Friends-

When is it time to throw out Shotgun Shell Hulls? I have been loading WW AA's for 4-5 years now. Some of my older hulls are getting, dare I say it, "split ends." But, they go through my MEC loader fine and still crimp nicely.

So, when is it time to throw them out?

Thanks in advance.

Like a lot of things it depends. Some hulls, like the old, now obsolete Blue Magic would burn above the powder line and could actually separate on firing if you used them too long. Beautiful color and loaded really well but they were flat dangerous if you pushed the hull life but that is an exception, and, not counting Fed paper, hull separation is quite rare.

That aside, if the AA hulls will crimp and hold shot then they are usable as long as you want to use them. Mostly they lose petals somewhere along the line.

Finally the crimp pressure gives somewhat higher velocities when the hulls are new, when they get old velocities decline a bit AND patterns are usually a bit tighter.

Personally for target shooting, especially practice, I'd shoot them until they lose petals or they split too badly and not worry about it.

OTOH for hunting, I'd prefer newer hulls, dove hunting might be an excepting.

While I'm not loading for target shooting anymore, I'd discard hulls, or rather put them in the "shoot and pop" box when the petals got too hard, that kind of crunchy feel, or had more than one split. When I got a few hundred in the shoot and pop box, I'd load them one more time and shoot and pop them or catch them and throw them out while practicing. I shot too many shells to try to segregate them by number of reloads.

Gato gave you the treatise, so I'll do the short answer: Throw them away when the crimps will no longer hold the shot in the shell. Or, when you eject them into a pile of pointer poop, whichever comes first.