Questions to those reloading 12 ga Tungsten turkey shells.

DartonJager

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If anyone here is presently reloading their own 12 gauge 3" or 3.5" turkey shells using tungsten shot what equipment do you need to buy and what was your cost to do so?
I'm only researching at this point and looking to see if it's financially worth my while.

Thanks,
Art.
 
Midway's reloading catalog that I got a month or so ago had a real good section on shotgun reloading, heavy shot, buck shot and sobots. Might check out their site.
 
I load 20 ga TSS shells, and have loaded 12 ga in the past.
At the very least (equipment wise) you need a scale, roll crimper, hand drill, and some type of a razer blade. A funnel is also helpful but if you are cutting cost to the bone, you can get by without one. You can upgrade to a drill press at some point (if you want to) for around $100 (Harbor Freight) works just fine.
Cost of shot is approx $45-50 per pound depending on where you get it and who you get it from.
Depending on who's recipe you use and what components are used as well as the amount of shot your shooting (there really is no reason to go over 2 oz and most are in the 1 3/4-1 7/8 oz range) will depend on the cost of the shell. Some people do load 2.25 - 2.5 oz in a 12 but why? I myself have gone to a 20 ga. using TSS and shoot 2 loads, a 1 7/16, and a 1 5/8 oz load. Both work great and with the 1 5/8 oz load, I am putting over 300 pellets in a 10 inch circle at 40 yards.
Back to cost, just as a ball park making lots of guesses on cost, each shell is going to be around $7.50. Could be a little more or a little less depending on the components used for the load.
I will tell you this, FOLLOW THE RECIPE OF THE LOAD! I have a friend that has spent a lot of money developing loads and having them lab tested and just a little variance makes a big difference in pressure. Use the exact hull, wad, buffer, mica, and anything else called out in the recipe and use the exact amount of powder, shot and buffer as well.
It really is not hard to load these shells, and I like the fact that I know that the shell I am shooting did not change from year to year like some manufacturer's shells do, which means you may have to start all over with the matching of shot, shell, and choke matching because your gun does not like whatever it was that changed.
I have been shooting TSS for 8 or more years now and do not see myself ever going back to lead.
Yes the cost is more but lets face it, turkey hunting is not a high volume shooting sport.
When I was hunting TX and TN (both have 4 bird limits, at least where I was hunting)
I might have shot 12 shells total (limited in both states) and 4 shells to check zero on my gun.
Most years (for the last few years, I hunt my home state of TN) I might shoot 5 shells per year (4 birds and one to check zero before the season).
 
I load 20 ga TSS shells, and have loaded 12 ga in the past.
At the very least (equipment wise) you need a scale, roll crimper, hand drill, and some type of a razer blade. A funnel is also helpful but if you are cutting cost to the bone, you can get by without one. You can upgrade to a drill press at some point (if you want to) for around $100 (Harbor Freight) works just fine.
Cost of shot is approx $45-50 per pound depending on where you get it and who you get it from.
Depending on who's recipe you use and what components are used as well as the amount of shot your shooting (there really is no reason to go over 2 oz and most are in the 1 3/4-1 7/8 oz range) will depend on the cost of the shell. Some people do load 2.25 - 2.5 oz in a 12 but why? I myself have gone to a 20 ga. using TSS and shoot 2 loads, a 1 7/16, and a 1 5/8 oz load. Both work great and with the 1 5/8 oz load, I am putting over 300 pellets in a 10 inch circle at 40 yards.
Back to cost, just as a ball park making lots of guesses on cost, each shell is going to be around $7.50. Could be a little more or a little less depending on the components used for the load.
I will tell you this, FOLLOW THE RECIPE OF THE LOAD! I have a friend that has spent a lot of money developing loads and having them lab tested and just a little variance makes a big difference in pressure. Use the exact hull, wad, buffer, mica, and anything else called out in the recipe and use the exact amount of powder, shot and buffer as well.
It really is not hard to load these shells, and I like the fact that I know that the shell I am shooting did not change from year to year like some manufacturer's shells do, which means you may have to start all over with the matching of shot, shell, and choke matching because your gun does not like whatever it was that changed.
I have been shooting TSS for 8 or more years now and do not see myself ever going back to lead.
Yes the cost is more but lets face it, turkey hunting is not a high volume shooting sport.
When I was hunting TX and TN (both have 4 bird limits, at least where I was hunting)
I might have shot 12 shells total (limited in both states) and 4 shells to check zero on my gun.
Most years (for the last few years, I hunt my home state of TN) I might shoot 5 shells per year (4 birds and one to check zero before the season).

