to open a 410 shot bar to drop an actual 1/2 oz of hard shot.

Need all the help I can get with a 410.

The other stuff is just picking a nit.

Haven't opened up any bushings, as I can adjust the adjustable charge bar to do that. But, interesting post, Jon. Hope you get back to work soon, but I'm glad you had time to do these tests and post them. Great info. Thanks.

SRH

Another useful item to have handy is a 1 gram check weight which weighs 15.43 grains.

Makes a good check against your powder drop.

Check weight is essential. Also be sure your scales are level. It does make a difference. I have two electronic scales and when checking large numbers of charges that helps. But I check them with a 1010 balance beam scales, just to make sure I am getting accurate information. It is hard to have three different systems give you the same wrong information.

I ended up with 35 shot bushings in total. I was able to get almost to the grain drops with four different sizes shot just by going up or down a bushing.

Hornady/Spolar does make powder bushing in almost every size I need. Often they make them in .003 size increments. But shot bushings are much less an fine point with them. It was bad when I figured out my .410 loads were 35 pellets light out of a total of 292. Instead of a 1/2 ounce load I was getting a drop for 7/16 ounce loads. Plus the shells did not crimp well with the center often dished in. A nice .410 crimp is a thing of beauty while I was getting a sad sack of loads which would let shot dribble out in some of them.

I am not normally this anal but I have finished every honey do list my wife had. I ran 95 feet of new fence post and fence across the rear of my yard, I have cleaned out and reorganized my garage, my shop, my loading room, my gun room and changed the oil fluids and filters my tractor along with getting it ready to plant feed plots for Dove. And this is going time off is going to last another month. I think I am going to get my duplicator going and cut a few semi inlet stocks for a couple guns. That might keep me busy for a few days. Shelter in place sucks when you like to stay busy. Hope everyone stay safe until this mess all blows over.

KY, I'm wondering how close your digital scales are to you balance beam scales ? My 35$ digital scales from BPI checked the same as my BB scales so I gave the BB scales to a friend who was reloading without any scales. I finf the D scales so much quigher and easier to use, but then I'm like AZMike - only use them when I make a change.