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The 20 gauge 3/4 oz Thread of Justice

272K views 200 replies 79 participants last post by  TaylorL 
#1 ·
There are a lot of threads on loading 20 gauge 3/4 oz loads, and a lot of interest. Unfortunately much of the info is spread over 10 years of posts, and some of the real golden nuggets are embedded in threads that at first glance don't appear of interest. It's a lot of reading and confusing to remember what you read after all the disagreements and differing opinions.
I thought I'd list the main points I extracted from all my reading, things many of the respected reloading posters here have agreed on, with supporting links, as a way to ease the research for others (and give me a place to review what I kinda recall reading at some date in the future...)

1. Why load 3/4oz in 20ga?
- lower recoil than "standard" 7/8 oz loads.
- plenty for skeet and close clays
- great "starter load" for new shooters to keep them from quitting/flinching due to recoil (kids, wife, etc.)
- essentially a 28 gauge load but cheaper to load in 20 gauge: hulls cheaper, more available, and give more reloads (according to some folks, who say the larger diameter hull mouth causes fewer crimp failures/splits).
- save $$-- shot is the most expensive component usually as of 2015, lighter payloads give more per bag: 533 3/4oz loads vs. 457 7/8oz loads vs. 400 1oz per 25lb bag of shot. Also takes less powder, particularly if you're loading a low-recoil/slower load around 1100fps or so.

2. What hulls to use?
REMINGTON Gun Club << #1 recommended in 20ga by far! All Remington load with same data.
- Just about everyone agrees that Remington GunClub are the best. Almost same hull as the Rem Nitro and Rem STS but cheaper shells, so GC more common often and give more reloads. Some folks like GC better than the STS plastic. GC hulls are actually steel based with a brass wash applied.
- Rem GC/STS/Nitro has an integral molded basewad so no worries about basewad separating with multiple reloads.
- Rem GC has good hull capacity, more than Win AAHS (not a real factor for 3/4oz load usually as it's small volume).
- Rem GC give good numbers of reloads with mouth and crimps staying good.

Best 20 ga. factory ammo to reload • Shotgunworld.com
I've got a new Beretta 686 20 ga. on the way and I'm going to pick up ... for this gun so I want to buy factory stuff with the best hulls for reloading.
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=242899

20ga hulls • Shotgunworld.com
I want to know what everybodys opinion is on the best 20ga hull for reloading trap/skeet sheels, and why. I'm tired of buying all my 20ga shells, ...
viewtopic.php?t=15907

Who makes the best hulls for reloading? • Shotgunworld.com
Would it be Winchester, Remington, Federal? Which hulls in 12 and 20 gauge do you think are the best all-around for producing a good shell?
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=200249

Help me understand 20GA hulls - Winchester and Remington
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=420367

Winchester (AA HS, old AA Compression Formed, Super Target & SuperX sometimes called "Universal")
- Most agree that the Win AA HS is the 2nd best 20ga hull to reload
- All Win 20ga reload the same: old style CF, new AA HS, and the thinner walled Super Target and SuperX hulls
- Win AAHS have less capacity than most all other 20ga hulls, proper wad selection to fid the load in is critical. Not as hard with 3/4oz loads.
- Old Win AA Compression Formed (single piece hulls) are considered good (like Rem GC) if you can get them.
- Many folks don't like reloading 2 piece hulls with concerns about basewad separating and lodging in barrel
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=255210
- Almost everyone agrees the cheap Win SuperTarget hulls with with steel head are poor, mostly due to steel head expanding and getting stuck in chambers

20 gauge hull cut aways, Win "Universal", AA HS, CF; Rem ...
All win load the same. Hard to see, but the plastic sides are much thicker for the AA than for either the Super X or Super target, I put the side ...
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=418214

Win Super Target hulls - Any good? • Shotgunworld.com
I picked up some 20 ga. Winchester Super Target hulls that my skeet partner was using. Appears to be a 2-piece hull with a plastic base-wad.
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=234481

Win AAHS and Super Target difference • Shotgunworld.com
The other (Win Super Target) is a steel based hull that I throw away, but I suppose could be reloaded in a pinch. The AAHS is much easier to ...
viewtopic.php?f=53&t=398394

Win. Super Target • Shotgunworld.com
Winchester Super Target I've been saving these hulls, hoping to buy a reloader. Now's the time, but I'm not sure if these can be reloaded.
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=40395

Win Super Target hulls • Shotgunworld.com
I picked up a bunch of Win super target hulls at the club on Sat. They look cheap and I've seen all the bad publicity about the Universal hulls ...
shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=191066

