Hi all,

My neighbor gave me eight brass 12g hulls that fit perfectly in my 1915 Ithaca side by side. I've included pics below (link-- file was too large). Can I reload these? Would I use similar materials (wad in particular) that I use in plastic hull reloading? Also, there is some kind of tool that came in the box she gave me and I have no idea what it is (see pic). Lastly, it doesn't appear that modern primers would fit in these brass hulls, but I haven't looked very closely yet. Any information you can offer would be wonderful, and thanks in advance!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/pRURH39iU32bbFzA9

Brass shotgun shells were used with black powder a lot up until the 1940s. And sometimes used in military buckshot loads because they could be waterproofed better than paper hulls.

Most modern-made brass hulls for 12 gauge are loaded with 11 gauge fiber wads, not with plastic shotcups. You've apparently got 8 real old Winchester brass hulls. While they can be simple to load, you won't find loading data for them easily. Especially if the Winchester hulls are a little different than modern made hulls (like Magtech). First time I've seen Winchester headstamped hulls.

Cowboy Action shooters still use similar brass hulls occasionally, but almost always with black powder loads. These MAY take a large pistol primer. If so, the used one is punched out with a drift punch, and a new one installed by knocking the case down onto a new primer placed on a wood block. The final wad column is normally sealed with an overshot card held in place originally with waterglass (sodium silicate "glue") but now often sealed up with hot glue gun or white carpenters glue. Don't know what the tool you have is - would need pictures from several views and taken with better focus.

BUT - If I am recalling correctly, there would be a bit of collectible value in these hulls that would be more valuable to you than making functional shotshells of them. You might check around on GunBroker and a few other firearms auctions to see if you can find out what they might be worth to a collector.

good luck, garrisonjoe

Load them as garrisonjoe recommends and use them in SASS events. You will be part of the in-crowd. Or some of those folks will buy them from you. They work fine but just require slower handloading techniques. Picture of the tool will be needed to ID. Good luck!

The pic is included in the file with brass shells. It looks like a shotshell with a protrusion out of the brass base.

Thanks for the advice!

The other cases in the pictures are pinfire, an early ignition system predating centre fire cases.
Pinfire hammer guns have a small hole in the top edge of the breech, to accommodate the pin.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing!

You'd first need a pin fire gun to shoot em. They can be reloaded, and if you search the net for reloading pinfire shells I'm sue something will come up. It is a PITA to put the new percussion cap down in the shell.

Cool old shells. As stated above, they're pinfire hulls. Destined to sit on a shelf somewhere.

I went back and looked again. The first two on the left are just old brass shells. They normally take a large pistol or rifle primer. I use rifle. The wads would have to be fiber seeing how the inside of the shell is probably larger in diameter than a modern plastic shell. You only have two, then make your own. Hard cards for over the powder, .130 thick, then some any kind of cardboard for filler wad, and a thin overshot card about .028 thick. You could just use a overpowder card for sealing purposes then a plastic wad and the OS card. You'll have problems with good powder burns that won't give you bloopers unless you do a swedge crimp or I use a hot glue gun to keep the OS card in place. You want at least a 1/8" of shell showing above the OS card for the glue to adhere to the shell and give a good deal of resistance to the load getting moving. I found out through a lot of trail and error using 444 Marlin brass for 410 shells. I would be neat shooting the brass shells. Sell the pinfire shells to someone who would appreciate them.

Looks to be a pin fire hulls for the pin fire guns, so no use to you.





Can be used for reloading for standard guns.

Down and dirty, Metallic type sizer is needed if it needs to be sized, used a Mag rifle primer, wad or fiber wads needs to be 11 gauge due to the increased ID of the hull, and instead of doing a case flared roll edge crimp on the top of shot card to hold the shot in place, you can do a fiber wad over shot and Hot glue the over card in place instead. The hot glue trick works two fold, being that you are not working the mouth of the case to cause it to crack over time, while at the same time, do not have to get the top of shot over cup to the top of the hull for the taper type hull crimp to hold it in place.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?182237-Reloading-Brass-Shotgun-Shells-My-Way

Great info, thanks! What I'm struggling with is finding good reload data using pistol primers. I've seen people drill out the bottom to insert 209 primers. If I were to go that route, would I use load data for, say, federal hull reloads? I'm trying to keep lower pressure for my old gun and want to use reliable data before experimenting. Thanks again!