12ga Mini Shells

[madcow]

Anyone have experience loading mini shells similar to Aguila?

I plan on trimming down Remington Gun Club hulls since I have a ton of them and using a Mec Sizemaster to reload, looking to fold crimp instead of roll crimping since I don't have a roll crimper.

Not a whole lot of data out there, so looking for someone to share their experience on this.

 

[gh1950]

You will have a lot more success roll crimping. The device which does this is not very expensive, and fits in a power drill.

Your hulls are "skivved" to crimp.

When you cut off the crimped portion, you have a plastic tube that will vigorously resist being crimped, and the shorter you make that tube, the stiffer the tube becomes. Your crimps will be atrocious.

Similar situation will occur if you try to put an 8 point crimp on a 6 point hull, the plastic just does't want to go that way.

I suspect that is the reason that Aquila uses a roll crimp, as there probably is not a supply of the mini hulls.

 

[madcow]

Will probably buy a roll crimper, but want to see if I can fold crimp some 7/8oz #7shot since I already have the equipment.

I have looked at the Aguila's and the ones loaded with shot are fold crimped, but those loaded with buck and slugs are rolled crimped.

Right now I am looking for a starting point with load data.

 

[madcow]

Revisiting this thread and posting my journey in reloading 2 inch shotshells with a fold crimp, since there is not a whole lot of info out there on the process.

I used a MEC Sizemaster and Hodgdon's Load Data for Remington Hulls using BP Short Shell Wads.

1. Hull Prep:

First I cut down hulls to size by using a gauge made out of 3/4 inch pipe. To make the gauge I used a pipe cutter, you can use PVC or conduit if you have any laying around. I got this idea of YT and it works pretty good as long as your knife blade is sharp.




Next I skived the hulls using a hull skiver from Ballistic Products. This is to thin the first 1/4 inch of the hull to make crimping easier.




2. Press Modifications (should also work for a MEC 600):

There is not a whole lot of mods done to the press aside from cutting down the crimp die by about 3/4 of an inch and adding a 3/4 inch bushing in the crimp starter station and 1/2 inch bushing at the final crimp station. I had the to cut the crimp die or else it would have just bottomed out without crimping the shell. You can get the bushings from Precision Reloading.

 

[madcow]

cont:

3. Loading the shell:

Not too bad, but it looks like I need to play with the crimp die adjustment and probably skiv the hulls a little deeper.



Hope this helps for those that want to load their own mini shells. With the price of Aguila running around $13-$18 a box, it was worth my time and effort. Should be able to recoup my cost pretty quickly considering how hungry my KSG is.

 

[rosewood]

Impressive!

 

[poopdaddy]

nice

 

[rosewood]

How much were those bushings?

 

[buttplate]

DANG nice job. I do not reload but if I did I would be on this.

 

[rockdawg]

Good Job. Thanks for sharing.