Thanks a great deal on the vary well thought out reply. I have been reloading rifle and handgun for 25+ years and have amassed FAR more reloading equipment than I dare ever attempt to add up the cost of. I have two digital and two balance beam scales.

I will without doubt have to buy a means to resize the spent shells, a tool to trim the shells and I already have a good drill press so I will have to buy a tool to roll crimp the loaded shells.

My question now is if you can be so gracious to share with me the benefit of your experience what is a good roll crimp toll to buy for my drill press, will a standard MEC 12 ga reloading press be a good choice for resizing the brass as they can be had very reasonably used on ebay or will I be better served buying a Lee. I have seen a pretty neat tool for trimming shells that looked capable of very precise cuts.

I have been perusing ebay and come across hand operated 12ga roll criping tools the type that clamp onto a bench, do you know if these are any good VS the drill press type?. I have little choice but to stick with 12 ga as I feel it would be financially ill advised to buy new 20ga shotguns for my sons and I. I will also need to know what shot cup is a good choice and imagine I should invest in a Lyman shotgun reloading manual as I know very little about shotgun reloading.

And lastly where can I find some reloading data on 12 ga 3" and 3.5" tungsten loads like the recipe you spoke of in your post?

Great thanks,
Art.
 
Clay,
Did a bit of looking and all I need to know is source for a good recipe for reloading 12ga shells with tungsten shot. All other info and components I can figure pretty well figure out on my own.
Thanks,
Art.
 
Ok, let me start at the start
First, I only load brand new hulls and they only get used for one shot. There is no need to resize or any of that, it is one and done. I reload a lot of shotgun shells for clay target practice but TSS reloading is definitely not the same.
Geap makes the best roll crimped I have ever used (my opinion).
So this is the way it works (I will make it simple for example).
Your recipe says to use X brand hulls (most new hulls come already primed so no need to worry about that step).
Your recipe will also tell you to use Y brand was. Most of the time the recipe will have you cut slits to within 1/8" from the bottom of the shot cup (this is where the razor blade comes in). You will cut 4 slits at 90 degrees to each other. They do not have to be exactly perfect at 90 or even straight but I try to do the best I can. I took a scrap piece of wood and drilled a hole in it so it fits around the wad and cut the thickness to give me the 1/8" from the bottom of the cup. I push the razor blade down thru the wad until I hit the block. The blade will cut two of the 4 slots at once. I turn to blade 90 degrees and repeat.
Every recipe I have seen says to mica the wad. I drop my wads in an old coffee can with a spoon of mica, put the lid on and shake it up for a couple of minutes.
Now I measure out the amount of gun powder and put it in the hull.
Now I take a wad and put it in the hull. I take a piece of dowel rod and push it in and seat it by using the palm of my hand.
Now here is where some recipes call for fillers, or maybe a mylar wrap to be added and some recipes have none of these. If you need to have the fillers or wrap, add them.
Now you're ready to weigh your shot and pour it into the wad.
Once again every recipe I have seen has you use buffer (make sure you get the type the recipe specifies). Weigh the amount of buffer and pour it on top of the shot.
Now you're ready to vibrate the buffer down into the shot. There are 47 million ways to do it but I use a vib case cleaner for cleaning my rifle brass. I turn it on and place my little finger between the vib cleaner and the bottom of the hull. I can push down hard and make the buffer go down into the shot fast or apply lite pressure and go slow. Slow is what you are looking for.
We have a shell that is ready for an overshot card and is ready for roll crimping.
When you get ready to roll crimp, (I use a drill press) I bring the roll crimping bit down till I can feel it touch the mouth of the hull, and let it dwell for a few seconds to allow it to warm the plastic up. This makes the crimp to roll easier and look better. I pull down till you feel it stop solid, and you are done
 
