Differences in cartridges

[Griff36]

Tonight I have been playing with my newly purchased Lee Loadall Press and scales and I have dismantled a few "off the shelf" cartridges.

 

It seems that the more expensive the cartridge the more lead you get, ie:

 

D&J - 27.7g lead 23.4 grains of powder - £3.20 box.

 

Fiocchi speed 3 - 28.73g lead, 20.2 grains of powder - £3.80 box.

 

Fiocchi Trap 1 - 28.17g lead, 21 grains of powder - £3.40 box.

 

Now this may not seem much, but as a novice shooter who chips at least 10 clays ex60, the extra 1g of shot could make all the difference.

 

The cartridges were all 28g 7 1/2's.

 

Regardless of price I think that if you buy a 28g cartridge then you should get a 28g cartridge, what do you think?

[paulos]

IMHO, half a gram of shot isn't going to make an iota of difference. Particularly to the novice. If people start worrying about whether they have 28.1g or 27.9g then they aren't going to be concentrating on their shooting anyway.

[Markio]

How many balls/pellet does .4g equate too?

[radio1ham]

well not badly priced

i recently paid 7.57 for a box of lyvale express super game num 4shot

i nearly passed out when paying for them as around christmas time they were just short of 4 quid a box of 25

so neraly doubled in price

thank god i reload my own 410s as they over 7quid a box now

[casts_by_fly]

grif,

 

Everyone has tollerances. Sometimes tollerances are set by industry agreements, sometimes by law, sometimes just by the manufacurer. The tighter the tollerance the more rejects. More rejects = more expensive. So you broaden your tollerance to what is acceptable and produce to those tollerances.

 

Doesn't look like you were robbed at all. In fact you're 0.6g to the good over those three shells. Works out to 28.2g on average. Can't really complain that they are off by 0.7% across three manufacturers. Also, you did 3 carts. Go do a whole box and see what you get (besides £3.40 poorer and a mess on your hands).

 

Can't really compare powder though. No telling what type they used.

 

Thanks,

Rick

[bob300w]

grif,

 

Everyone has tollerances. Sometimes tollerances are set by industry agreements, sometimes by law, sometimes just by the manufacurer. The tighter the tollerance the more rejects. More rejects = more expensive. So you broaden your tollerance to what is acceptable and produce to those tollerances.

 

Doesn't look like you were robbed at all. In fact you're 0.6g to the good over those three shells. Works out to 28.2g on average. Can't really complain that they are off by 0.7% across three manufacturers. Also, you did 3 carts. Go do a whole box and see what you get (besides £3.40 poorer and a mess on your hands).

 

Can't really compare powder though. No telling what type they used.

 

Thanks,

Rick

As casts by fly says, the amount of powder will vary according to the make and type, 18.5g of Du pont 700-X wil give the same performance as 21g of Winchester 453AA in a specific load.

Shot is loaded by bulk, not by weight, the difference you describe is negligible.

Edited April 8, 2008 by bob300w

[bob300w]

How many balls/pellet does .4g equate too?

Just to prove what a sad life that I lead, I've had the scales out, .4g is 4 pellets of 7-1/2 size.

Also if grif36 gets round to putting his micrometer on a few pellets, he is going to be even more disappointed than he is at the moment..

[Ferret Master]

Cut open a few from each box and see the difference in shot weight in the cartridges in the same box. You may be suprised!

 

A few weeks ago I was stripping some 12 bore cartridges that had plastic wads for components and I found that in the same box of 25 there were cartridges with different typres of powder. These were 33gm Mary Arm cartridges by the way.

 

FM

[bob300w]

Cut open a few from each box and see the difference in shot weight in the cartridges in the same box. You may be suprised!

 

A few weeks ago I was stripping some 12 bore cartridges that had plastic wads for components and I found that in the same box of 25 there were cartridges with different typres of powder. These were 33gm Mary Arm cartridges by the way.

 

FM

Yep, a manufacturer will use whatever is the cheapest at the time, like every other manufacturer, they have to be competitive,and there's lot's of competition out there!

Some of the variations in shot, roundness and size, is incredible.

[Ferret Master]

I agree. I was astounded though to find in the same box of 25 cartridges that one (and only one I might add) had a different powder though.

 

FM

[Markio]

So if a shell is .4g down (4 pellets) and that chips targets, imagine how many whole targets i've missed due to .8g differences between shells. Holy ****, Ref, i demand a recount! I've got loads of old score cards, i'm just gonna go ahead and add 5%... nah no good, i'm still ****.

Edited April 8, 2008 by Markio

[Peter De La Mare]

Interesting info Griff, thanks for your effort.

 

I'd go along with the +/- tolerances stance, and not worry about it. I sincerly doubt that I'll be able to tell the difference.

Edited April 8, 2008 by Peter De La Mare

[Floating Chamber]

FC

Edited April 27, 2008 by Floating Chamber

[Cosd]

Grift,

Now you have cut up 3 perfectly good cartridges and wasted 28g each,

thats 84g you have wasted.

 

Thats 84 carts 1g less each

Or 168 carts .50g less each

or 336 carts .25g less each

 

STOP CUTTING CARTS, SHOOT THEM INSTEAD

[Griff36]

Grift,

Now you have cut up 3 perfectly good cartridges and wasted 28g each,

thats 84g you have wasted.