20ga. Win Super Target, Universals • Shotgunworld.com
The Win Universal hull is probably the worst hull for reloading of all the new shells on the market today. Win recommends that they not be ...
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=208071

Straight-Walled Euro-Hulls: Cheddite, Fiocchi, Rio, Estate
- Some folks don't like these, saying they don't get good numbers of reloads
- Some folks DO like them, saying they get good reloads.
- Ballistic Products Inc uses these mostly in their loads, so if you're using their data you'll use these hulls
- Many powders that are becomming more common and easier to find (Vectan, Nobel Sport, Maxxum, CSB) give most recipes with euro hulls.
- pre-primed hulls are avail from BPI and can be good as no hazmat is charged
Crimping NEW Cheddite hulls • Shotgunworld.com
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=321475

Reloading Rio Hulls • Shotgunworld.com
Can someone direct me to, or send me recipes for loading 2 3/4" 12, 16, 20 gauge Rio hulls? I have data from BPI but it is pretty restricted and ...
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=246027

Rio shotshell primer, and issues with Rio basewad damaging wad with low powder charges:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=245474

3. Fitting stuff in the hulls for good crimp
- With only 3/4oz of shot, just about everything is guaranteed to fit--the problem is filling up hull enough to have good crimps that are not dished.
- Some folks recommend the 7/8oz CB wad (Win AA replacement CB1078-20). However, Claybuster now makes a 3/4oz wad specifically for 20ga, the CB1075-20. This is basically the 7/8oz wad with a plastic lump in the shot cup that takes up some space, making the 3/4oz of shot come up to the top of the wad. Using zero wad pressure is a good starting spot, just look to make sure the top of the shot cup is aligned with the "crimp edge" on the hull. Slightly high should compress fine during final crimp; but too low will allow hull walls to be unsupported and can give hull buckling or crushed crimps; and for sure will give dished crimps though that's not a real problem. Either CB wad will work in my experience; try both and see which one requires the lease tweaking of your press.
- If some filler is needed to get the powder/wad/shot stack up high enough, you can use a wad in the base of shot cup, or an OverShot card, or plop a cheerio in there on top. I've tried it with Win Universal (super tgt) hulls which needed filler, all three worked but I found just using a cheerio on top the easiest.

4. Recipes and Powders:
- Alliant give recipes for 3/4oz loads in Winchester and Remington hulls only, using American Select, Green Dot, Unique, and 20/28. Pressures also go in that order, with American Select highest around 11,000psi, GD 9-11,000, Unique 7500-9000, and 20/28 fromm 6500-8200. Powder weights are between 12.5gr and 16.5 gr.
Powder density goes from 20/28 being most dense, then Unique, then Am Select, and Green Dot being the most bulky. This makes Green Dot a very good powder-- high bulk to fill up the shells giving good crimp, and also good pressures to give clean consistent burning: not too low, but not too high either making a forgiving powder.
- I've loaded Win AA/HS, Win Comp Formed (old), Win Universal shells with: (Unique, 20/28, Green Dot). I liked Green Dot the best, very good metering for consistent loads and light recoil.
- Hodgdon also gives recipes for 3/4oz loads in Win and Rem hulls only. They give recipes for 3 powders: Winchester Super Handicap, IMR PB (discontinued), and Hodgdon International Clays. I haven't loaded any Hodgdon/IMR/Win powders in 3/4oz 20ga loads; others may have, and hopefully they'll chime in below if so.
- Lyman 5th Ed gives NO 3/4oz recipes for 20ga.
- BPI in their "Advantages" load manual gives 120 recipes for hulls by Cheddite, Fiocchi, and Rio; using their wads, and most powders possible. They have recipes for 5/8oz - 13/16 oz. There are also 10 or so recipes for Win AAHS, Fed, and Rem STS/Premier using BPI or gualandi wads. Powders they cover that are not covered by Alliant or Hodgdon websites are 700x, 800x, Clays, Solo1000, Herco, and the discontinued SR7625 and SR4756.
- OF NOTE: Any 7/8oz load can be used and just reduce the shot charge to 3/4oz, safely, as this will reduce pressures from the already published acceptable ones. Using a recipe up 10-11,000psi should ensure sufficient pressure still to get good burns and function.
 
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#53 ·
From various Alliant books. This one is 1995.
20ga 2.75" Win-Western AA type shells (Win AA CF)
7/8oz shot, win209 primer, WAA20 wad, 16.5gr Herco, 9600psi, 1200fps.

