Читать книгу Reloading for Shotgunners онлайн

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All hulls are not alike. In the discount marts, you will find numerous boxes of low priced shells, often called promotional loads. These lead-filled shells are excellent for one-time use, but should not be considered seriously for reloading – okay, maybe once or twice, but with caution! There has to be a reason these shells are cheap. First, they are usually constructed with paper inserts inside at the base of the hull, and these inserts will soon detach and they can lodge in the gun barrel. Anything lodged inside your barrel is going to be a problem. Moreover, although over/under and side-by-side shooters secretly think of themselves as a notch above gas gunners, it is still the rare double barrel operator who conscientiously checks his or her barrels before inserting another two rounds and snapping the breech shut.

Hulls evolved significantly during the last century. Originally, the self-contained shotshell hull was brass from top to bottom. All-brass shells were cumbersome and expensive, however, and except for the base (sometimes called the head), paper rather quickly replaced the all-brass hull. A rigid brass base was retained to seat the base wad, hold the primer, contain the shaped paper hull and to provide a solid grip for the gun’s extractors after firing.