Between myself and another guy, we have probably 15 boxes of empty shotgun shells, maybe more. They are all 3" and 3 1/2" shells from duck season. We have access to a reloader, and decided to collect our hulls midway through the season.

Can we reload these shells safely?

There are about 12 canisters of "shotgun" powder of either Merco or Red Dot brand we can use some of. I'm guessing they are around 10 years old or maybe more. can we use this powder or is it too old?

There are plenty of CCI shotgun primers of probably the same age, I'm guessing they would still work.

There are about 20 bags of assorted colors of wads. I'm guessing we would not be able to use these as the individual who used to do a lot of reloading mostly only reloaded low brass lead shells.

We were hoping all we would have to buy was the steel shot and maybe wads. We are only interested in reloading our duck loads at this point.

Should we pursue this or drop it?


Thanks guys!

Steel is a whole different animal to reload. You will have to buy a press for steel, or buy the components to convert a lead press. Make sure you buy a good reloading manual and stick to it. You can't mix and match with steel as well as in lead loads.

the 2 powders you have are not for steel shot, and the wads for steel are different than lead. get a copy of lymans 5th addision of shot shell reloading, its the best book on the subject.

Mike