Same with CCI209 primer, 10,200psi.
CCI209M primer, 17.5gr Herco, 10,000psi... THIS one totally doesn't make sense to me as the magnum primer should boost pressure and its another grain of powder, but less pressure... I wouldn't trust that datapoint, but it's there.

Just drop down the shot charge to 3/4oz, it will be safe and give more speed and less pressure. Herco is a bit slow for 3/4oz, they usually use Unique and Green Dot for those loads in the old manuals.
 
#54 ·
Loaded some 20 ga 3/4 oz with Green Dot and first box I tried was 25 straight. Pretty pleased with that. The load:
Remington GC hull, 3/4 Rio #9, CB1075-20 wad, Cheddite primer, 13.6 Green Dot.

It even cycled my Standard 1100 20 ga.
 
#55 ·
I've been running the same thing almost on my MEC9000 with perfect crimps:
Rem GC, Win209, 13.8gr GreenDot (#24 bushing for me), CB 1075-20, 3/4oz #9 shot. Actually 338 gr, my bar throws #9 shot slightly heavy.
Based off the various Alliant loads of the same except they use Ch209 or Rem209P primer and max at 14.2gr.

Today I went to try the new Rem ACF hulls with the same recipe on the MEC9000. Strangely it was crimping too deeply for them! I was getting 0.075-0.085" deep crimps instead of .055" I get on the GC hulls. Had to back the center plunger on the crimp off several turns, then good crimps. Didn't expect that with the ACF, thought they were the very same... unfortunately I had reloaded all my GC hulls so couldn't measure OAL to compare.
 
#56 ·
Just another Remington ACF (American Clay and Field) vs. GunClub note...
In 12ga, I just loaded about 1000 of each sort. Some were 7/8oz using the CB 0178-12 wad, some were 3/4oz using the CB-0175-12 wad.

In all cases, the ACF crimps were averaging a little shallower. The GC, for which my MEC9000 was set, was exactly 0.055" depth, measured over 20 shells or so. But the ACF in 12ga actually gave about 0.035-0.040" depth. This is the opposite of what I found in 20ga. I had to turn my final crimp center punch down about 1 turn to get 0.055" crimps. This used up a bit of plastic that had been in the fold, resulting in a wee center hole on some, too small for a #9 shot to get out. So I then also increased my pre-crimp by about 1 turn to get rid of the center hole.

I'm mostly shooting 3/4oz #9 shot loads in 12ga now, or 3/4oz 20ga, for skeet. Finding the Rem ACF as good as the GC, which are my favorite hull so far. Haven't loaded a small batch that many times yet to see longevity, as I'm churning through 1250 hulls each time.
 
#58 ·
Galaxy Flyer said:
Is there a 7/8 load for STS hulls and Green Dot? None are listed in Alliant's reloaded guide, but I have 16# of the stuff. I am using it for 3/4 loads.
GF
Galaxy, Alliant has removed GreenDot for all 7/8oz loads except in the large Federal hull. There were a lot of reports of 20ga tubes (inserts for target 12ga guns) that were cracked from GD loads. Basically a 20ga tube insert is the thinnest weakest insert you can put in a 12ga, and they weren't hacking the published pressures. Alliant decided to pull the data, whether it met SAAMI or not, for the Rem and Win hulls. It was all around 10500-11500 psi to start with.

SO... if you shoot 20ga tubes, the answer is for sure no. But...
IF you shoot a regular 20ga and accept that GD loads are at the higher end of saami pressures (I like that, clean!), THEN you could make the personal choice to use the old data published by Alliant and Hercules for 7/8oz GreenDot loads, before folks started using 20ga tube inserts. Not the "maximum conservative only use most recent published" answer, but one I am OK with making for myself alone.

Green Dot is my favorite powder for 20ga (I've got 16# too lol!), and like you I'm using it for 3/4oz loads. If you find the old Alliant books (google them), say 1995 or 96, you can find some recipes... but they're still pretty sparse and with Rem209p (weak) primers, hulls aren't quite the same, etc. If I had to do it, I'd load a light 7/8oz say 370gr, and I'd load 0.5 gr less than listed and go chrono them to see if I was OK with the speed. There's a recipe published for CCI109, Rem RXP hull, WAA20 wad, GD, 1155fps 10700psi. So none of the original Rem recipes were for fast loads anyways.

