ok guys. I just bought a MEC Grabber shotshell reloading press and am getting ready and set up for reloading my shot shells. I plan to load mainly #6 for rabbits and #7 1/2 for clays.

I have a large number of hulls scavanged from the local shooting range. Not many AA hulls so I took what I could get my hands on. They are mainly AM hulls. Anyone familiar with these? Or did I just acquire a large amount of good for nothing hulls? lol I also have alot of the maroon colored federal hulls to.

My main question is this........what powder should I get. I would like to buy a 4 or 8 lb keg just to have lots on hand so I can load mass quantities at once. Since the press is s semi auto type set up I want to wait until I have alot to load, then just load a bunch in one evening. Instead of a few ever so often.

So is there one good powder that will work well for some clay busting light recoil practice loads as well as some #6 game loads for rabbits? I was thinking of trying Clays from Hogdon. Would that be good enough to load for both type loads?

Plus I know nothing of loading shotshells so I need help with the type of wads as well.

Can you all post some favorite loads up here so I have something to learn from.

Thanks in advance for the help

First things first. No idea what an AM hull is. The Federal "maroon" hull can be a Gold Medal (good), a sport hull (three loads at the most), or a "promo" (good luck). Each takes a different recipe.

There are some people that advocate against reloading the new AA, due to reports of basewads moving forward. If you load them, it probably would be rational to check your barrel after each shot.

Finally, go to the major powder manufacturers for recipe's, and go to the mec website to order a manual. Then, a good book such as the Lyman manual would probably be the second best investment, after a scale.

As far as wads, straightwall hulls (Federal, Remington RTL, Winchester Hunting, etc) take straightwall wads best (i.e. Fed SO), where the tapered hulls (AA, STS) take the AA, Fig8, windjammer etc best.

Finally, unlike centerfire loading, shotgun loading doesn't give you warning signs. Follow the recipe EXACTLY, and do not get creative. HTH, Dutch.

Dutch gave you some good advice. I have no idea what AM hulls are either, but there are a lot of new types of hulls coming in from overseas these days that I don't keep up with.

The first thing you need to do is to separate the hulls by brand and type. Each one may require different wads. Some of them are close enough that you can load the same load in different hulls, but you won't know that until you look up a load for each hull.

The next thing is to decide on a general shot charge level. Especially if you are going to be practicing, or shooting at birds, I would recommend 1 1/8 ozs or possibly 1 1/4. A good powder that will cover both of these for SOME loads is Green dot. "Clays" powder might work well, too, I just haven't used it. Green dot and probably Clays can also be used in some pistol loads. The 1 1/8 and 1 1/4 oz loads will likely use different wads tho.

BTW, many target type loads are quite low pressured and once you figure out what kind of hull those "AMs" are, you might be able to safely load them with low pressured target loads. I am not very fond of cheap hulls with paper or multipiece plastic base wads since I have this not unreasonable fear that they could get sucked out and stick in the barrel causing a burst barrel on the next shot. If you use them, do not push them past a few reloads. This is the voice of experience speaking, although I never blew up a barrel. Another thing you will find in many of the cheap hulls is that they won't hold a good crimp. This is a real pain in the butt and will lead to lots of shot rolling around in your ammo boxes and general cries of anger and anguish, especially if the loads in question get warm, say in the trunk of your car in the summer. The cheap Remington hulls, black and green are reloadable, but suffer from this malady.

For your and anyone around your areas safety, PLEASE don't get "pushy" with your loads, in general, faster loads accomplish almost nothing in shotshells because of the very poor aerodynamics of the shot shape. Steel is an exception but we are not talking steel loading here. Lead loads from 1100 to 1250 fps will do all that you require of them. Shot quality is much more important than velocity. Follow the loading data.

For hunting, trap, or sporting clay use higher antimony shot, often called "magnum" regardless of shot size. For skeet PRACTICE or hand thrown targets you can get by with "chilled" (lower or zero antimony content). High antimony shot costs more, of course, and is worth it once you become somewhat accomplished as a shotgunner. And is always worth it in the field.

Reloading shotshells is less exacting but more challenging in some ways than reloading metallics. Be careful, be CERTAIN of both the type of powder and the WEIGHT of your charges, both powder and shot, and most everything else is less critical.

PS: If you are going to do mostly practice shooting, I might consider 1 ounce loads, easier on the shoulder, the gun and the wallet, but you will probably need 2 powders. Although, off the top of my head, (which is never a good source for loading data, ALWAYS check) I seem to recall some 1 ounce loads using Green Dot. Most of the time for 1 ouncers I used Red Dot, which is a bit faster (meaning burn rate which means its pressure gets a bit higher and peaks a bit faster normally, comparing like weights) than Green Dot, RD also works well for 1 1/8 ounce loads but is too fast for 1 1/4 ouncers.

PPS: While it ain't rocket science and in general it is not as critical as metallic reloading, you would really be doing yourself a favor if you get an experienced reloader to come over and help you go thru the motions for a while. It certainly can be done without help, but it will likely be a much longer learning curve with more wasted components. One more thing while I'm thinking about it, get a spare wad finger guide, new reloaders tend to screw them up, or they just plain wear out, and when they do, you are out of business until you get another one.

[ 08-04-2003, 01:21: Message edited by: Gatogordo ]

The hulls are from a company called ARMS USA. They are marked 32 gr. 1 1/8 OZ.
They are 2 3/4 hulls and the name of the shell specific loading is Lite 32 from the ARMS USA company.

embalmer, chances are they are either a Cheddite or a Fiocchi (3mm) hull.

In the scheme of things, things, though, untill you have some experience identifying hulls, you are best off with some STS's, and reload them 10 times. At $4.00 per 100, and 10 loads per, that's purty reasonable. JMO, Dutch.