Ollin Magnetic Digiscoping System

12ga 2-3/4" upland bird load data?

MThuntr

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A friend has been playing hell to find upland bird loads. I have maybe 3 boxes which should last the next couple years at the rate I'm going however I've been tasked by my group of people with loading "heavy game" loads. My buddy acquired 200 Fiocchi 2-3/4" hulls. These are factory new primed with Fiocchi 616 primers.

I believe the want is a 1-1/4 oz payload of either #5 or #6 though I believe the group is open to some really fast light loads or some stout 1-3/8oz loads too. These guys are particularly fond of fast, heavy loads (it's the American way). I see Alliant has Blue Dot with a variety of wads at around 1300 which I think would work though I know someone is going to ask if there are ways to get them faster.

I'm open to recommendations
 
My experience using lighter loads on dove, as well as 1.5oz loads on cranes, is that lower velocities actually perform better at longer ranges. Yes, buffering and hard/plated shot help, but I’m not convinced they help enough. With lead I load or buy things in the 1100-1150fps range.

I don’t have much experience on birds of intermediate size, but if I ever go pheasant hunting again, I’ll likely load my 1100fps crane load with smaller shot.
 
Upland game could be anything from doves and quail to pheasant's or bigger. When I shot a 12ga I also loaded for it. My load was always 1 1/8 oz at 1200fps. But depending on game I loaded 7 1/2's or 6's. Had to many shot at pheasants that didn't just knock them down. Went to 6's and problem went away. 6"s also worked fine on quail, chukars and huns! When I'd go chukar hunting where I might find pheasant's we used the 6 shot. If I didn't expect to come across pheasant I'd stick to 7 1/2 shot. Not a huge difference but exercise for the brain! Years before that I hunted ducks and grouse in Montana, pre loading days. Grouse got 1oz 7 1/2's at 1200fps and ducks got 1 1/4oz 6shot at whatever the velocity of factory was back then 1 1/4oz loads really kicked more and didn't kill any bird any deader!
 
I load some lead for block management and use the same recipe for range shells, just larger shot. I have a MEC progressive loader. A word of advice on MEC: their on line loading specs lean seriously to the cautious side. Use the specs from the powder company and check the weights on a good powder scale. I think you'll find you need to bump up two bushing sizes from MEC specs to get the proper powder weight. Their bars also throw light shot loads. I honed mine out with a Dremel tool to get full weight. If you have an adjustable bar, you're in good shape.

I use Titewad powder with Claybuster pink wads and #6 shot. Gives a nice full crimp using cheap recycled 6-star crimp Chedite made hulls. #5 shot would be great for pheasants but none available. Damn lucky to find a bag of #6. I load an ounce and an eighth which is plenty. The heavy fast loads do nothing better except develop a flinch and make follow up shots more difficult, ESPECIALLY when shooting a fixed breech O/U ... which every upland aficionado MUST have under his arm. I shoot a very heavy sixty year-old A5 Magnum Twelve auto that I significantly modified to cycle light one ounce trap loads VERY comfortably. And I shoot it very well. Just discovered it will still cycle 3" steel shells with the 2.75" barrel spring and spacer although the recoil is quite noticable. Not doing so great on follow up shots (albeit rarely needed). Three inch steel is all that's available and even these that I have are an old box of #4 bought from a friend. Anyway, your buddies will do MUCH better shooting uplands with 1 1/8 oz lead at 1200 fps than 1 1/4 oz at 1300 fps. Yes, speed kills when using steel for waterfowl. When shooting lead at uplands, speed and heavy loads just kills your shoulder. Been there, done that. Also, I think you'll find 1 1/8 oz range wads are easier to find.

A tip for reloading used straight-wall cheap hulls: I press the base of the wad against the edge of my loading bench top to flare it a bit before it goes in the shell. My reloads go bang with clarity every time. Without flaring the oomph can sometimes be inconsistent.
 
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I load some lead for block management and use the same recipe for range shells, just larger shot. I have a MEC progressive loader. A word of advice on MEC: their on line loading specs lean seriously to the cautious side. Use the specs from the powder company and check the weights on a good powder scale. I think you'll find you need to bump up two bushing sizes from MEC specs to get the proper powder weight. Their bars also throw light shot loads. I honed mine out with a Dremel tool to get full weight. If you have an adjustable bar, you're in good shape.