Or you could just load up 3/4oz of #9 shot for 430 pellets vs. 7/8oz #8 shot 353 pellets, if you're shooting skeet. If you're doing sporting you could use #8.5 for 360 pellets in 3/4oz, and use a 1250fps recipe, getting the same pellet energy approximately as the #8 pellets at 1100 fps you'd probably end up with trying a 7/8oz recipe. That would be a better solution probably ;)
 
#61 ·
I do not load for 20ga, but this week found factory Remington 3/4oz #8 at 1275fps. I assume they are this fast to cycle gas guns, or maybe just to burn clean, and will check with a Beretta 303's 3" chambered barrel that cycles skeet loads without hiccup. Have any of you shot these shells at clays or game?
 
#65 ·
I couldn't find them online either, they were at a local store. Marked as High Velocity Game Loads, "100fps faster than standard game loads!" HV 20-8. They're not marked steel so gotta figure they're lead.
 
#66 ·
Got around to cutting open one of the HV shells and comparing it to a Rem Clay and Field round. Other than the 6pt crimp it looks like the 8pt Gun Club with different markings and "brass" color. I didn't cut open a Gun Club, figure it's got the same wad as the Clay and Field 7/8oz-1200fps round. Turns out, the HV shell carries the same thing. Powder measured as 14.5gr of a large flake for the C&F and 15.9gr of a similar looking powder in the HV. Shot weights were 396gr for 7/8oz and 355.5gr for 3/4oz. My scale has markings stating they should be 382gr and 328gr. Of course, this was only checking one sample of each of these shells. I'm getting booted around by a pretty good cold this weekend, but will get out eventually to check if they cycle my 303. They may already be discontinued shells, as they're not showing on their website.







 
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#67 ·
great pics, and thanks very much for that effort!
That's a really interesting shell, and would be nice to have available. 1200fps 7/8 oz is 18.3 ft lbs in a 6.5 lb gun. The 3/4oz at 1300 fps would be 16.5 ft lbs. So you'd have a reduced recoil load, but still a fast enough 3/4 oz to cycle semi-autos. I'd buy it more for skeet or clays than for game though.
 
#68 ·
Dave in AZ said:
great pics, and thanks very much for that effort!
That's a really interesting shell, and would be nice to have available. 1200fps 7/8 oz is 18.3 ft lbs in a 6.5 lb gun. The 3/4oz at 1300 fps would be 16.5 ft lbs. So you'd have a reduced recoil load, but still a fast enough 3/4 oz to cycle semi-autos. I'd buy it more for skeet or clays than for game though.
Well, I am a "shotgun enthusiast" after all! The math comes out to a 13/16 shot charge for that individual shell, maybe it was heavy or maybe they decided it was close enough to stamp them 3/4oz.
 
#69 ·
They cycled my 303 Beretta and felt similar to 1200fps 7/8oz shells in my M37 Ithaca. Unfortunately I waited too long and missed out on a flat for 50 bux. The shop has Fiocchi 3/4oz at 1075fps but at a few dollars more per box.
 
#70 ·
Republican said:
hehe, - The ¾ ounce "thread of justice", - I love it.

Also, don't forget the Vectan powders for these ¾ oz 20-gauge loads.

If you're Ok with 1200 fps, Vectan's A1 (loosely similar to Green dot) works :



For 1250-1325 fps, Vectan's A0 is the better choice :

I started loading Gunclubs with Win 209, CB 1075-20, and 14gr of A1.

Soft shooting and very very clean
 
#72 ·
The Gualandi wads are a good fit for the Federal hull. I just loaded some SG20M Gualandi wads with 7/8 ounce of shot and 15.5 grains of Alliant 20/28 powder. Good crimps.

I have ordered some Gualandi SG20L wads to try with 3/4 ounce of shot and 14.5 grains of 20/28. Based on how well the SG20M wad workes with 7/8 ounce the SG20L should be a good fit with 3/4 ounce.

The Gualandi 20 gauge wad is the only wad that actually contacts the the inner wall of the Federal hull just above the powder charge. The Federal hull is a straight wall hull. The Federal hull accepts a Cheddite primer well and the crimp memory is superior to the Winchester Universal hull.
 
#73 ·
My 3/4 oz load:
14.0 gr Universal, CB 1075-20, zero wad pressure, WW 209, 3/4 oz #9s, AA hulls.
Crimps are dished and some shot is found in my vest pocket.
Herd a adding a Cheerio would help, so I loaded a box, but have not had
a chance to try them yet.
Any opinions on performance?
Kindly advise.
Duane
 
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