Go to the Hodgdon.com website, choose the reloading data center on the menu. If any of the hulls you want to try have load data available, then you can reload them. Or try the same thing with another powder manufacturers website. Sometimes it is tricky: Hodgdon says no data when you choose STS hulls, but then has pages of data for the "STS,Nitro, and Gun club" hulls as a choice.

Most will start with STS, Gun Clubs, or AAHS because they are readily available to collect, and have lots of load data for lots of different components. If you were ever near Phoenix I would give you a pile of any or all of them to get you started. Do you know any reloaders? It only takes a few years of saving hulls to end up with more than you need, you would gain hulls and a mentor at the same time.

 

I have:
Winchester Universal
Federal Dove and Target
Federal Field and Target
Winchester Super X
And a few Estate Super Super Sport Competition Target Loads

Junk
Junk
Junk
Meh
Junk

As tomk2 and most the rest of us reloaders will tell you, STS, Nitro 27 or Nitro Gold, and AA -HS are the best, with Gun Clubs being good also-basically the same as STS, but with steel bases instead of brass.

 

In order of my personal preference:
1.) STS/Nitro
2.) Gun Clubs
3.) Federal Grands - White plastic hull
4.) Federal / Estate with the white plastic base wad. They come in lots of different packaging and colors but it is the same hull and uses the same components to reload.

As a note I do not load AA hulls. AA hulls are excellent to reload, possibly the best. They require different settings on the press. The Remington and Federal hulls require very little if any adjustment of the press to switch back and forth. The Winchester AA uses very different settings and can be troublesome in getting the proper stack height depending on the powder being used. At my club, AA's are plentiful these days. If I was starting over again, I might choose AA's instead of Remington/Federal. For now I am fully stocked with Rem/Fed hulls.
When starting out, pick either Win AA hulls or all the rest. Stick with your choice until you are well versed in the adjustments of your press. Then you can branch out to other hulls.

I would not recommend learning on any of the following hulls: Winchester Universal, Winchester Super X, any Federal hull with a paper base. These hulls can be reloaded but it will take some work. The four hulls I listed as preferred will load much easier and can be found quite easily. The Federal paper base, reloads fine but it is an old hull no longer in production. You may not be able to source enough to be worth the time collecting.

Be Safe, Shoot Well.

 

AA's should not require different settings to effectively load provided correct company's are utilized in the formation. I will say AA's (HS) are not as forgiving with recipes as several of the other hulls.

I do not change settings on my Spolar and Mecs and they load GM plastics, Gun Clubs, STS and AA's (HS).

 

What type of reloader were you using
Steve

 

No idea where you live but if you were closer to the St. Louis area I would give you some once fired AA for starters.
Better than those you listed.

 

Getcha some hulls like any of these

I prefer the Gold Medals

DGH

 

I have loaded all the ones on your list and many others, all were a success, but some are a lot better than others. My top 4 are all I load now, but I save some of the others just incase.
1. Rem STS/Nitro style - run a little smoother than GC
2. Gun Clubs (GC)
3. AA (a tie with GC really)
4. Fed Grand style, white or Maroon
5. Fed Top Guns
6. Estate
7. Rio (from here down are Junk, but will work)
8. Win super x etc.

 

As many mentioned above. The hulls they recommended are great. I started reloading this year. The AA’s “learning curve” can be rather difficult, especially if you have a mixed bag of CF and HS.
The Remington STS/Nitro/GC are much more user friendly.


I’ve come to find in my novice experience, find a recipe based on components you have. then find a hull that best suits your needs.

 

Any hull is reloadable. Not all hulls are a quality built hull. I only want to reload a hull with a real brass base. Brass it the best material used for the construction on shells. You will have far less problems with your loads when you use a hull with a brass base. Their currently are only 2 companies that make a brass hull today. Remington makes the STS. Winchester makes the AAHS hull. Both are excellent shells. Federal uses the Remington hull in their new line of shells which have a brass base. Since they are now owned by the same company. Their are differences between the two hulls. So you should pick one hull, and load it. Winchester hulls load better with Winchester brand powders. The Win. case is a tad smaller inside. Winchester powders are very dense, so they take up less space. So their powders fit best inside their case. STS hulls have more room, and can use most any brand of powder. So it more versatile. Now if you can't get your hands on either of these brands of hulls. The only other real good hull for reloading the cheaper economy shells that have a tin based base. Would be the Remington Gun Clubs. They have a tin based steel base, but are very reloadable. You can get lots of reloads out of the same hull. Many of the other cheap hulls, have very thin plastic hull walls. Most are only good for a load or two. Then you have to toss them in the trash can. With powder very hard to get right now. I'm not sure if you can get any dense Win. powders to reload the AAHS hulls? So what kind of components you can get right now, will make a big difference in what hull you can reload. Good Luck to Ya. break em all jeff

PS you can load the economy line of Federal hulls. But, they make 3 different types of bases. All of which can get different stack heights. So they tend to be trickier to reload, but are do-able if you get the right components to do so. break em all Jeff

 

I have reloaded AA's most of my life with no issues. When it comes to recipe, follow the books on which wad to use. My dad reloaded what we would call "throw away's" and didn't have a correct wad for the shell. I shot them during during league night and was wondering why I was behind all my shots. Chronograph those shells and they were around 650 fps instead of 1200 fps. Good luck!