 

Thats 84 carts 1g less each

Or 168 carts .50g less each

or 336 carts .25g less each

 

STOP CUTTING CARTS, SHOOT THEM INSTEAD

 

 

They were not completly wasted as I reloaded them into empty cases that I collected at this weeks shoot.

 

I'm sure that everyone on this forum who reloads started somewhere, FC as you stated, I will probally blush in 40 years time about my post, you are correct, but as an engineer I like things to be perfect, and at the present I am trying to get my head around it all.

 

Thank's guys for all your help, Griff

[Floating Chamber]

FC

Edited April 27, 2008 by Floating Chamber

[bob300w]

When I started home loading with my father, around 1953, I was eight years old, we used the old two piece primers, (a cap and an anvil) and the old bulk Belgian powders, Clermonite 33, a bright orange powder and Victoria, I believe it was called, a magenta coloured one.

Nobel powders were available, but father knew a crew member on the cross-channel ferries who kept us supplied!

Over-powder and under and over-shot wads were punched out of cardboard boxes, the wadding was three sheets of toilet paper.

All of our cartridges had a rolled turn-over, crimped cases were not popular with all shooters, and shops stocked both crimped and rolled.

 

The only incident of note that I can remember was after we had loaded some black powder cartridges, one had a high primer, father placed it on the table, primer downwards, and gave the top of the cartridge a tap with a hammer and the wooden rammer that we used for the powder, loud bang, lots of smell and smoke and a very irate mother!

 

In those days there were no mistakes, as we loaded so few, probably a dozen or so at a time. But when I graduated to a USA-made machine many years back, I found that you could not only make 100 plus cartridges an hour, you could also make 100 plus cartridges an hour with no primer!

 

Concentration is the main thing, if you start to get bored, or you get company, leave it for another night!

It has to be said; There is a great deal of satisfaction in dropping a bird with a cartridge that you have made yourself.

[Ferret Master]

I've been loading 7 months and would like to claim a 100% 'my cartridges have gone bang' record.

 

FM

[bob300w]

Ah, but "gone bang" was not the debate, they all go bang with no missing ingredients! How many have you loaded sans primer or powder before realising?

[Ferret Master]

Was waiting for that!

 

So far none that have been discovered when out shooting. Although in the first 50 I loaded I did discover one without a primer in while doing my checks after a loading session.

 

FM

[bob300w]

Was waiting for that!

 

So far none that have been discovered when out shooting. Although in the first 50 I loaded I did discover one without a primer in while doing my checks after a loading session.

 

FM

And then of course comes the dilemma; Do I try and put a primer in it whilst there is powder............

 

P.S. It's a joke, for those of you with fingers poised on the "village idiot" button.

[Floating Chamber]

FC

Edited April 27, 2008 by Floating Chamber

[Guest cookoff013]

hi,

 

i`m an avid shotgunner, i`d like to think about reloading shotshells. i just dont know how abouts to do it.

i`l thinking of reloading my own game shells, mainly #4 shot, (my long range bunny load) i shoot less of these.

i think i`m quite technically minded. i work in a laboratory so understand weight tollerances etc

 

whats the legality of reloading?

[bob300w]

hi,

 

i`m an avid shotgunner, i`d like to think about reloading shotshells. i just dont know how abouts to do it.

i`l thinking of reloading my own game shells, mainly #4 shot, (my long range bunny load) i shoot less of these.

i think i`m quite technically minded. i work in a laboratory so understand weight tollerances etc

 

whats the legality of reloading?

It's quite legal, but if you are only going to load No 4 shot cartridges for rabbits, it will be cheaper to buy them. Total up the cost on the component parts, you will find that it comes to considerably more than buying ready-made. The only advantages in rolling your own is in heavy wildfowling loads or 410.

[bob300w]

"Nice post, Bob. Brought back memories.

 

I too used the Eley-Kynoch 1B Percussion Cap. They were all brass and packed in white cardboard trays with cardboard spacers. Later, in the 1960s they appeared with a copper-plated steel anvil and packed loosely in a flat tin. In the 1970s the Eley 'Eleyprime' battery-cup primer appeared on the scene. It had three flash-holes."

 

Ah, well, it would have been easy for you then, with all of these modern gadgets like one-piece primers! The primers that we used came in two parts, an flat brass anvil, that you dropped into the primer hole, followed by a cap that resembled the old muzzle loading cap. If the anvil was not central, it was a mis-fire.

Frank Dyke did indeed use Coopal powders, although I don't know which ones. As you say, the "Yellow Wizard" were his, and were issued as Rabbit Clearance cartridges at one time.

Coopal made 'Excelsior' powder, this was made in various grades, one of which was "Caulille", these were grey coloured, and "Perfecta", that was dark pink. Other Belgian powders available at the time were Corona and Mullerite.

The powders that we used were known as "bulk" powders, meaning that a 3 dram black powder measure could be used for measuring them, a 3 dram BP scoop held 33 grains of Clermonite, this was the correct load for a 12g with 1 1/8oz of shot. Nobel 52 powder was a bulk powder, Nobel 60, 62, 64, 66 and 67 were not, as they did not occupy the same space as black powder.

Edited April 11, 2008 by bob300w