Thread: Quality "everlasting" .410 shells

Before I even get started on this thread I would like to point out that @Micky Duck was totally responsible fore sending me down this rabbit hole. I was quite happy shooting factory loaded .410 ammo until this duck/pheasant season and I made mention that I was finding it harder to find decent .410 loads. "Why dont you hand load some?" he said.... and then this happened...
My thread that got this started is here if you wish to see from the start.

https://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co....0g-walk-61464/

I shoot .410 over 12g and other sub bores for a few reasons, I like the light frame pointy little guns, they are still allowed to shoot lead over water, they are more challenging than a 12g and they are just flat out cool.
The .410 is often thought of and referred to as a beginners shotgun, they are anything but. I would go as far as saying they are more of a professionals gun... dont believe me? Pick one up and go shoot some clays with one or use one on opening morning.. I love the challenges it throws over the 12g which I have hunted and competed well with for years, I actually quit shooting 12g 10 years ago, partly because I just dont like steel ammo and party because I got bored of it.






There are some crazy tungsten pellets out there that extend the .410s range and will take out geese at 70yds+ with a, most onlookers would likely assume you were shooting a 10g with the killing range of these little guns when loaded with this stuff;

Prairiewind Decoys. 18 g/cc Tungsten Super Shot TSS - FREE SHIPPING

Personally I like to run lead and cant quite justify the cost of this unicorn fodder.
I do tend to favour the heavier 3" loads with #4s and #6 shot. The only ammo I find sporadically in that loading is a 11/16oz Winchester Super X.
Only a few manufacturers make the heaviest 3/4oz load and none are available in NZ.


So out I went to pick up some 209 primers and some wads to see if I could replicate Winchesters 3/4oz load at 1125fps.
I pulled apart a few old 20g shells as I couldnt find anyone selling #4 or #5 lead shot either so robbed the shot from those for the trial.
Id never loaded for any shotgun before which seems nuts as Ive never bought factory ammo for any of my centerfires sine I started out shooting. It was only a few loads in before I had already decided I hated loading plastic hulls and messing with crimps etc. in all fairness I dont have any shotgun loading gear and fair to say I wont be buying any either... I was just doing it all by hand after watching a few youtube vids of some rednecks doing the same with a soft face hammer and a dowel.




I managed to get a 3/4oz load sorted that gave me 1100fps with Alliant 300MP powder but my crimps were splitting and hulls were dead after about 3 loadings.
Another issue was that all the .410 wads available in NZ were also too short for the 3" hulls so only about 2/3rds of the shot was held in the wad and the rest was exposed.
I had a mate in USA post me a couple of bags of these long wads instead;

https://www.ballisticproducts.com/TP...tinfo/3224100/

They are made for loading steel shot but they will also hold a 3/4oz load of lead.

Then I got chasing brass .410 cases made by Magtech, I soon found they only made the 2.5" shells and only recommended for use with black powder and felt wads.
I found guys using .444 marlin brass and fire forming .303 brass but this was even shorter so it would get my full house 3/4oz shot loads in them.

So after a lot of researching various rimmed cases I stumbled across the 9.3x74R case. It was the full 3" and had good quality Norma brass available. The rim was a few thou thicker than the .410 dimension so they needed a slight skim in the lathe off the front surface to get the gun to close properly on them.

Rather than waste components fire forming them I decided to make some forming dies to size it up to the straight walled .410 shell.

I made a s/s die with a tapered expander ball to neck the brass up and remove the taper from the body and then a second stage blunt end expander ball to open up the lower section above the cup to have a nice tight fit with my new longer plastic wads.





















Ignore the short brass in that pic, it was just a cut off .303 shell I was using to set up the expander ball diameter.

This new die made easy work of opening up the Factory 9.3x74R brass in 3 steps, neck and body expander, lower body expander and a pass through a .444 Marlin body die to true it all up to final dimensions.







I even repurposed and old Redding die box and printed a new label for my flash new custom die set.

One final tool was needed and that was a punch to cut out some over shot cards, I spun up a piece of stainless steel an drilled a precise hole in the centre of it to punch out cards that were a tight press fit into the sized brass. I sharpened the outside edge and it works a treat.
The card sits on top of the pellets and then the brass gets a roll crimp in a .444 marlin seater die which holds it all neatly in place. I will probably seal them with wax or glue once I get a load sorted for the field. The card is also good for noting the shot size on top.










My first test loads in these brass cases were very slow which was not unexpected, the same load that got me 1100fps in the plastic Winchester 3" hulls only got me a little over 700fps in the brass. The powder charge sits in a lager cup in the brass than it did in the plastic and I run large pistol primers not the big 209 shotgun primer so there are big variations in pressure output. I planned to up the charge until I reach the 1100fps in the brass too.



But wait... then there was another problem....
No one has stock of #4, #5 or #6 lead shot in NZ and no one seemed interested in getting it as it is now a very low demand product that will be banned around water for everything other than .410 in 2021.
This had me researching how to make my own lead shot.

A quick trip to town, and I picked up a $10 s/s baking tray, $17 of car wash detergent and $22 of brass hydraulic fittings.



About 20 mins later I had assembled my prototype shot maker.
I made a baffle slide from a piece of angle 6061 alloy and drilled three holes for the brass fittings. I drilled a 1mm hole in each end cap to act as a nozzle. from What I read the nozzle size needed to be 1/3 of the size of the required shot. I had decided to make #5 shot.
The baffle is coated in a dry spray graphite to stop the molten lead sicking and pooling.









The lead is recycled air rifle pellets from my pellet trap which all goes in the pan and is melted by an LPG gas burner, as it all comes up to temp the lead finds its way out the little nozzles and hits the baffle slide which starts it rolling into a neat little ball before being quenched in the warm detergent.
Why not water you ask? The higher viscosity of the detergent slows the balls decent and keeps it round rather than teardrop shaped and cools it a little slower preventing whats known as popcorn shot that hollows out and deforms itself as it pops wildly in cold water.








https://youtu.be/lPf7yV9ij3o


It took a couple of attempts to get good round shot but I managed to work out the kinks.
I drilled a bunch of 3mm holes in the bottom of an old s/s bowl to use as a sorting screen which also worked well, about 2/3rds of the shot fell through and the rest I dumped back into the melting pot.

The final stage was to through it in my tumbler for an hour with some graphite powder and out came some very shiny and smooth #5 lead shot.







Finally some quality .410 loads that run about 30 to 40 cents per shot and brass that will last forever.
I will get some chrony work and test patterns done next week some time.

Thats right Micky duck.. it was all you! see what you went and made me do!