Hi Bruce,

The query from your reader two days ago about 28 gauge loads reminded me that I have some information to share about this, the most wonderful of gauges. I use, and really like, Universal Clays powder for this gauge and get really good hull life.

I wonder how many of your readers have tried to reload the Remington Premier hull in this gauge. I have had a terrible time with it on my MEC 650 and have a friend who has also suffered the same problem with his PW loader. The problem is the buckling of the hull walls above the brass. A fellow sporting clays shooter tipped me off to the fix. Use the Federal 28S1 wad unit for this hull and it works great! The Hodgdon manual offers a load for this combo. These are such good shells when new and the hull reloads very nicely once you get around the buckling problem.

Don

Dear Don,

The nice thing about reloading is that there are so many different ways to get the job done. I ran into the same problem of collapsing the hulls of the Remingtons. It occurred when I used the Winchester wads and the Claybuster Winchester clones. I switched to the Remington factory wads and never had another problem.

Some of my friends happily load Winchester wads in the Remington 28 gauge hulls using MEC machines, but it didn’t work for me. I think that the main difference was that I use Alliant Unique in the 28 and they were using one of the Winchester Ball powders, which are less bulky and could accommodate the larger Winchester wad. Universal and Unique have about the same bulk, so I am not surprised that we both had problems initially.

I tried Hodgdon Universal, but it seems to me that I get even longer 28 gauge hull life from the cool burning Unique. I noticed that the Winchester Ball powders seemed to burn though those precious 28 gauge cases much faster than the Unique. My Winchester AA hulls still last the longest, but the new Remington compression formed ones are almost as good. They are both MUCH longer lived than the old Reifenhauser process Remington and Federal hulls.

Best regards,

Bruce Buck
Shotgun Report’s Technoid
(Often in error, never in doubt.)