Hull buckling
Hope someone can give me some insight here. I'm using a PW 800 plus loading AA hulls and the hulls are buckling in the middle when a downrange blue duster (AA replacement) wad is used but not when a windjammer wad is used. I adjusted the wad ram per the directions to the point where the die does not move when the lever is down. The wad/shot levels visually look good on hulls that will eventually buckle and the crimp actually looks good when they come out buckled. I looked at the windjammer and downrange wads side by side and they appear to be the same overall height and the wad cup height appears to be the same. Any idea why I'm getting buckled hulls and what I can do to fix it? Thanks.
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It is a red AA HS hull. Why would the stack height be higher if the wads are the same height? The shape of the underside of the wad is different so maybe it sits on the powder different? Do I need to ram the wad in further?
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You need a wad from the Downrange DRA series of wads(The DRA series has a shorter spacer between the cup and the bottom of the wad.) or less powder or a more dense powder. You can also try throwing less shot. The next size wad up in shot drop will do the same thing.It makes more room inside.
You can try increasing the amount of precrimp if your hull carriers will allow it. There is too much stuff in the hull that your crimper is trying to compress and the sidewall of the hull will not stand for it. It is nowhere near as strong as the old WWAA CF hull. The interior basewad does nothing to give support the the hull walls and the sidewall buckles about 1" above the base due to that.
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I appreciate the feedback. For what it's worth, I'm trying to follow the recipe to recreate a 3 dram AA, 20.2 grains of supertarget, AA replacement wad, 1 1/8 of shot. That's the recipe I got off of the Hodgdon site, well it was 20 grains but I can't imagine the extra 0.2 is significant. I'll try playing with the crimp and see if I can fix it.
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FWIW, Your load is EXACTLY what I use with no troubles whatsoever, except that I use the old style AACF hulls and load on a MEC 9000. I did try the load in an AAHS hull some years ago and found it wouldn't crimp properly. I think it would have been OK with the DRA wad but I never did try to figure it out as I am a long way from running out of the AACF hulls and I didn't want to have to adjust the machine.
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The Down Range Blue Duster wad maybe stiffer and not compress as easy as the Windjammer compresses.
The old compression formed AA hulls were much stronger than the newer AA HS hulls. The straight wall of the AA HS hull is very weak right above the tapered insert inside the hull. If you have a snug fit and the wad does not compress easily the AA HS hull will compress or buckle before the wad does.
With Clays Powder and Vectan AS powder in Win AA HS hulls I used 1-1/8 oz wads to load 1 oz of shot or 1 oz wads to load 7/8 oz of shot.
The old compression formed AA hulls were much stronger than the newer AA HS hulls. The straight wall of the AA HS hull is very weak right above the tapered insert inside the hull. If you have a snug fit and the wad does not compress easily the AA HS hull will compress or buckle before the wad does.
With Clays Powder and Vectan AS powder in Win AA HS hulls I used 1-1/8 oz wads to load 1 oz of shot or 1 oz wads to load 7/8 oz of shot.
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The bottom of the Blue Duster was may be catching on the top edge of the base wad. Also check how deep your crimp is and do not put too much roll on your final crimp. I would back off the adjustment for roll on the final crimp and I bet your problem goes away. And your crimp does not have to be deeper then the thickness of a penny. Tom
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Like others have said you are most likely out of room on the inside of the case. The old AA CF style have more capacity and that is why Rapid gets nice loads. Just because two wads are the same height doesn't mean they are constructed the same. One may have a slightly larger shot cup and less of a crush section so the shot sits lower in the case and will help solve your problem.
I still like those old CF hulls much better than the new HS but have found components that work well in them and they are still a good hull for reloading.
I still like those old CF hulls much better than the new HS but have found components that work well in them and they are still a good hull for reloading.
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While several of the other respondents are either not reading your entire post or not comprehending your post, I will try.
First, the crush section on a windjammer is considerably more flexible than a Duster style wad. Windjammers original concept/design and marketing processed it's capabilities to load a multitude of recipe concepts in varied makes of hulls. If you do a side cutaway of a Duster wad hull and of a Windjammer you'll quickly discover what I am staying.
Second: quite possibly you have to much wad in a Duster. I would try a DRXL if I m remembering correctly as the wad you need.
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While the windjammer and the blue duster may have the same overall heights, it is the length of the part between the powder cup and the shot cup, the crush section, that is important. I'm guessing the windjammer has a slightly shorter crush section than the blue duster. The DRA wads Curly mentioned are specifically made for use in the AAHS hulls and also have a bit shorter crush section.
This is a well known issue and there are several solutions, mentioned above, that entail shortening the stack height. I'm also guessing you are using a bulky powder, such as Promo, Red Dot, Clay Dot or Clays. Going to a denser powder, such as Titewad or WSH, also will shorten the stack height. Using 1 oz. of shot instead of 1 1/8 will work, too. Or a 1 1/4 oz. wad.
This is a well known issue and there are several solutions, mentioned above, that entail shortening the stack height. I'm also guessing you are using a bulky powder, such as Promo, Red Dot, Clay Dot or Clays. Going to a denser powder, such as Titewad or WSH, also will shorten the stack height. Using 1 oz. of shot instead of 1 1/8 will work, too. Or a 1 1/4 oz. wad.
