Those old Super-X Mark 5s in size 6 shot were the best pheasant killers I ever shot from my AYA #2 RB Game Gun. Great ammo! Never tried 7.5's but bet they would be great chukar and Hun cartridges, blue & sharptail grouse plus prairie chicken too!

 

That would be a good clay target load for 16 gauge fans.

 

I shot a box of them on clays. The shot buffer in the shell looks like paper, not plastic pellets. Found it in my vest and in my gun when I cleaned it. And you can see it falling to the ground on high shots.

 

Be a shame to shoot clays with those loads.

 

All new plastic! Gotta love em!

 

September 1, I would be burning some of those up in the dove field.

 

Sure would be nice if Winchester was still popping out those 16 ga Mark 5's, although I somewhat preferred the low brass "Upland" variation of that hull.

 

The first "compression formed" hull, and the best for reloading in 16 gauge, if the plastic is not broken down with age.

 

As a collector, no value. As shells, sure. Those are heavy 7.5s, should be going 1300fps. Nice hulls for reloading too, dont throw those out!

 

 

You gotta be pretty mad at a game of skeet to shoot these bad boys. Think they look just fine on the shelf.

 

"Improved patterns. Higher scores"... Well yeah you are launching 670 pellets out there

 

They would have very high collector value for me until I shot them up!

Used many boxes in past and thought they were great on game.

 

That's the thing about plastic, it starts to slightly change from the moment it is molded. While I am sure they were fine hulls back in the day, that day was a heck of a long time ago.
Try a few, I think you might be disappointed.

 

No plastic here…

 

Love the old box style

 

Just curious if there's a date code on the box somewhere. I pulled out some federal 16ga from my stash dated 1971. Haven't tried shooting any, but dove season is right around the corner.

 

On the top flap of the box (inside) is printed ”K77DE22TS”. Other than that, no traditional date stamp of any kind. On another forum a member said that he thought they were made early 60’s just from the style of the box.

 

July 7th 1955 or 1975. Id say 75.

 

I'm throwing my guess in the ring, since I have nothing better to do and have no clue. Dec 22, 1977

 

Me either. I got them from someone who got them from a estate sale. They had no information other than the previous owner was in their 90’s.

 

I never have been disappointed when shooting a vintage shotshell, the opportunity alone eliminates that happening....plus, I miss with more modern offerings.
I must be too easily satisfied.

 

I should probably have said that my "guess" was based on the date code you provided. You can cross reference with the Win/Western charts to see the dates, they repeat every 20 years.

 

Thank you. Where might I find the charts?

 

The Mark-5 plastic shot collar appears in the 1962 catalog, with the Super-X and Xpert still in paper hulls. The plastic hulls appear in the 1964 catalog, compression formed for the Super-X (like AAs but with higher brass) and poly-formed (plastic tube with a fiber base wad) for the Xpert. Those style boxes were in use through 1972. By 1973 The Western Super-X had moved into the white boxes --

in 1971 the Xpert got replaced with the compression formed Upland --

 

I assume the number I quoted earlier is just a ammunition production lot number? And nothing to do with a date? Thank you for the information.

 

The date is in the lot number, but deciphering is a bit complicated, because of repeating cycle of year code.
Probably way more information than you were looking for, but here's a reference
h
ttps://www.mdshooters.com/threads/dating-winchester-western-ammo-boxes.178198/

 

K77DE22TS

K77 is the production line. D = 1970 E = May so 22 May 1970.

 

K77DE22TS

K77 is the production line. D = 1970 E = May so 22 May 1970.

Thank you. Very interesting. Now I’m curious how old other boxes I have are.