I did a little old fashioned load work up this morning

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Nov 30, 2022
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I found a bunch of rusted BB's my son left in a shed and decided to load some shotgun shells with them. I also realized that my powder was over 30 years old so I wasn't going to blindly trust the data. I grabbed a semi auto shotgun and started with loads that barely moved the bolt and worked up to loads that ejected about 2' with .7oz of BB's. I tried the same load with 1 1/8 oz #7 and ejected about 6'. Then I weighed the charge and it was about right for the data. Trust but Verify.
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It seems that many these days just blindly follow data instead of working things up to their maximum potential. Even with data as a starting point dialing things in involves working with a Chrono and shooting for groups.
 
What I have discovered loading shotgun shells is that component selection is essentially irrelevant. Hulls, Wads, primers, powder etc. I've even loaded moderately heavy slug loads in light target hulls without issue. As long as you stay within reasonable limits it all pretty much comes out the same.
 

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