Brass Hulls

[lizziedog1]

I see that brass shotshell hulls are available for reloaders.

Has anyone here ever used them?

How would you reload them, I mean do you use shotshell presses or metallic cartridge presses? How about reloading data?

Are they feasible to used for bird hunting?

Will they cycle through a semi-auto?

I just thought it might be fun to try them.

 

[kingmt]

I use 44-40 & 444 brass for .410. The only thing I use a press for is to prime them but a dowel & flat smooth piece of metal work. I drop my powder, paper card, news paper wrap, shot, paper overshot card, & glue or wax.

 

[LiveLife]

Reloading brass 10 gauge shells by MidwayUSA - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhqcId8ZnCQ

Reloading brass 12 gauge shell - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lOw6pcf1ag

 

[kingmt]

I forgot to try & answer some of your other questions. I worked up my own data because I don't load them with wads or any of the things called for in the data. I also shoot mine in a ss Rossi. Rather my sons shoot them. My oldest(8) shoots a full house .5oz in the 444 brass & the other son(6) shoots a low recoil .25 44-40 brass.

Feasible? .410 cost over a buck a piece retail. I haven't counted the cost but I know the are less then 15 cents.

 

[rcmodel]

Will they cycle through a semi-auto?

No, not reliably.
They are pretty much a single-shot, double gun, revolver, signal cannon thing.

The rolled crimp edge of a plastic or paper shotshell is pretty necessary to get reliable feeding in a repeater of any kind.
If you were to roll crimp the edge of a brass shell, it wouldn't last very long.
Then there would be the problem of finding your $1 a pop brass cases after the auto chucked them in the weeds.

You can't reload them using a normal shotgun reloader press designed for plastic/paper hulls either.

Ballistic Products has a bunch of brass hull data & special size wads for brass cases, etc.
http://www.ballisticproducts.com/


rc

 

[rondog]

Huh, I have a 12ga. brass hull in my collection of stuff, I thought it was an antique. Now you're telling me you can still buy them new? Damn.

 

[flashhole]

I'm going to have to investigate using a 444 shell in my single shot 410. Didn't know they would work.

 

[flashhole]

Tried one, it fit and ejected nicely.

The 444 has a .015" taper from base to tip. Does the brass expand to fill the 410 chamber when fired or is the case too rigid?

I like the video of the guy loading the 12 ga using his drill press with a dowel. With the 410 you don't have to turn the end to fit the chuck, just get the proper size dowel. Thus the question of brass expansion when fired.

Do you use magnum or regular large rifle primers with 444 brass?

What wads do you use?

 

[kingmt]

The brass will expand to the chamber. I use a LPP, a paper card over the powder, I wrap a thin paper over a 223 case to make a sleve for the shoot, slide it in, fill with 1/2oz lead, & seal. I sometimes use a overshot card if the paper is to short to cover the shot. 44Rem Mag will somewhat work but is a paim ejecting.

 

[skipjack]

I have shot them for cowboy action with black powder loads.
The brass does expand, at least mine did. RCBS makes a die
to resize them.

You really don't need any tools to load them. Mine (from Magtech)
use a large pistol or rifle primer, which can be seated on a block
of wood, and a few judicious taps with a piece of pvc pipe stuck
into the opening of the shell. My procedure was to prime,
charge with powder, a card, then a spacer, and another card.
The shot goes in next and then a card glued in with elmers or
duco over the shot.

They look great, but I will tell you that the ejected shells that
I fired were hot as blazes. I shot mine out of a sxs shotgun.

I went back to plastic, as they are much cheaper, and basically
disposable. I would probably shoot brass if I didn't use so
many shells per shoot.

 

[snuffy]

I've messed around with both 12ga. and .410 in the magtech brass shotshells.

For the 12 ga, I got the RCBS die for loading the brass cases.Those require that you have a removable bushing, they're 1-¼ diameter. It comes with a shell holder that works for holding the brass while it's being primed with large PISTOL primers. It also resizes the case AND has the ability to put a crimp on the mouth.

Since the brass case walls are so thin, you can't use any of the one piece plastic wads. The powder would get by the gas seal, AND the gas seal won't expand to seal the hot gases.

The use of 11 ga paper and fiber wads makes that problem go away, but the card wad is notorious for not being a good sealer of hot powder gases. BP sells a over-powder-gas-seal called the X12X. It's over-bore for 12 ga, so it seals the brass cases quite well.

The .410 has the same problem. There's no quick fix like the X12X for the .410. What I did is make a wad punch out of an old 44 mag case, sharpened the mouth and drilled the primer pocket to make oversized .429 wads. I cut them from 20 ga. card wads just for the over powder wads. I used standard .410 fiber wads and over shot wads from there up.

For the .410, a shell holder that fits the 300 magnum, also fits the .410 brass. So you can use a universal decapper die like the lee to push out the primers, large PISTOL, and a hand primer or your press mounted set-up to re-prime. Now, you may want to crimp those shells. I ran the shells up into a 7 mag FL sizer with the decapper/expander removed. The beginning of the shoulder turns the mouth of the case in like a champ, creating a nice crimp.

It takes some work, and thinking outside the box, but you can go shooting with something that will start conversations with fellow shooters. They also work quite well.

 

[flashhole]

Excellent post Snuffy, answered all my questions.

 

[FROGO207]

I have an old pacific 45LC sizing die with a large decapping pin/shaft that can be removed that I use to resize the .410 Magtech brass shells with. I also use 444 Marlin brass and resize with 444 Marlin dies. These will work in all my .410 shotguns I have presently--Savage, Winchester, and a couple NEF single shots. They also will roll crimp the mouth well but this will shorten the case life a bit. I also have the RCBS 12 GA brass hull reloading dies and I like them a lot. The key to long case life is not sizing/roll crimping any more than necessary.

 

[flashhole]

FROGO - which brass do you prefer to use, the Magtech or the 444?

 

[cfullgraf]

My experience with Mag-Tec .410 brass hulls is similar to snuffy's. A 303 Enfield shell holder works well with the.410 shot shells.

I use Duco, or similar cement to seal the top, over shot wad.

I use 444 Marlin dies but the 7 Mag sizer die sounds like a good way to get a crimp.

Outside of being an interesting exercise or needing brass hulls for some replica shooting, loading brass hulls, at least .410, are lots of work.

 

[FROGO207]

They both work for me equally. Note in some shotguns the 444 brass rim will not extract/eject correctly. No problem in my 410's I own presently. The 444 is loose in the chamber and does expand more so case life will be shorter but the crimp is easier. The length of the 444 is shorter so less of a payload but I am using 000buck and the different length makes no difference to me. I would recommenced finding a 444 brass shell and trying to see if it will eject/extract in your shotgun first before you go out and spend a lot of cash. They may be a lot of work but with the MagTech brass they should last almost forever

 

[flashhole]

The sample of "one" 444 case that I have ejected with no problems.

 

[coop923]

I haven't dealt with this company but I've thought I'll try this out at some point. There's a pdf file here when you click on the Shot Shell Loading link that explains the process. I thought It would be fun to try some black powder loads in my grandpa's old Ithaca. I've seen common gauge brass hulls cheaper, but these folks have a lot of different and obsolete stuff listed.