I use Titewad powder with Claybuster pink wads and #6 shot. Gives a nice full crimp using cheap recycled 6-star crimp Chedite made hulls. #5 shot would be great for pheasants but none available. Damn lucky to find a bag of #6. I load an ounce and an eighth which is plenty. The heavy fast loads do nothing better except develop a flinch and make follow up shots more difficult, ESPECIALLY when shooting a fixed breech O/U ... which every upland aficionado MUST have under his arm. I shoot a very heavy sixty year-old A5 Magnum Twelve auto that I significantly modified to cycle light one ounce trap loads VERY comfortably. And I shoot it very well. Just discovered it will still cycle 3" steel shells with the 2.75" barrel spring and spacer although the recoil is quite noticable. Not doing so great on follow up shots (albeit rarely needed). Three inch steel is all that's available and even these that I have are an old box of #4 bought from a friend. Anyway, your buddies will do MUCH better shooting uplands with 1 1/8 oz lead at 1200 fps than 1 1/4 oz at 1300 fps. Yes, speed kills when using steel for waterfowl. When shooting lead at uplands, speed and heavy loads just kills your shoulder. Been there, done that. Also, I think you'll find 1 1/8 oz range wads are easier to find.

A tip for reloading used straight-wall cheap hulls: I press the base of the wad against the edge of my loading bench top to flare it a bit before it goes in the shell. My reloads go bang with clarity every time. Without flaring the oomph can sometimes be inconsistent.
In my experience MEC bushings and charge bars work almost exactly according their charts WHEN USED IN THEIR SINGLE STAGE PRESSES. When you use a MEC single stage press it gets jostled around by pulling the handle six times for each loaded round. This action settles shot and powder into the bushings and charge bars. They DEFINITELY throw both shot and powder light if you get a new powder charge and/or shot charge with each pull of the handle(like in a progressive).

On that A-5 I’d be careful in the long term with using heavy loads without the proper friction ring and spacers in place. Having it setup for loads heavier than you’re shooting will only keep it from cycling, BUT having it set up for lighter loads than you’re shooting results in excess felt recoil(which we can usually live with), cracked fore ends, damaged bolts, broken extractors, and cracking the wooden dowel(which is getting pretty old) that holds the bolt return spring. Parts for those aren’t getting any easier to find.
 
In my experience MEC bushings and charge bars work almost exactly according their charts WHEN USED IN THEIR SINGLE STAGE PRESSES. When you use a MEC single stage press it gets jostled around by pulling the handle six times for each loaded round. This action settles shot and powder into the bushings and charge bars. They DEFINITELY throw both shot and powder light if you get a new powder charge and/or shot charge with each pull of the handle(like in a progressive).

On that A-5 I’d be careful in the long term with using heavy loads without the proper friction ring and spacers in place. Having it setup for loads heavier than you’re shooting will only keep it from cycling, BUT having it set up for lighter loads than you’re shooting results in excess felt recoil(which we can usually live with), cracked fore ends, damaged bolts, broken extractors, and cracking the wooden dowel(which is getting pretty old) that holds the bolt return spring. Parts for those aren’t getting any easier to find.
My Magnum Twelve has been significantly modified. Went to plastic after it wore out two sets of wood. Having the barrel ring cycle against fore end wood was a serious design flaw. Miroku tried to fix it by adding more wood and then a crossbolt through the end. The fore ends still cracked. My second one with crossbolt shattered in my hands while shooting clays. An interesting experience! The tang screw holding buttstock on is also a design screw up. Can't drill a hole through the weakest part of the stock and not expect it to eventually fail, especially in a heavy recoiling shotgun. The tang screw is unfortunately essential for disassembly to clean trigger group. Anyway, switching to plastic took care of those issues permanently.

The action spring plugs on both my 1961 and 1971 A5s are plastic. They butt against the inside of stock when it's in place and screwed on. Pretty much unbreakable.

I did happen to bring the Magnum friction brake and rings in my ammo box drawer and have switched to them. Recoil is noticable but definitely not knocking my socks off. My only concern is the 2 3/4 barrel spring won't take the compression and break. Seems to be handling the heavy loads okay. I can switch to the backup Light Twelve if I need to. It is fixed modified which is pretty tight for steel ... if I could even find steel shells that size. The Magnum has Miroku barrel with tubes. I'm shooting 3" #4 steel with skeet choke and doing very well. I had a machinist make an adapter sleeve so the 3" gun would accept 2 3/4" barrel spring. The 3" spring is too heavy for reliable cycling of light range loads.

Are you checking those MEC powder charges with a good scale? I let my loader handle loose after every cycle so it slams upward and fills the bushing. I still find the bushings are way off. Same when I was using my single stage MEC. I suspect it varies from powder to powder. When I first started loading Titewad using the MEC specs, the shells were so poopless they rarely cycled at the range, especially with 1 oz loads. Then I checked the powder and shot weights on my electronic scale. WAY off! Anyone who wants to do any amount of reloading, especially if changing loads, should get an adjustable bar and good scale.

