I've been shooting "T" shot at canadian geese for a couple years now...darn stuff kills at unbelievable ranges!!!!!

But now want to reload my own.....

I've reloaded literally thousands of lead shotshells and rifle and handgun but have never reloaded "steel" shot......and it seems smart to ask first.....

I cannot find 3" 12 Ga hulls so will buy new ones from Ballistic Products and steel shot from them as well. Must I roll crimp them?....or will they crimp like a once fired hull?

Can anyone tell me what powders to use (seems as "Alliant Steel" is the powder to use)....I have longshot, blue dot, IMR-800-X, red dot, green dot, Unique, and HS-7 on hand!

I'm thinking I want a 12 Ga 3" 1 1/8 oz load at about 1550 FPS or more.....

I have federal 209-A primers as well as CCI and Winchester 209 primers on hand.

Any advice as to components and technique will be appreciated.
Vapo

I buy a lot of components from Precision Reloading, prices are less than BPI and they"ll give you a deal on shipping shot.

Get their steel shot reloading manual and BPI's 'Status of Steel' loading manual.

The big steel shot won't meter through a loader so you have to weigh or count pellets, I use an empty primer box tray to scoop up the shot in a bowl till the holes are filled so it makes counting easy.

There are 60 T shot in 1 1/8 oz. so 60 holes in a 209 primer tray.

I'm just starting to roll crimp so I can't tell you much on that, that's this springs project with lots more patterning.

I have a PW 375. It didn't crimp new shells very well with the plastic crimp starter. Bought the steel crimp starter and it worked a lot better. STEEL powder doesn't meter very well but Iv'e been told by people here to get the Lyman electric meter and it works much better. Haven't bought one yet.
STEEL will get you the fastest velocity's.
There's a lot of good info at duckhuntingchat.com in the reloading section.

The new hulls crimped just fine thru a Mec 9000 press for me. I just used the Mec for crimping,hand weighed shot and powder a pretty slow process.

Hey guys....thanks for the info....I just got a roll crimping tool from Lyman.....so that fixes that!

We'll get this steel loading figured out before next duck season!

Vapodog, I've been loading steel, Hevi-Shot & bismuth for a longtime. If you need any help, drop me a line or post up. BTW, roll-crimping is not required for most steel loads.

quote:

roll-crimping is not required for most steel loads.

Well I have the tool now and it's kinda cool so I'll try it....

PM sent!

Thanks for the reply!

Reply PM Sent!