I cannot seem to find recipes for low pressure 20 guage: could someone point me in the right direction? Or, do I need to even worry about such a thing.? I am presently loading low pressure for 16 gauge, from the 16 gauge society from decades ago.
Thank you
Randy
I found one using longshot powder
RZ
What do you define as low pressure?
Approximately the pressure of black powder, less than 7-8000 psi
I used 800x couple decades ago with my 20 Lefever H gun. Several 7/8 oz loads less than 8k
I just took a quick look at the Alliant site and found this loading:
Remington Hull
--- 7/8 1,155 Rem 209P Unique Orange Duster 16.5 7,700 Approx. psi Common hull, wad, and powder
If you have a supply of a federal 20 target hulls look at Winchester 572. 1150 fps/ 7/8 ounce 7,000 psi. I load this for a 2 1/2” roll crimped low pressure load. My other favorite uses 800X which is no longer available sadly. But 572 is fairly easy to find. I use Winchester 209 primers but a similar cheddite primer load works as well.
Federal hulls are often tossed at Sporting Clay courses. One trap boy knew I used them and saved them for me. Asked me if I still needed them? I bought three target boxes for $30.00 and the thoughtful fellow even saved me the boxes. Just about 1,800 once fired hulls was a great find. I’ll load half as 2 1/2” rolled crimped and the other as 2 3/4” low pressure hulls.
Other powders like Unique work but any Alliant Powder has been hard to locate. I just bought an eight pound bottle of Unique and was told it was the first eight pounder that they had had in two years. That’s a supply chain problem and just about all Alliant Powders are difficult to find. So look for Winchester powders which have been much more available.
I like the Remington hull. They measure about 2 9/16”. I trim them back to 2 1/2” and load them with regular crimp. The problem is Remington primers have been hard to find for two plus years and more costly than hens teeth. Last price I saw was well over $100/1,000. That hurts as I still have some on hand that I overpaid for at $28.00/1,000. Little did I know.
It is disconcerting how primers and powder are so scarce. Perhaps the companies that make those things are assuming perpetual war is where the profit is. I wonder what the governments are paying?
I am attaching results of ballistic testing I had done by Precision reloading. All test loads were 20-gauge, 2.5-inch shells using Cheddite hulls and Cheddite primers. Powders used were WSF and Longshot. Some were 7/8 ounce (382 grains) and some 3/4 ounce (328 grains) of lead shot. All of the wads were obtained from BPI, and all shells were roll crimped, except the batch of shells I had obtained from Polywad, which were fold crimped. Some of these loads gave pressures in the range you indicated.
file:///C:/Users/edwar/Downloads/Edward%20Purvis%206-24-22.pdf
file:///C:/Users/edwar/Downloads/Edward%20Purvis%208-26-22.pdf
Playing Hooky,
Can't see the attachments
Ithaca1, they can be viewed by using copy and paste to put them in your browser's address window and then hitting "enter" key. I'm sorry but I haven't been able to figure out how to include attachments or links in my posts on this site. I am all ears if you can tell me how. If you can't see them by the above method, I think I can send them to you by email if you PM me with it.
Playing Hooky
The attachments lead to the C drive on your computer. They are not otherwise posted on the net somewhere.
[email]
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/QgrcJHrtrSdKxqbGzVQnwzgbfpCLLfsTgpG[/email]
Sorry for all my fumbling around trying to attach the results of pressure testing of 20 gauge loads, some of which gave low pressures in the range you indicated. Hope this link to email containing the two PDF files is accessible.