Edit: A good tip given to me by a fella at the trap club: run a static free dryer sheet through powder bushings and loader drop tube. It really helps with charging consistency.
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My Magnum Twelve has been significantly modified. Went to plastic after it wore out two sets of wood. Having the barrel ring cycle against fore end wood was a serious design flaw. Miroku tried to fix it by adding more wood and then a crossbolt through the end. The fore ends still cracked. My second one with crossbolt shattered in my hands while shooting clays. An interesting experience! The tang screw holding buttstock on is also a design screw up. Can't drill a hole through the weakest part of the stock and not expect it to eventually fail, especially in a heavy recoiling shotgun. The tang screw is unfortunately essential for disassembly to clean trigger group. Anyway, switching to plastic took care of those issues permanently.

The action spring plugs on both my 1961 and 1971 A5s are plastic. They butt against the inside of stock when it's in place and screwed on. Pretty much unbreakable.

I did happen to bring the Magnum friction brake and rings in my ammo box drawer and have switched to them. Recoil is noticable but definitely not knocking my socks off. My only concern is the 2 3/4 barrel spring won't take the compression and break. Seems to be handling the heavy loads okay. I can switch to the backup Light Twelve if I need to. It is fixed modified which is pretty tight for steel ... if I could even find steel shells that size. The Magnum has Miroku barrel with tubes. I'm shooting 3" #4 steel with skeet choke and doing very well. I had a machinist make an adapter sleeve so the 3" gun would accept 2 3/4" barrel spring. The 3" spring is too heavy for reliable cycling of light range loads.

Are you checking those MEC powder charges with a good scale? I let my loader handle loose after every cycle so it slams upward and fills the bushing. I still find the bushings are way off. Same when I was using my single stage MEC. I suspect it varies from powder to powder. When I first started loading Titewad using the MEC specs, the shells were so poopless they rarely cycled at the range, especially with 1 oz loads. Then I checked the powder and shot weights on my electronic scale. WAY off! Anyone who wants to do any amount of reloading, especially if changing loads, should get an adjustable bar and good scale.

Edit: A good tip given to me by a fella at the trap club: run a static free dryer sheet through powder bushings and loader drop tube. It really helps with charging consistency.
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Yes I always check what the bushing is dropping with a scale before loading, and periodically during. Letting the handle come up hard once on your progressive is not the same as letting it come up and down six times on a single-stage. Six pulls of the handle for every shot charge and powder charge. I’m not saying that you should change anything. You absolutely should not. Weigh what it throws the way that you load it, and use whatever bushing gives you the correct charge. Side note. I hate my universal charge bar and only use it when I can’t find the bushing I need.

You need to start reloading your steel shot! You’re probably running quite a bit over pressure spec by shooting 3” steel through a 2 3/4” chamber, especially an old chamber that has the more abrupt forcing cone than modern 2 3/4” chambers. Being 3” long AFTER firing, when the hull opens up, it’s probably getting into the 2 3/4” forcing cone, which I would think would raise pressure significantly.

I’m not sure what year mine came from, but the bolt spring is guided by a wooden dowel and held on with a metal pin through the dowel. I try not to abuse it.

There is a sweet little 2 3/4” steel load in a Cheddite hull that gets 1 1/8oz of steel right around 1450-1500fps, and for some reason seems to pattern abnormally well in almost anyone’s gun. There are few if any 3” steel shot loads that outperform it by enough to matter. With ASteel powder you have to weigh each charge individually. Feel free to pm for data.

The majority of my shotgun loading is for cranes(on which lead is legal here) and geese, so with large shot and/or steel shot, I weigh all of those shot charges individually. I make a scoop that dips 2-5 pellets less than I’m looking for, and drop pellets in till the scale reads what I’m looking for. For dove loads, I usually have no problems using their bushing chart. Again, I totally believe that the chart would be wrong for a progressive press.

Did you wear out two sets of wood, or did you crack those fore ends from shooting magnum loads with less friction on the magazine tube than you’re supposed to when shooting magnum loads, and possibly even having a weaker spring than it was supposed to have, or maybe even from shooting 3” steel loads in a 2 3/4” chamber that was made before steel shot existed?
 
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Yes I always check what the bushing is dropping with a scale before loading, and periodically during. Letting the handle come up hard once on your progressive is not the same as letting it come up and down six times on a single-stage. Six pulls of the handle for every shot charge and powder charge. I’m not saying that you should change anything. You absolutely should not. Weigh what it throws the way that you load it, and use whatever bushing gives you the correct charge. Side note. I hate my universal charge bar and only use it when I can’t find the bushing I need.

