Steel Shot Reloading

[skipper]

I just ordered a single stage MEC Steelmaster for the sole purpose of reloading 3 inch 12 gauge steel shot shells. See the picture below. It should arrive sometime Monday. I'm a little skeptical about loading steel shot due to all the warnings and disclaimers everywhere I look. Apparently, steel shot is a completely different animal that requires a level of quality control unlike any other reloading I have done to date. The warnings are clear and obviously meant to be taken seriously. I CAN follow instructions.

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Steel shot requires higher velocities, much more attention to crimping, wads designed to protect the bore, etc., etc. I have never read so many warnings before in my life. I also ordered all the components I could find that would perfectly match one of the recipes in the 5th Edition Lyman Shotshell Reloading Handbook. It has a section dedicated to steel shot reloading. There must be others that successfully reload steel shot because my first choices of hulls, wads, etc. were completely sold out and unavailable. So, basically I'm starting with my second choices of components. I think I have enough to last this year's duck and teal season. I have a lot of work to do!!!

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I'll post some pictures of my adventures into steel shots shell reloading as things progress. Keep your fingers crossed.

[skipper]

The first of the components showed up today. Four pounds of Steel powder from Alliant.

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[Bill K]

Skipper, looks like you are on a roll and really getting ready for a good one. Enjoy. Bill K

[skipper]

I've got to get busy. The graph below shows that I will be a busy boy come September 1st. Now that I have all the equipment I need to load shotshells for every type bird I hunt, it ought to be an interesting season. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department will start selling hunting licenses in August. I normally buy a Super Combo license with all the applicable state and federal stamps. I live where the dividing line between Northern Zone and Southern Zone runs. North of I-10 is Northern Zone and South is Southern Zone. Cypress is just far NW Houston. If it's not open season in one zone you just move to the other side of the highway. How convenient is that? Thanks, Texas!!

Literally there's only one week of cease fire during the season. The first week of December is usually closed so that the ducks down in the Laguna Madre, Corpus Christi, Baffin Bay area get a break. That is, if the wind mills don't get 'em. It's funny that some of the big wind farms near the coast are required to have radar to detect migrating birds and stand down.

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[Bill K]

Interesting information. I never knew that about the radar and wind mills. Bill K

[skipper]

Yeah, it appears that Whooping Cranes have the right of way.

[Bill K]

Speaking of cranes Skipper. Down your way you can legally hunt and shoot sand Hill's right ? we can't her in Commie California, but I hear and have read where they are very good eating. Right ? Bill K

[skipper]

Padre Island runs along the coast of Texas serving as a barrier island. The water between it and the actual coast is called the Laguna Madre. It is an very important marshland that hosts millions of migrating birds. I worked for CenterPoint Energy for over 35 years and am aware of all the governmental regulations that protect the marshlands. It takes an act of Congress to do anything that might upset the balance of nature in the coastal areas.


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The Laguna Madre is very shallow for the most part and shoal draft boats dominate the market down here. If you're going to hunt or fish the Laguna Madre, you need a skinny water boat. And I mean SKINNY. If your boat can't stay on plane in 4 inches of water and take off in 12 or less, you better stay away from the Laguna Madre. The Intracoastal Waterway provides deep enough water for commercial traffic. I steer clear of the ICW.

[skipper]

Sand Hill cranes take a special permit, but it's free for the asking. They are really good eating.

[randyman]

I watched an episode of Meat Eater yesterday where they were hunting cranes exclusively. They called them 'rib eye in the sky' for the flavor of the meat.
Wish we could hunt them here in Norcal as there a bunch when they harvest the rice. R!

[skipper]

More components showed up on the front door step thanks to UPS. Now all I need is the reloading press. Funny, when I first ordered everything the press was scheduled to arrive first and then the components on Monday. Now it's the other way around. Oh well, I guess I can sit on my hands for another couple of days. NOT!!! Next week I need to start shooting those pesky orange skeet on a serious basis so I'm ready for hunting season.

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One of the benefits of bird hunting is that you get to eat what you shoot. Not to mention wing shooting is really a lot of fun.

