MEC 650

[C M Wings]

So you aren’t suggesting checking literally every load that goes through the press but a handful of early ones to make sure things are flowing. Makes sense.

No weigh every load, every charge. The RCBS powder meters are good, and drop consistent loads with one crack of the meter. But with steel you’ll do better setting it up for half the desired charge and hitting it twice. Keep the tube half hull of more. Takes two seconds to load your powder that way. You can go the +\- 2 gn if you want. You can try 25 gns of Longshot instead of 32-33 gns of steel powder in the load I listed earlier and Longshot is available and also does fine out of mec bushings. But as it’s much more dense you’ll need a slightly taller wad like an RSI, TPS 2-3/4, or TPRW. CSD wads are a little shorter overall length which makes them great (best?) in 2-3/4 hull with bulky steel powder. That Longshot load will be 10k psi but prob not quite 1500 fps. Prob about 1450.

 

[C M Wings]

When you figure out what hulls you want notify me and I'll bring several hundred to the shindig unless there something special... I think Federal top gun is a popular Hull for the load you're interested in?

Those load great. Stay away from comparable Winchester hulls.

 

[bill cooksey]

This might get me back to shooting the o/u more. Got on a kick with my old Mag-12 last season, and that sucker kicks shells to hell and gone.

 

[SRW]

No weigh every load, every charge.

Why?

 

[JP]

I usually weigh the first few powder charges as things such as humidity (of that day) seem to affect coarse powders such as STEEL. The Hornady Lock-n-Load powder machine works well for that exercise.

Have formed "dippers" for various pellet charges and shot sizes that are +/- the grains to spec.

 

[C M Wings]

Why?

Safety and consistency. More the latter in 12 and 20. More the former in 28 and .410.

 

[SRW]

Safety and consistency. More the latter in 12 and 20. More the former in 28 and .410.

Nothing is gained with that degree of precision in shotgun loads. Shooting 1000+ yards with a rifle it might gain you a quarter MOA.

 

[SRW]

It’s no more difficult to do it accurately than in some slipshod manner, so why not? My shells end up looking like this. View attachment 380337 View attachment 380338
And perform accordingly.

Weighing every powder and shot charge is vastly more time consuming than simply dropping through bushings on the press. The difference in precision is so small that it makes no difference in the performance of a shotgun load.

 

[Iammichael6499]

Weighing every powder and shot charge is vastly more time consuming than simply dropping through bushings on the press. The difference in precision is so small that it makes no difference in the performance of a shotgun load.

BUT, when it’s 100 degrees outside and the basement is 67 degrees I don’t mind taking 3 times as long to load a round even if it’s “overkill” in the precision category.

 

[sharkman]

I do weight my powder charges because I use alliant steel powder, I try to save some time dropping the steel and drop it very consistent with the steel bottle (yellow lettering) and steel tube, there is 2 different shape steel tubes out there, one is flared out under the funnel a little, that is the one you want (1 on the left) see pic, I can drop up to BB shot all day long without bridging.