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While the fit of that DR-XL wad might be theoretically fine, those wads(Any DR-XL variety) tend to trap air under the wad in the WWAAHS hull and that compressed air will push the wad and shot up after the shot gets dropped. This sometimes causes shot leakage out the top of the hull and/or shot stuck in the crimped area or on top of the crimp.
The wad climbing out of the hull only happens with the HS hull because of that super slick basewad insert in the hull. If you use that combination without seeing that problem, you are either lucky or just not looking!😄
I have the same type problem with the HS shell. I will load shells with the exact same load, exact same press settings and in that same run get great looking shells with good crimps and then the very next shell will come out with a wrinkle and the third shell will be perfect. When I do get a wrinkled shell I will put it in a box with the other wrinkles. The non-wrinkled shells are boxed by themselves. These are all 1 oz #8 shells at about 1250 FPS (according to the loading info from the maker) using 18.2 gr.Titewad and Claybuster (Windjammer clone) wads with a Win 209 primer.
The wrinkled shells shoot just fine but once they are fired they are put in the trash. They will not be reloaded. The good shells are reloaded but then again on the next loading 10 to 20% of them will come out wrinkled. The wrinkling seems to be taking place in crimp finish. These are done on a 366. The unusual part is that I had the same issue when loading these on an Apex 3.1. That is why I shifted them to the 366. The problem followed the shell and not the press. The load was the same. The wrinkle does not seem to happen as often with a shell that has been loaded only two or three times but becomes more frequent when shells may ge getting a bit older. These are HS that have been segregated as to which particular version of HS they are. The problem occurs across all versions but, possibly because they are older, the earlier version do show a slightly higher percentage of wrinkled shells for me.
I suspect that when the shell gets fired a bit more times the plastic may stretch or otherwise become weakened making the wrinkle more likely to occur. Shells are checked prior to loading and splits in the mouths or pin holes in the mouth will send the shell to the trash.
The wrinkled shells shoot just fine but once they are fired they are put in the trash. They will not be reloaded. The good shells are reloaded but then again on the next loading 10 to 20% of them will come out wrinkled. The wrinkling seems to be taking place in crimp finish. These are done on a 366. The unusual part is that I had the same issue when loading these on an Apex 3.1. That is why I shifted them to the 366. The problem followed the shell and not the press. The load was the same. The wrinkle does not seem to happen as often with a shell that has been loaded only two or three times but becomes more frequent when shells may ge getting a bit older. These are HS that have been segregated as to which particular version of HS they are. The problem occurs across all versions but, possibly because they are older, the earlier version do show a slightly higher percentage of wrinkled shells for me.
I suspect that when the shell gets fired a bit more times the plastic may stretch or otherwise become weakened making the wrinkle more likely to occur. Shells are checked prior to loading and splits in the mouths or pin holes in the mouth will send the shell to the trash.
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Growing up and learning reloading from my dad, with I can't even begin to figure out how many hundreds of thousands of reloads I have reloaded.
THE AA was the hull hands down! Federal papers were the next best thing. At least for hunting all other hulls were junk, crimps didn't hold and all sorts of problems that made reloading them just not worth the effort to reload.
As soon as I got into register trap shooting I started having the hull buckling problems with once fired AAs. I didn't cure it totally but would get less of it by lubing up Federal papers with graphite and loading at least 5 if the lubed hulls. Then for a few hundred shells I wouldn't get much buckling. But I was also having crimps failing Which had never been a AA issue before then.
Then one day every new AA hull I loaded was left with a hole where they weren't folding to the center. Soon after that I was chatting with two guys that rebuilt MEC reloaders not only chatting but being the extra hand when needed. Every person that came by, this was at a state shoot, was asking the same thing of the guys working, how come my AA reload has a hole in the center?
Soon after this I learned that Remington uses compression formed hills.
A rambling story on how and why I came to believe that the double AA brand isn't worth the effort anymore. The been counters are being pretty successful in destroying yet another great product. Why do I say this? The competition is being very successful using the proven compression formed procces but Winchester is cost saving and turning to junk.
Al
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I appreciate all of the responses. Seems pretty certain it’s a too much stuff and not enough space problem. To me the most likely thing is that I may be crushing the windjammer wad a bit more and allowing more room at the top, the WJ is flimsier than the blue duster. Probably won’t fix it but I’m going to try an adjustment at the final crimp and see if that helps. Even if that works I’ll probably try picking up a bag of the XL or equivalent wads when I get a chance and see if they’ll work. I think I’m seating the wad against the powder now so I don’t want to jam it down any further even if that helps the buckling problem. Just to answer the above, this is an every hull issue with the BD and never over 100 shells with the WJ wad, it’s not intermittent. Thanks again for all the responses.
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There is another probable solution. IF you have a ton of "stuff" on hand that needs to be used up, think about buying a 1 1/16oz shot bushing. It will most likely give you enough room to work with what you have.
Use the same load data. Use up your wads, keep the bushing for later issues. Eventually you will need it.
AND I promise, you WILL LIKE what the 1 1/16 load does.
Jim
Use the same load data. Use up your wads, keep the bushing for later issues. Eventually you will need it.
AND I promise, you WILL LIKE what the 1 1/16 load does.
Jim
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