You need to start reloading your steel shot! You’re probably running quite a bit over pressure spec by shooting 3” steel through a 2 3/4” chamber, especially an old chamber that has the more abrupt forcing cone than modern 2 3/4” chambers. Being 3” long AFTER firing, when the hull opens up, it’s probably getting into the 2 3/4” forcing cone, which I would think would raise pressure significantly.

I’m not sure what year mine came from, but the bolt spring is guided by a wooden dowel and held on with a metal pin through the dowel. I try not to abuse it.

There is a sweet little 2 3/4” steel load in a Cheddite hull that gets 1 1/8oz of steel right around 1450-1500fps, and for some reason seems to pattern abnormally well in almost anyone’s gun. There are few if any 3” steel shot loads that outperform it by enough to matter. With ASteel powder you have to weigh each charge individually. Feel free to pm for data.

The majority of my shotgun loading is for cranes(on which lead is legal here) and geese, so with large shot and/or steel shot, I weigh all of those shot charges individually. I make a scoop that dips 2-5 pellets less than I’m looking for, and drop pellets in till the scale reads what I’m looking for. For dove loads, I usually have no problems using their bushing chart. Again, I totally believe that the chart would be wrong for a progressive press.

Did you wear out two sets of wood, or did you crack those fore ends from shooting magnum loads with less friction on the magazine tube than you’re supposed to when shooting magnum loads, and possibly even having a weaker spring than it was supposed to have, or maybe even from shooting 3” steel loads in a 2 3/4” chamber that was made before steel shot existed?
Sorry you misunderstood. The Magnum Twelve is a 3" gun = 3" receiver and barrel but now with 2 3/4" barrel spring. The surprise was it would eject the 3" shells with that barrel spring. No worries about pressure from 3" shells. The gun is designed to take it. The factory 3" barrel spring is just too stiff to reliably cycle light 2 3/4" loads, no matter what arrangement friction brakes I tried. It now works flawlessly with even 1 oz loads. I switch back to heavier spring and brakes when I start goose hunting. God knows why I switched back to light spring before I left. Dumb. The heavier setup will cycle lead pheasant loads just fine.
 
Sorry you misunderstood. The Magnum Twelve is a 3" gun = 3" receiver and barrel but now with 2 3/4" barrel spring. The surprise was it would eject the 3" shells with that barrel spring. No worries about pressure from 3" shells. The gun is designed to take it. The factory 3" barrel spring is just too stiff to reliably cycle light 2 3/4" loads, no matter what arrangement friction brakes I tried. It now works flawlessly with even 1 oz loads. I switch back to heavier spring and brakes when I start goose hunting. God knows why I switched back to light spring before I left. Dumb. The heavier setup will cycle lead pheasant loads just fine.
That all sounds more reasonable.
 
That all sounds more reasonable.
The wood on my A5 broke down from normal shooting. Not uncommon. In 1949 when Remingon redesigned its Model 11 clone of A5 as the 11-48 they fixed the issues with wood. Fore end was lined with a steel tube through to the magazine cap so the barrel ring was no longer slamming into wood. They did away with tang screw by changing the trigger group. Stock is attached to the action spring tube by a nut accessed through a hollow behind the recoil pad, similar to 870. Val Browning made some marvelous modifications to his dad's design. Always baffled me why he didn't fix the obvious problems with wood.
 
The wood on my A5 broke down from normal shooting. Not uncommon. In 1949 when Remingon redesigned its Model 11 clone of A5 as the 11-48 they fixed the issues with wood. Fore end was lined with a steel tube through to the magazine cap so the barrel ring was no longer slamming into wood. They did away with tang screw by changing the trigger group. Stock is attached to the action spring tube by a nut accessed through a hollow behind the recoil pad, similar to 870. Val Browning made some marvelous modifications to his dad's design. Always baffled me why he didn't fix the obvious problems with wood.
Yeah the fore ends cracking was a super common problem, but it was also usually attributed to incorrect use of the friction rings/washers. That’s not to say it isn’t a mighty thin piece of wood.
 
Thanks for the input guys.

Update...seems the order for hulls was actually for a backorder which the company now states there is a likelihood of the order being canceled since estimated in stock is past their 60 day backorder policy. I have lots of AA and Rem STS once fired shells I took from a range years ago. Hodgdon load data suggests Longshot as an option with their 1-1/8 to 1-1/4 loads and I have plenty of that. The only issue would be finding 209 primers...I need some for my inline anyway so I guess I'll wait until I see a sleeve before worrying about loading.
 
Fiocchi hulls acquired of Thanksgiving. Couldn't find appropriate wads or load data for 1-1/4oz loads without diving too deep so I made some 1-1/8oz loads of #5s. Load data from Hodgdon seems fast but they're a trusted source. Not a terrible crimp for literally my 5th ever shell from this press (RCBS Mini Grand I purchased like 15years ago but never used)

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