Marlinlover, I think CCI sells the little plastic cups that you fill with shot and load in a regular case. I never had a need for them, but I hear they work good. I think they even sell loaded rounds.

I load .41RemMag shot round all the time. This is the way I do it. I use a sharpened .41RemMag case to cut wabs out of the cardboard backs of line paper tablets. Size case, primer, powder, wad, shot, wad, then crimp slightly just enough to hold everything together. All you really need to do is play with the various components to learn just how many of the wads you need to get a tight load. I sometimes use melted canning wax to seal the ends of the loaded rounds but mostly not. I use a piece of oak dowel to push the wads into the case. Doesn't take very long to load up 50 rounds. I use the same cases for shot loads all the time and keep them seperated from the other cases. I also make wax "bullet" loads that use only the primer as propellent. I shoot those in the house at a cardboard box filled with wadded newspaper. The wax bullet rounds are what I use to teach new shooters sight/trigger control before we move up to 6.5/Bullseye/215g lead light shoot all day loads. It just occured to me that I have never weighted the shot loads in those rounds always just filled to case after the 6.5g Bullseye leaving enough room for a wad or two. They work very well out to about 20 feet with enough power to cleanly kill animals as large as rabbits. I kill quail, grouse, squirrel, rabbits for camp eating with them. Oh, I load 6, 71/2, and 8 shot in the cases depending on what I have at the time.

I tried that with #7 shot in my 480, and gas checks for over/under wads. At 15', I didn't get a single pellet on the target! I guess I need to fiddle with it some more. The best approach for the 480 would be to get full length 45-70 brass, and create a cylinder length round for maximum shot load. These would require a fair bit of lathe work, but I'll give it a go one of these days.

Thanks for the tips...'

I can't wait to try these loads.

Crawfish...

What length is the barrel on your .41 cal, and do you happen to know the twist rate?

I use the Speer/CCI shot cups in both .44s and .38s. They work well in both calibers for me. I usually load 7 1/2s and have found these to be extremely effective on snakes, as well as other vermin.

I have heard of people using gas checks, with some success, to hold the shot in place. I have not tried this myself however.