[skipper]

The MEC Steelmaster has arrived. It was damaged in shipping, but nothing that can't be sorted out. Here's a picture of the press not quite ready for action.

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The picture below has a couple of arrows showing where the press was dropped and a couple of stamped steel parts got bent. They were bent pretty good so it took me a while to get them straightened out and working properly. The press comes setup for loading 2 3/4 in shells so I also converted it to load 3 inch shells while I had all the tools out.

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I have heard so many war stories about Alliant Steel powder that I have decided to hand weigh every powder charge. That way I'm sure of what gets dropped into the hulls. I intend to experiment with dropping the steel shot with the charge bar that comes with the press. The guy I talked to at MEC assured me that I shouldn't have any problems with #3 shot bridging in the drop tube. We'll see about that. Now if I want to load up some BBB shot for geese, I'll have to load that by hand. Then I'll just use the press to do all the functions besides powder and shot dropping. Hopefully I have things adjusted enough to complete a shell or two tonight.

[skipper]

I've been playing all morning long. I thought I had everything on this new press adjusted last night. This morning I set out on a mission to load a (1) box of shells. I also realized, right up front, that I might need to make a couple of adjustments. Boy was that an understatement. I've had almost every tool I own out at one time or another to adjust this and that all day. I think I've adjusted every Station on this press at least twice. I went through about 5 or 6 hulls just getting things tweaked to end up where they should be in terms of fine tuning the final product. Here's a few pictures at various stages of the reloading process.

This is station 3 where the actual business of charging the hull with powder, wad and shot happens. The orange wad has to have a 1/8 in spacer seated in the bottom just under the shot. That stack adjustment is necessary to make the crimps come out level. I used the top mounted shot bottle to drop 1 1/8 oz of steel #3 shot. First couple of trys, the shot bridged in the bottom of the Drop Tube. About 5 minutes later a de-burring tool and some steel wool took care of the burr on the bottom edge of the tube. Bridging problem solved. Now the shot drops right in.

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Steel powder has huge flakes that defy metering with a thrower so I opted to hand weigh each charge with my ChargeMaster 1500. Here I'm dropping powder into the primed hull with my .204 powder funnel. Works great.

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Here's Station 2 where the hulls are primed. Simple enough. Station 1 is where the hulls are de-primed and resized back to spec. Notice the big collet behind the cartridge at Station 1. Actually you can adjust how much sizing you want by turning the collet. You can set it to squeeze the case back to original diameter or some other dimension, if you like. The SteelMaster press can resize both low and high brass hulls. Sweet!!!

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Stations 4 & 5 are where the hull closing happens. This is where I spent a lot of time making adjustments to get the crimps just right. It's important for crimps to be adjusted for proper closer of the hull. Bad crimps can have a negative effect on performance. The shell needs the crimp to provide some resistance for proper ignition without overpressure. There's an art to making great crimps. Station 4 forms a pre crimp. Some shells have 6 point folds while others have 8. Here I'm putting a six part pre crimp on the hull before the final closing is done at Station 5. Station 5 has multiple adjustments for cam, punch and also to drop a primer at Station 2 ready for the next hull/

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[Bill K]

Looks like this steel shot loading has turned into a little more work than expected. But with the damage and extra work to get it all working properly, I guess that would be expected.

Used to do a lot of shot shell reloading, 20 & 12 gauge, back in the late fifties to early seventies, but then stopped shooting shotguns as much and passed that equipment to the one son, who is heavy into shot gun, dogs and birds in the Vacaville, Ca area.

Know you will have it going full bore and issues all worked out very shortly. Bill K

[skipper]

I'm an engineer by profession and a tinkerer by nature. If there wasn't something to tinker with it would be plain monotony, muscle memory, ya know? I have to have a mission or I'm not happy.

Got two boxes of shells loaded and most of the kinks worked out. Now I need to send some in to be proofed and then its off to the range to pattern. This is a lot of fun and a nice challenge. I didn't realize reloading steel shot was so technical.