Found these at the range today, plenty more where they come from. I grabbed samples so I could ask-- does anyone know if any of these are decent for reloading?
"AA"'s are the only ones I've bothered to salvage. I just give them to a friend. Sorry, no help with this.
again i will refer you yo the lyman shotshell book it has data listed by hull brand and style , off all in your picture my choice would be the federal top gun in you can find a lot of them , i dont know if your interest is in economics or not but as i said its hard to save loading 12 and 20 ga but it is still fun . i do recommend staying with one hull type i use winchester aa in 28 and 410 ( there is a rebate on them until august ) they do cost more but you get more loads out of them so it works out, the remington sts and nitro are very good also for long life ,i do have mec 650s for 12 and 20 but just dont bother when i can find them for 5.00 a box but its nice to have them around in case things go up right now bags of shot are quite expensive and even with all the shortages of the past few years target and field shotshells have been available and at normal prices, its everything else including shotshell powder thats gone up and is hard to find.
I have been looking into it, the top gun and the estate are the same hull and are supposed to be decent to reload. The black Remington is supposed to be the best of what I've found-- it's a one piece type and very thick. What's more, according to Hodgdon they both accept basically the same loads so I can treat them as the same.
I thought estate were some of the cheapest you could buy? I know the estate stuff I have bought was cheap. I think I even bought some .30/06 estate rounds. They were pretty budget if I remember
Not sure, internet research suggested it was decent. Just bought a 100 rounds of RIO, that stuff is pretty cheap too.
Last time I was looking at estate a lot was in college that was over 10 years ago I dont remember Rio back then. I know its cheap though. When I was in HS we use to buy those remington boxes with the rabbit or squirrel or quail on them for either like $2.75 or $3.25?
So here's the deal. None of those shells are really worth anything to reload and to be honest, unless you want to do it for fun, it is not cost effective today to reload at all. I just bought Top guns at a tournament for I believe $54.00/ case. I may have been able to reload something similar for about $50/ case. Not worth the time and that is not factoring in the $1000 for my press and cost of good hulls. I bet I have 20 Beer case boxes of different hulls that I haven't loaded more than maybe 500 out of in the past 2-3 years. The cheaper shells and the cost of components just aren't worth it. And I know if new shooters come to the clubs I shoot at, usually people will give them decent hulls to reload (ie AA, Remington STS, or Fed Gold Medals) just to get new shooters shooting. Maybe just ask some shooters if they have some hulls they wouldn't mind giving up. Another thing to try is to maybe ask at the clubs if anyone is buying shells soon and if you could buy some as well (I'm not talking about 1-2 boxes, just go to wal mart and buy those). I shoot a lot and as a group usually 6 or so of us will buy 3-4 pallets of shells a year to shoot throughout the year, if someone wanted 2 cases or so from the bundle no big deal To answer the question of the shells above: The black Remington would be my bet if I was to load them, but depending on your press, the steel bases could give you a hassle with sizing. The black ones are the same shell as the light green remington cun clubs just different plastic. You have to watch because they make the black in 6 and 8 point crimps so pay attention when loading to not screw up your crimps. The winchester universals and rios are not worth your time. The silver base estates and top guns are identical cases as well and my second choice of the bunch. Around here, a lot of people reload those cases with pretty good luck, just maybe 1-2 times and throw them away. They have a fiber base wad that with reloading will start to loosen up and you want to make sure you don't have any problems with the basewad getting stuck in the barrel, so 1-2 times and kick them on the ground. The silver base estates like I said are identical cases to Federal top guns and made in the usa but the gold based estates are a cheddite case and are loaded in Spain or france, don't waste your time with them either. In your picture, all the shells but the remington are a straight wall case and use a wider wad (ie Federal wads or a clone of a fed wad) and the remington is a tapered case (ie winchester or remington wad or clone) You can load those shells with remington/ AA wads according to certain loading recipes but you will lose pressure and velocity, especially in cold weather as gas escapes around that wad in the chamber. Any of the steel cased shells you definitely want to size the brass as they are cheap bases and will expand to the chamber size to the gun they were shot in and may stick in yours. This may be too technical but my Trap gun has a .735" bore (overbored 12 ga) if you were to pick up my empties and load them without sizing the "brass" (actually steel in the cases above) and tried to stick them in your 1950's 870 w/ a standard .725 bore, they would stick and give you a hard time cycling if they would go in at all. If you do decide to reload any of the above, give me an idea of what kimd of shooting you will be doing and I could give you some recipes that I have shot and liked if your interested. Chris
Thanks Chris, great post. I pulled some more Remington unibodies when I was last out there and I think I will be looking at just loading them and the top guns for now-- the old lady can have the rest of the cases for her craft projects.
Speaking of the crafts. Those cheaper cases light up really well because the plastic is thinner. We have done quite a few sets of Christmas lights with these hulls in all the different colors. Crimp the shells on your reloader with nothing in them so they cave in and pop out the primers. Shove the light bulb through the crimp and it will grab when you try to pull it back out. Makes some pretty cool lights. I like the Wounded Warrier edition Top Guns because they are Red White and Blue or the Breast Cancer Top Guns because they are pink. Kinda cool around a porch or your Christmas tree.
I have looked at the price of shot shells in the case form and came to conclusion it wasnt worth reloading. That said I reload all kinds of center fire.
