In my younger days did a fair amount of shotgunning,mostly for pheasant.Good amount of trap,some skeet.
I used a manual one at a time Herter die to reload all my shells.Worked fine though slow.I havent done any for a long time because of a lack of opportunity but sooner or later would like to get back to upland bird hunting.
Biggest problem was the center top of the shell .It often didnt close or opened up again spilling some shot.Factory load have the center plastic molten together,I read reloads sometimes use wax to close that spot.
What do people in the know use or do now to prevent that problem
thanks
sheephunter

Crimps aren't a problem anymore. Unless your payload stack is too tall, of course, then it can push the crimp out.

I still use a little nail polish to close the hole in hunting loads, but hulls these days are pretty good. Powder, wad, lead, crimp, next shell.

The best way to get gray hairs in reloading these days is by trying to be TOO cheap: using inferior components. But, if you use a good hull, designed to be reloaded (STS, Gold Medal, Fiocchi Purple, etc), with the appropriate wad and powder, in decent reloader (current MEC, etc), it's a no brainer. JMO, Dutch.