familyman555
Member
I have been playing around for a while trying to get a 12 or 20 ga shotgun load to work with airsoft pellets. My teenage son gets together with other friends and they run around in the woods shooting at each other with Airsoft guns and having a great time. So that had got me thinking why not do it with a real shotgun.
This afternoon I finally tested a load that I think is potentially ok. My goal was to develop a 400-450 FPS biodegradable load that worked consistently well. I think that this load would work good in a pump shot gun. It would not have enough pressure to operate a semi-auto. A single shot break action shot gun could also be used but would probably be too slow to reload. For those of you familiar with reloading shotgun shells, here is the recipe.
• Used or new 20 ga x 2 ¾” Remington case that will be crimped
• 209 Noble Sport shotgun primer (probably any other shotgun primer will also work.)
• 5.4 grains (.5cc Lee Precision scoop) of Pyrodex P black powder substitute
• (2) 1/8” Nitro card wad. This is a hard cardboard wad from Ballistic Products. 7.7 grains each (.50 grams each)
• (29) 6mm, .20 gram (2.1 grain) Bio-Degradable Airsoft Pellets. I used a Crosman brand from Wal-Mart.
Velocity from a 22” barrel
The first time I fired this load it came out at 451 fps which was at the top of the desired speed range. That ended up being the highest velocity recorded, others were 424, and 387. My velocity was going down. Possibly due to a dirty barrel and so I cleaned the barrel and afterward got the final velocity of 384 fps. I am not sure why my velocity was going down. This is not quite as consistent as I would like but I would rather be on the low end of the velocity range. My son and I then tested this load against a box at 30 feet. At that distance most of the pellets penetrated the box. With the box further away at 45 feet it looked like all of the pellets bounced off the box. He felt this performance was similar to what his airsoft rifle would do firing one pellet. If someone wanted less velocity then .3cc of Pyrodex gave 294 to 303 FPS.
Case
I have on hand Winchester and Remington cases. Winchester cases have a tapered lower section and since I am hardly using any gun powder it would be hard for the wad to get down into this tapered section. The Remington case is pretty much straight all the way down and has a flat bottom flush with the primer end and so I used it.
Gun Powder and Wad
Before trying Pyrodex I had tried fast shotgun powders like Clays and Titewad. However, due to the light Air Soft pellet load they would not combust properly and so each test shot would leave a lot of unburnt powder in the barrel and shell. I also tried using only the primer to fire the load. The pellet velocity ranged from 311 FPS with two wads to 600 FPS with three wads but the wads would only get about 1/3 down the barrel before stopping. So what the gun powder is mostly doing is getting the wad out of the barrel. I tested not using a wad too but the primer’s hot gasses vented right through the pellets and I found that most of the pellets stayed in the shell. One wad was also not enough and let too much gas get past it. Pyrodex P seems to be a fairly good match for this application. It does not require high pressures to combust. However, I also saw a flame out of the barrel with each shot so it seems that it does not fully combust in the barrel either. But since it ejects the wad and unburnt loose powder does not pour out of the barrel and shell I am fairly happy with it for this application. Using a shotgun with a removable barrel makes clean up easier since this powder gets your barrel dirtier.
Most modern shotgun loads use plastic wads. I quickly realized that would be a bad match for this application because a typical #WAA20 plastic wad weighs 30.8 grains. This is 15 times what the pellet weighs and would likely hurt someone if used in an Airsoft game. The 1/8” cardboard card weighs 7.7 grains which is still three times more than the pellet. My thought was that the flat disk would not fly well and would quickly slow down. So I was encouraged by our test against a cardboard box. The two wads smacked the side of the box and left a round ring their size but the box was not dented by them in any way. Traveling down the barrel gets the edge of the cardboard wad dirty and so it was their dirty edge that left a round ring mark on the box. Also, with the light weight of the Air Soft pellets it helps to use the smaller cardboard wad to get more pellets into the shell so the increased weight will promote more consistent combustion. My final thought on using a cardboard wad is that I like that they are biodegradable. I also use biodegradable pellets.
Reality
Now after having fun developing this load I don’t expect to ever use it. I can just imagine a conversation with some of the following questions and comments. “How do you know that you haven’t gotten the air soft shells mixed up with your regular shells?” “These 20 GA shells are all yellow, they all look alike, and so we can’t see inside them to really know what is in it.” “I don’t think I want to be hit by 29 Airsoft pellets all at once.”