 

My advise is to stay away from hulls that have a cardboard base wad. That can (and have) come out and lodge in the barrel. I put a bulge in a barrel years ago. If you do load them, check the barrel after each shot to be sure it is clear before the next shot.

 

Hi Gordy -

As you have heard several times, the shells/hulls you have in your inventory are not well-regarded by those of us who reload. I have reloaded the Winchester Universals, but they don't reload nearly as well as, say, a Remington Gun Club hull, not to mention the better quality Remington STS or Nitro 27's or Winchester AA hulls.

The tricky thing these days is finding a recipe that produces a good reload using components that you either have on hand or can acquire! It may be easier to get your hands on fired hulls than on a powder that will produce a quality reload in a hull that you already have. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes time to find a recipe that makes a consistently good reload and right now, it's a challenge to have the supplies on hand to be able to try a variety of published recipes until you find one that works well for you.

I reload the Remington target shells and AA's and have a recipe that works well in both without requiring adjustment in the press. Winchester Universals will load pretty well using this same recipe and setup, but Federals will not. Experiment using published recipes until you find something that works for your hulls or think about changing to one of the better quality hulls. Good quality hulls will reload 6 times or more (some will reload a LOT more than that), so you may find it worthwhile to seek out and hoard the hulls that you find to work best.

Good luck - be safe!

 

Well unfortunately I only have the shell/ammo that I listed and nothing else.
I'm hoping Santa's gonna bring me a loader for Christmas and hopefully by early next year components might be easier to come by.
I am awaiting the Lyman shotshell reloading book to come in the mail so I can start reading up on this reloading game.

So, are these STS hulls available to buy online ?

 

Billy Ds components is a good place to look, although they have been out for a while. You can post in the wanted section here as soon as you reach your 50 posts.

 

For good hulls,check your local gun clubs. Gun stores, garage sales,estate sales. Gun shows. I bought a mec 9000g in a gun shop minus the primer tray last month with some hulls.

 

GordyJ:

We're making this W...A...Y... to complicated.

At the moment you have 29 posts. You can't start a "conversation" - what we used to call a private message - until you have 50. When you hit the 50 mark, send me a "conversation" providing a valid mailing address and I'll send you a target box (approximately 500) full of once fired AAHS hulls** to get you started.

Note: They're not for sale and I'll cover the shipping.

sissy

** If you prefer, I can send old style ribbed Gold Medals instead of the AA's.

PS: Some of the hulls you have might be ok to reload but until you have some experience, you are better off sticking with premium hulls (STS/Nitro, AA or the old style Gold Medals).

 

I have loaded the Win. Universal for "one and done" popper loads with success but they are NOT a shell I would try to use over again. They use the same data as Win. HS but ,the HS hull is far superior for reloading. As far as the Federal hulls , I stay away from the cheapies and use only Federal premium hulls now. For the most part I stick with 3 hull types. --AA s , STS or Nitro hulls .(the STS and Nitro are the same hull) . Those hulls have brass heads. The 3rd type hull I use is the steel head Remington Gun Clubs . The latter are plentiful and you can usually find trash cans full of them! I have found the "Gun Clubs" hold up pretty well. The Remington Gun Club hulls use the same data as STS hulls .

 

Take a look at Remington Gun Clubs. On nearly everyone’s list. Easy to find once fired if you are willing to do a little dumpster diving, and can be reloaded over and over. Bot a nearly new MEC 650 on EBay and pared it up with a MEC supersizer. As simple and as efficient you can get. And the people at MEC are east to get through to, and are very helpful.

 

We only reload red and grey AA, STS and Nitros. They hold up to at least 5 reloads. I like AAs the best as the STS and Nitros have more issue with case head separation. We were reloading Gun Clubs, Top Guns and Grands but we stopped as we had issues with resizing on these as they are steel or brass washed steel. Our Dillon resizes as part of the process but they did not resize right. We shoot Perazzis and Silver Seitz and the hull would get stuck and not eject to the point where we had to run a rod or drop a wad knocker down the barrel a number of times each round. I tried manually resizing them with my MEC Supersizer. Still no go. So stopped reloading them even though we had 1000s of hulls of these. Never have resizing problems with AA, STS or Nitro as they are brass. You also have more established load data for these hulls.

And not to be negative but I will not shoot Winchester Universal factory loads, much less reload them. This is just my opinion but they are cheap, dirty burning junk.

 

I have reloaded everything through the years Those exact hulls were not around but others similar were. I was pretty good at measuring stack height and stacking cork and fiber wads. They all worked for target ammunition. but it gets pretty tricky to do things that way. It is also time consuming, not that big of a factor to load 20 or 30 shells for hunting season. For target shooting where 100 shells only lasts for Saturday, you are way better off with easier to load components. Never had a gun that was picky about shells. Mostly Remington and Beretta guns

If you are just starting off I would recommend sticking with the Remington hulls, Federal Gold medals or Winchester AA hulls and just using established load data with the recommended hulls for each.

 

I can't comment on your hulls and if they're good to reload, but I can relate as a new reloader. Finding components has been difficult and piecing together components that are compatible with published data has been really tough.

 

I hear ya!
But i gotta just believe things are gonna get better down the road hopefully !

 

Absolutely things will get better, but it's going to take time

 

I like gun clubs because they are easy to distinguish when digging through a pile of hulls. They are also easier to find because they are not as prized as AA or STSv