[gdragon34]

Getting ready for dove season, I shot clays tonight for the first time in years. Took the cupholder along and let her have a crack as well. She went 4 in a row after a box or two.

Anyway, I got a Mec 600 Jr Mark V off of ebay a couple weeks ago and also came up with 500 AA trap hulls. I'm by no means a serious shotgunner, just some occasional clay work and a few dove hunts a year. Can anybody recommend a decent load for me? I figure for what I'm doing I can get by with just a single load, probably #8's. Just need a wad, powder, and some amounts. Hopefully ordering the charge bars in a day or so.

What do you think would be good?

thanks

[Jim Watson]

I think it would be hard to beat a standard target load. I have loaded a lot of light trap loads of 2 3/4 dram equivalent, 1 1/8 oz of shot. I now shoot one ounce loads, but I think the 1 1/8 oz load will be better for hunting, you kill with the pattern not velocity.

You can get there with any brand of powder and many different wads, but my long term favorite was a Win AA hull, Win 209 primer, Win WAA12 (white) wad, 17 grains of 700X, and 1 1/8 oz of No 8s.

I suggest you get the free literature from all the powder companies so you can find comparable loads with Winchester or Alliant powders, and see what you can do with one ounce loads for less recoil and lower cost on targets.

Do you have a scale? Powder bushings are not really precise enough to load by, although I have known a lot of people to try. Some get by, some show up the next week with a shell with a cork in it looking for somebody to weigh their load.

[gdragon34]

I have a scale, two actually. You're probably right about having a 1 oz target load and a 1 1/8 hunting load.

I should also mention shooting will be done with a pump as well as a gas-operated auto so clean burning powders may be a good idea as well.

[ThreadKiller]

Hodgdon's Clays is a very good powder for 1 and 1 1/8oz payloads. Clean burning. 1 oz of 8's is pretty wicked actually. Less recoil too. Just use a pink Winchester SL wad or a copy thereof. They work great in a AA hull.

One word of advice, the new AA's are a two piece (read: crap) design. The best hull on the market is the Remington STS. The last one piece AA's had a terrible tendency to split lengthwise. Winchester cheapened up their hulls at precisely the wrong time.

Tim

[Jim Watson]

Agreed, STS are the best on the market, but G. says he has GOT some AAs.

Clays is ok for light target/upland loads.

I did not have real good results with 452AA or AA Plus in the very lightest loads, maybe WST is better. But I KNOW that 700X and Clays work.