Today, with a Noreaster brewing outdoors and devil time on my hands, I loaded up a mess of 32-20 shot loads for tomorrow when and if the sun shines again. Sure, we can use CCI shot capsules but making your own is most of the fun.
Anyone can do the same with their favorite cartridge, but it must be a straight wall (or close to it)
Powder--4.5 gr. of Unique
Shot---85 grains of #11 shot----the shot should wind up about an 1/8" below the case mouth.
crimp----I just ran the 32-20 case into a 25-20 FLS (with decapping stem removed) partway to form the crimp and keep the wad and shot nice and tight in the case.
wad----30 caliber thin wad (cut from a 1,000 Federal primer box). Two are needed for each round---one over the powder and one over the shot. I used a 30-40 Krag case--sharpened it a bit on a chamfering tool---I kept wacking the case over the cardboard and let the wads accumulate inside the case. When I had enough, I just cut the neck off the case with a bandsaw and dumped 'em out.
Here's a few pics. I'll get more of the "harvest" when they start flying again.
Empty 32-20 case with cut off Krag case with a sample wad.
32-20 case with proper amount of shot---roughly 85 grains of #11 shot---There's 520 pellets in there.
Next to the case is a capfull of #11 shot. next to that is a capfull of mixed #6 and #8---too big
Loaded round with wad and crimp
Loaded round feeds just as good with this as it does with a regular round.
Test target at 10 feet. That black area is peppered with holes--Kinda hard to see in the pic. There's 520 pellets in there. Ain't no bee or anything else gonna escape that. I guess it would work on other things you boys have that need to be shot.
-------------Sixgun
