I am just starting to Trap shoot and everyone in my area seems to reload Winchester AA or Remington STS shells. I ask one of the guys about Federal and he said the Federals are really tough and have a long reload life, but he gets bad crimps with his Dillon SL 900. Does anyone have an opinion about Federal hulls for reloading ???
The new Federal Gold Metal Ribbed hulls are excellent reloading hulls. With any hull you usually have some minor adjustments to your machine to load one brand to another. For instance, my Pacific DL366 loves Remington hulls. If i change to Winchester AA hulls i have to make minor adjustments to my crimping stations. Most machines are the same way. They are machines that require some tuning. good luck and welcome to the most addictive sport you'll ever try.---Matt
The ribbed hulls are great. Stay away from the smooth hulls. Federal had a problem with the plastic hull seperating from the brass on certain lot numbers.
I had at least three (new shells) do this to me. Federal stepped up and replaced all my remaining flats with the ribbed hull style. Ed
Federal hulls reload just fine, and I think they are the class of the field. Most people don't, however.
The FGM-plastic (ribbed or smooth) last longer .. incredibly long sometimes. Ribbed is preferred over somooth.
FGM Papers are legend, deservedly, and will reload a couple of times, a couple more if you're careful.
Federal Top Gun, Target & Field (Wally World) and game hulls are excellent for a couple of reloads, then toss them. They have a composition basewad, so make sure they have never been wet.
Use wads that are designed for straight-wall hulls.
I have some once fired Federal Gold Medal paper hulls for sale. Three cents apiece, boxed and ready to ship. 600 hulls are $18.00 plus shipping from 17201. PM me for more info if interested.
I'll buy your Federal Papers. If your going to be at the Westy Hogan's on Saturday, I'll buy them. Send me a e-mail @ bishop474@comcast.net and we'll meet up.
I've reloaded Federal hulls for years. I also used to have a Dillon reloader and like your friend suggested I always had trouble getting a decent shell with that loader, i.e. many smashed hulls, bad crimps, partial crimps where the shot would leak out. Could never get it right so I ran into a good deal on a Spolar with hydraulics and sold the Dillon. Still loading Federals but recently dumped all of my smoothies and am only loading ribbed hulls due to the above mentioned seperation problems.
Hard Cash, I load many different hulls. AA(old style), STS, Gun Club, Gold Medal plastic, paper and Top Gun and derivatives. My PW 800+ doesn't care which and requires no tweaking. It doesn't even care whether they're 8 pt. or 6 because I use a memory crimp starter.
Goatskin, the Top Gun, Wally World, etc. have the same rolled paper basewad as your idolized Fed. papers. They will reload as many times as any other plastic hull.
The only hulls I even have to load are G/M. I get 17 to 19 reloads from the older ribbed hulls and 12 -14 out of the smooth.
The only problem I have ever had was when I used a wad that was not the 12S3.
The hull would sometimes separate about half way down the hull. Upon inspection the hull wall was so thin from ???? my thinking was the wads( blue Dusters) were just enough smaller ID it would have leakage between the hull wall and the wad.
"The Rock", I am reloading the smooth GMs. I use the Claybuster 12S3 Clones, but don't have many wads. Are you saying only to use the 12S3 by Federal or its okay to use a 12S3 clone from DR or Claybuster? Just need some clarification before I go to buy wads again. I haven't had any separation problems yet, but I have only reloaded them about 3 times so far. I figured I would have my money's worth out of them if I could get 5 or 6 reloads and I don't shoot them in anything but a break open gun. I have heard of people having the separation problems. Is it all smoothies that are a problem or a certain time period of manufacturing?
My source of once fired smooth GM's stopped when the Grand moved from Vandalia but those smooth GM's loaded just fine. I've found that after about 8 or more reloads, the center of the shell gets thin and that's when it may blow half the hull out the barrel but that is true with the ribbed GM's too. When I reload these often fired shells, I just squeeze the center of the shell before it goes into the reloader and if it's soft, in the trash it goes.
I have heard that the later smoothies are much worse for separation but my supply is the old smoothies plus older ribbed GM's. I'm glad to know that Federal is going back to the ribbed type so any new purchases of GM's will hopefully be up to the old standard.
I've been using the DR 12S3 and 12SO clones and they work just fine in the GM's however if used in Estates or Top Guns, they take up more room I assume due to the internal dimensions of the shells.
Would you tell me some more about the memory crimp starter that you mentioned above? I have a P/W 800 plus and have the 6 and 8 crimp starter that came with it. Is the memory crimp starter an aftermarket item for the P/W loaders?
If anyone would like to buy once fired Federal Top Gun hulls, my A.I.M. team goes through 2500 to 3000 per week. All funds generated from the sale of these hulls would go right back to the team.
Contact me if you are interested.
Thanks,
Ben Loveless,
goatskin is very correct. I use a lot of Claybuster clone 12S3 wads. The over all dia. of the wad is larger than Duster or AA wads. The clone 12S3 are the same dia. as the Federals.
Still I watch the hulls closely upon ejection after 15+- reloads.
Thanks Jim, I will use them and keep an eye on them. John E.
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