Now, if a group could work through the above issues I think this would be a viable Airsoft load for playing. It could also have training applications. Anyone interested in using it would need to evaluate and test it to see if they get the same results with their shotgun, materials, and loading methods.
This afternoon I finally tested a load that I think is potentially ok. My goal was to develop a 400-450 FPS biodegradable load that worked consistently well. I think that this load would work good in a pump shot gun. It would not have enough pressure to operate a semi-auto. A single shot break action shot gun could also be used but would probably be too slow to reload. For those of you familiar with reloading shotgun shells, here is the recipe.
• Used or new 20 ga x 2 ¾” Remington case that will be crimped
• 209 Noble Sport shotgun primer (probably any other shotgun primer will also work.)
• 5.4 grains (.5cc Lee Precision scoop) of Pyrodex P black powder substitute
• (2) 1/8” Nitro card wad. This is a hard cardboard wad from Ballistic Products. 7.7 grains each (.50 grams each)
• (29) 6mm, .20 gram (2.1 grain) Bio-Degradable Airsoft Pellets. I used a Crosman brand from Wal-Mart.
Velocity from a 22” barrel
The first time I fired this load it came out at 451 fps which was at the top of the desired speed range. That ended up being the highest velocity recorded, others were 424, and 387. My velocity was going down. Possibly due to a dirty barrel and so I cleaned the barrel and afterward got the final velocity of 384 fps. I am not sure why my velocity was going down. This is not quite as consistent as I would like but I would rather be on the low end of the velocity range. My son and I then tested this load against a box at 30 feet. At that distance most of the pellets penetrated the box. With the box further away at 45 feet it looked like all of the pellets bounced off the box. He felt this performance was similar to what his airsoft rifle would do firing one pellet. If someone wanted less velocity then .3cc of Pyrodex gave 294 to 303 FPS.
Case
I have on hand Winchester and Remington cases. Winchester cases have a tapered lower section and since I am hardly using any gun powder it would be hard for the wad to get down into this tapered section. The Remington case is pretty much straight all the way down and has a flat bottom flush with the primer end and so I used it.
Gun Powder and Wad
Before trying Pyrodex I had tried fast shotgun powders like Clays and Titewad. However, due to the light Air Soft pellet load they would not combust properly and so each test shot would leave a lot of unburnt powder in the barrel and shell. I also tried using only the primer to fire the load. The pellet velocity ranged from 311 FPS with two wads to 600 FPS with three wads but the wads would only get about 1/3 down the barrel before stopping. So what the gun powder is mostly doing is getting the wad out of the barrel. I tested not using a wad too but the primer’s hot gasses vented right through the pellets and I found that most of the pellets stayed in the shell. One wad was also not enough and let too much gas get past it. Pyrodex P seems to be a fairly good match for this application. It does not require high pressures to combust. However, I also saw a flame out of the barrel with each shot so it seems that it does not fully combust in the barrel either. But since it ejects the wad and unburnt loose powder does not pour out of the barrel and shell I am fairly happy with it for this application. Using a shotgun with a removable barrel makes clean up easier since this powder gets your barrel dirtier.
Most modern shotgun loads use plastic wads. I quickly realized that would be a bad match for this application because a typical #WAA20 plastic wad weighs 30.8 grains. This is 15 times what the pellet weighs and would likely hurt someone if used in an Airsoft game. The 1/8” cardboard card weighs 7.7 grains which is still three times more than the pellet. My thought was that the flat disk would not fly well and would quickly slow down. So I was encouraged by our test against a cardboard box. The two wads smacked the side of the box and left a round ring their size but the box was not dented by them in any way. Traveling down the barrel gets the edge of the cardboard wad dirty and so it was their dirty edge that left a round ring mark on the box. Also, with the light weight of the Air Soft pellets it helps to use the smaller cardboard wad to get more pellets into the shell so the increased weight will promote more consistent combustion. My final thought on using a cardboard wad is that I like that they are biodegradable. I also use biodegradable pellets.
Reality
Now after having fun developing this load I don’t expect to ever use it. I can just imagine a conversation with some of the following questions and comments. “How do you know that you haven’t gotten the air soft shells mixed up with your regular shells?” “These 20 GA shells are all yellow, they all look alike, and so we can’t see inside them to really know what is in it.” “I don’t think I want to be hit by 29 Airsoft pellets all at once.”
Now, if a group could work through the above issues I think this would be a viable Airsoft load for playing. It could also have training applications. Anyone interested in using it would need to evaluate and test it to see if they get the same results with their shotgun, materials, and loading methods.
