Powder will be determined by what load you're developing and for what gauge.  I use Red Dot.  Winchester 209 primers are good to go it's what I've been using for years and years.  I order powders and primers from either Wideners or Powder Valley.



I've ordered stuff from
 http://www.gamaliel.com/cart/home.php before too, they're good people





 

Bump

I appreciate this.  I've loaded metallic cartridges for a long time but never shotgun ammo.  For the amount of shotgun I shoot just buying from Wal-Mart was cost efficient, but I'm always looking for another hobby for the cold, wet, winter months here and this looks like it's pretty inexpensive to get in to.

Great writeup! Where do you get the recycled shot?

My club contracted with http://www.leadusreclaimllc.com/ last year and saved 100,000 pounds or so of reclaimed shot for sale to club members



 

Great thread!  Thanks for posting this.

Too bad it took 25k posts to get a good one

Kidding, kidding.

Very nice job. I'm trying to run the numbers to see if I'm going to save any money reloading basic 12 gauge rounds.

I don't shoot enough shotshells to reload them at this point (maybe someday).  However, I just read every word of every step.  Good stuff as always.

twenty-three years ago I had a MEC loader, but I gave up on it because I could never get the crimps quite right



I may have to try again now...

Nice write up...wonder if we can sticky it

I was having problems with my crimps opening up, I call it "mushrooming", got a tip from reloading section of shotgunworld.com and the tip was to use little or no wad seating pressure.  I'm now using about 10 lbs of pressure and haven't had a problem with crimps opening up since



 

unfortunately back then I did not yet have the internet to readily access as a reference tool twenty-three years ago... at that time, it was still Basic, Cobol, Pascal et al; ftp and e-mail subscription lists and things such as rec.guns and alt.guns were just coming of age...



 

I have recently started back in shotshell reloading but so I can load nickel plated shot for pheasant hunting. Thanks for the article.

Do 3 gunners reload shot shells?

I'd love to roll my own shot shells but I'm short on space. My other reloading takes up all my available space.

I've had a used Mec 600 Jr. for over 20 yrs before I finally set it up after retiring.  As stated not cost effective for me to load standard shot loads as I don't shoot skeet like I did in the 90s.  I do have couple round ball molds for my cap and ball revolvers so I use range scrape lead to cast balls for buckshot loads.  I use 9 ea .311 round balls which is just under 1 oz and use any 1 oz load data.  They stack nicely in the wads.  My other mold is a single cav. .375 round ball at 6 per hull also a 1 oz load.  Only thing here is I cut the pedals off the wad for those big balls to fit in side by side in the hull.  I use range scrape so less deformation and save my pure lead for when casting and shooting the revolvers as I need to swage them into the cylinder to prevent chain firing.

Looking for a another used Mec 600 Jr but this time in .410 for mine and grandkids shotgun.  I did do some loading using Pryodex RS (black powder substitute) and a 1/2 oz #9 or 3 ea .375 RBs.  Had to cut some over shot cards out of a empty 550 rd box of .22LR (sharpened .45 ACP case with primer removed to punch cards out) and used some .45 bore patches for wadding.  Cut off the crimp and use glue over another shot card to keep shot in.

CD

Well, I never did when I shot 3 gun.  The low costs for Walmart value packs of 100 shot shells didn't justify it.

But I planned to reload for slugs - which ran about $1 each back in the day.

Lee makes (correction - they used to make one. No longer see it on their website).   a slug mold shaped like an airgun pellet, and I was planning cast those.  They are designed to ride inside a shot-wad, and seemed like they would be difficult to screw up.  Plus - they use a normal shot crimp, so there's less adjustment to the press.

Here's the thing:  factory shotgun slugs must be suitable for humanely killing deer; recoil is irrelevant when designing hunting ammo.  In contrast, I wanted economical slugs with low recoil for the sole purpose of 3gun steel or paper targets.  Low recoil = faster times on a 3gun stage.

As is, I just bought factory shotgun ammo, but reloaded all my rifle and pistol ammo on the Dillon.  Years ago, I sold my Mec650jr press, and never looked back.

I miss shotgun reloading though.  It was a lot of fun and saved me lots of $$ when I shot skeet on a regular basis.

Here is the current Lee mold they show on their site:



Anyone try loading these?

Yep.

I like pretty much any Remington unibody hull, even the super cheap all black ones with steel rims, a Cheddite primer (CCI and Win aren’t perfectly flush in Rem hulls for some reason), Winchester pink wads, and 24gr of 800x.

Shoots about 3” groups at 50 yards with a smoothbore Maverick 88 “Slugster”.

General consensus is that the 7/8th ounce ones are more accurate but I have never tried them.