Question about loading 10ga BP brass hulls

You will need 9 gauge wads, fg powder. Start at about 3 1/2 drams of black, a .135" card wad or two, a half inch fiber or felt wad, the same volume of shot (or drop back to an ounce and a quarter) and put a thin card disc over the shot. It doesn't have to come even close to filling the case. Hold top wad with duco, elders, or sodium silicate(my favorite). Adjust loads to get the performance you want.

I load 10, 12, 20 gauge and .410 all-brass shot shells with black powder. Before you go too far, you have to determine what the shot shells will be used for. (Hunting? Trap/Skeet?Sporting clays?) If for hunting, what game and distance. To reload brass shot shells you only need something to drive out the spent primer and install a new one. A dowell can be used to seat wads. I use 9 gauge card and cushion wads from Circle-Fly. Larger wads are required because the 10 gauge brass shell is much thinner than a paper or plastic shot shell. Plastic 10 gauge shot columns probably will not work all that well as they are too small in diameter to seal in the brass case.

For light loads in the 10Ga. I use FFg black powder and a "square load" (equal volume of powder and shot. For heavy loads (1 3/8oz. and more) I often use Fg black powder. My 10 gauge gun is pretty heavy, but I believe black powder loads have no more recoil than smokeless loads and provide more of a push than a sharp kick. One nice thing about brass shells is that you don't have to fill them to get a proper crimp as you do with plastic or paper hulls. I glue my thin over shot wads in the case with white glue

What does a "square load" actually weigh out at? Like for 1 1/4 oz as was a common load in BP 10 ga.
I understand its convenience for a muzzleloader, but I always think of W.W. Greener's comments about the gamers at the Field Trials in England. Some entrants would shoot light loads that would pattern tightly at the plate, and heavy loads that would penetrate well or hit hard at the Pettit's Pad or pendulum. He fixed that by putting a penetration pad in the middle of the pattern plate.

A friend loads 2 0unces of shot over 110grs of FFg. He uses this for CAS shooting for the shock and awe aspect.

paul harm said:

Don't use plastic wads with BP because they'll melt in the barrel and make a total mess that's hard to clean.

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I use plastic wads for choke control in my 2 muzzleloading shotguns and they do not melt. They leave a bit of plastic residue after awhile that scrubs off easily with a brush and weak solvent.

Sorry, I was talking about 100 or 150 shells in a day. When we go to SxS events they sometimes have a BP class and that's what we shoot. My friend, a gunsmith used plastic wads and by the end of the day if you looked down the barrels it looked like a bunch of worms were growing in there. His gun was kicking more. Before he told me about his problem, I would shoot a round of skeet and have more plastic than I wanted to clean out of the barrels. Now it's just fiber wads. It took him quite awhile to clean it with a tornado brush. He also works the rifle range at our club on " rifle sight in day" helping shooters with sighting in. He claims if enough shots are taken with the new plastic covered sabots they too will leave plastic in the barrel if not cleaned between shots. If you don't have a problem, do what you want, but any BP fouling under some plastic you don't get out will cause problems latter.

I shoot 1oz of shot in my shell guns. You didn't say what kind of 10ga - ML'er or shell gun. If loading a equal amount of shot/powder then the shell would dictate how much you're gonna get in. A muzzleloader, that's a different question. From a ounce to whatever you feel comfortable shooting. I once had a 8ga O/U muzzleloader I made for goose hunting - about 40 years ago. I use to shoot 4oz of shot and 400grs of 1F. Don't ask me why or how I came to that load but with .010 choke in each barrel it would kill em dead at 70 yards. I'm 6' 4" and back then went 190 pounds and it would put me on the ground if I wasn't standing right. Like bending over backwards shooting straight up it would just push me over. The gun is gone now, but it was fun when I had it.