Reloading

Anyone here reload. I know any money save will be miniscual for lead and steel. I'm wondering if I could save enough money loading bismuth and or tungsten to make it worth while. Bismuth shells aren't to bad, I'd shoot more tungsten if I could load it my self at a decent enough price.

What's yalls opinion?

I never really cared about the economics of reloading, to me it was relaxing to reload and I could load what I wanted.

No experience reloading shotgun, but have been interested in the same thing you are. From the reading I have done, the savings on bismuth or tungsten isn’t much. Again, no first hand experience but I was considering trading my rifle reloading equipment for shotgun before I read that.

I reload 12,16,20 and 28. I have a bunch of MEC reloades if you haven't bought a reloader, and you are near New Braunfels any and all are youres for the taking just to clean up(some what) my garage. I have a Possness Warren 375 with two heads and like DC I just like doing it, the best price for Bizmuth is from rotometals.com
On non tox don't trust the bushings, use your scale.

If I'm correct, Boss has bismuth as cheap as you can do it.
Look at federal and the bismuth they came out with, it's astronomical in its price.

About 55 years ago I started loading because a friend of my grandpa asked mr ti help him load shells. This was the hard way, first you took a dowel with a pin in the end and stuck the dowel in the shell and knocked out the primer, With a pliars looking thing, you installed a new primer. You measured the powder with a little bitty cup., stuffed a cardboard wad in the shell and then a cushion wad made out of horse hair. Then you dumped the shot into a homemade little bitty cup to measure your shot.. Dumped the shot in to the shell and crimped it with a wood dowel that had been carved to cause the paper shell to crimp in a 6 crimp point. Then started all over on the next one.

Or sometimes we used a roll crimp These were an art, I messed up a few before I finally figured them out but they were my favorite. Before dove season we would spend evenings loading shells for the season. You cannot easily buy that kind of equipment today in the states but you can from Europe and other countries.

I load shot shells with a Mec, mostly to feed my skeet habit. The price of Bismuth shot is high and makes loading your own a push when I compared cost with Kent Bismuth. Bismuth is slightly lighter than lead. Either weighing the shot or reaming out a lead charge bar dedicated to throw your bismuth loads is the approach I recommend. The ability to monkey with buffering shot and experimenting with velocity and charge weight to load a shell you like the way your shotgun shoots might be the most beneficial aspect of loading your own, considering the current cost of bismuth shot.
Adjustable charge bars are available. I don’t use one so I can’t comment on them.

In 12 gauge, an ounce and a quarter of buffered bismuth over Longshot makes a shot shell I really like.
Bismuth gives substantial potency to the 20 gauge.
28 gauge and 410 is where you save real money reloading shot shells.

dogcatcher, that sounds pretty similar to my first 12 ga. handloading experience about 3 years after you started. I got into it for the economy. Mine was a Lee that you used a wood mallet to bang the primer out and bang the rest of the steps. same wads and cardboard. I bought all my components at Gibsons. I bought two boxes of paper 12 gauge shells at Western Auto and made those last about 2 years if I remember right. Tried plastic, but the paper were so much easier to crimp.

There was a gravel pit pond about a mile from my house. I would hop the fence, walk down there in the evening and ambush the doves that came in for a drink. This was slow hunting - mostly singles and average was 6-8 birds. I only got a limit 3 or 4 times and that was special. My kill ratio was in the high 90's % with a cylinder bore barrel and ambush type concealment. Those doves were coming from over 2 miles away to get that drink. Usually got enough to have supper a couple times a week for family of 4. I graduated up to a Mec about 5 or so years after that when loading goose shells in 2-1/2, 3", and 10 ga. Talk about a money saver compared to store bought Nitro-Mags! (before steel shot). I cooked up a duck load of 1-3/8 oz #5 lead that wasn't in the books but was smoking fast and would knock the piss out of ducks. Those worked good on turkeys too. The Active plastic hulls turned out to be my favorite as they would crimp just fine in that Mec.. I had already quit loading dove shells when the cost of shot got so high that it wasn't worth the time, but those goose and duck shells were a different story. I quit hunting ducks and geese right after steel came into law and never loaded any steel.Bismuth and Tungston hadn't come out of course at the time I quit. Still got that stuff and might get back into it if I ever get the 28 gauge I've been wanting but doubt that ever happens at this stage in my life.

Jon this wasn't a set up like the Lee Loader, Each part was hand made, The dowel, drilled out and pin set i the bottom with a piece of 2x4 with a hole to set the shell in with a tray to catch the spent primes, The powder and shot cups were pieces of rifle modified brass with handles soldered on to them..The crimper was hand carved out of wood.

I use to reload a bunch for trap loads. ballistic products is a good place to start for research. I definitely miss doing it like dogcatcher said it was relaxing and it was fun creating an exact load you were wanting.

Just a note about non tox if you are loading for waterfowl, the drop tubes were made for small shot and above #6 my tubes would get clogged and then the shot would break loose and I would have shot everywhere and a shell with less than a full load. That's why I weighed each load, if you have a cure for that I would sure like to hear it.

I’ve loaded the super speed steel loads...they are awesome but it’s time consuming and there are some good steel loads you can buy almost as cheap as you call roll them.

I used to load lead for sporting clays and steel to duck hunt. Lead got stupid and I wasn’t shooting as much and we moved so I blew it all out here.