Oh I forgot to mention about trimming the hulls, sometimes you do have to trim and sometimes you don't.
If you have to trim, there are two main options that you can use.
Some trim before they load the hull (I don't use this method due to the various factors in loading that can effect how much of the hull is actually used). But it goes like this, you need to cut off say 1/8" off your hull. You get a wooden dowel and put it in the hull. Mark the top of the hull and measure down 1/8". Drill a small hole into the dowel and insert an exacto blade into the hole so that the blade is parallel to the top of the hull but with a slight downward angle. Now insert the dowel into the hull while turning it and it will cut the hull until the dowel bottoms out.
The way I do it is to stack washes up until I get a 1/4 stack. These need to fit into the mouth of the hull. I then put a flathead screw in the washers and countersink the washers until the head of the screw is flush. I put a nut on it to hold everything in place. I now insert this new tool you just made into the hull (after you have everything in place) and run a razor blade around the hull to give you 1/4" of hull above the load. This is about the perfect amount for a roll crimp.
 
Another thing I forgot, when vibrating the buffer into the shot, you want to go slow and easy and stop when you see 7-12 pellets coming to the top.
I know the above was a long read but I'm telling you, it is not that hard to do this stuff.
After you get all set up with your supplies, I can start with un-slit wads and have about 15-20 loaded in just a little over an hour.
 
Its not financially worth reloading unless yer gonna shoot a lot of it. I have several hundred pounds of Tunsten shot I bought on clearance years ago for $11 a lb. I only use it for high flying snow geese. Most of the time, I just set and admire it as the price continues to sky rocket. Ballistics Products and Precision Reloading have all the info you need to reload the stuff.
 
Clay target,
First allow me to commend you for graciously sharing your obviously very extensive knowledge of all things TSS. I'm still undecided as to weather I will reload TSS or not as I have been adding up the cost and as I see it I will need to buy at least the fallowing:
#7 TSS shot as I wish to be able to kill a Tom to 60yrds
BPI hull crimping vise
Crimping tool
Shot cups
Wads for under shot cup
Over wads
Shot buffer material
New primed 12 gauge hulls (eliminates need for 12ga press)
Will not need to buy powder or primers or scales
I have a vibratory cleaner that should do great for mixing shot and buffer
Shell trimming jig
And due to my my limited knowledge of shot shell reloading I may have left out a item or two.
I am thinking I will need (hopefully) only two box of shells to pattern sight in and zero my gun. I don't see how i can go a season with only one box of shells so I will need to buy total 4 boxes of 3" shells at a minimum cost of +/- $160 if i go 3.5' my cost jumps to +/- $200. But I am basing this figure on getting maximum results first try with one of the xtra full chokes I have. If i end up having to try different chokes my cost would go up accordingly.

Then there is the unknown cost of load development that at this point I have no way of determining which could potentially raise my costs dramatically as I know no one who reloads shot shells let alone ones with TSS who could assist me in flattening out my learning curve and load development costs.

In almost 30 years of turkey hunting I have taken more than one shot at a turkey on only two maybe three occasions so a box of five shells is very likely to last at least two seasons as once I zero my gun I would usually only take two shots before season one at 40 and one at 60 to confirm my guns zero/pattern has not changed.

So I have to decide if spending, and I'm guessing at this exact moment close to if not over $300 on reloading equipment and components to reload less than 30 shells a year for myself. That number could increase if i decide to have both my sons use TSS in their guns.

I already have over $100 worth of turkey shells that will go unused as they patterned rather poorly out of my guns. For what ever reason despite trying four different ID's of choke diameters my turkey gun simply doesn't pattern #4 shot as well as #5 and although the difference is not great it is significant enough that it would be foolish to not use #5 shot. I also bought 5 boxes of 2.75" turkey shells for my boys to use when they were little in an attempt to limit recoil but they also patterned very poorly to the point of being unusable past 35 yards.

My most financially prudent course of action at this point is to buy one box each of the 12ga 3" and 3.5" and pattern them at 30,40 and 60 yards and compare the results to the Winchester LB/XR shells and base my decision on that.

Once again thanks for all the great replies to my request for help, they were exactly what I needed to hear.
 
Clay target,
First allow me to commend you for graciously sharing your obviously very extensive knowledge of all things TSS. I'm still undecided as to weather I will reload TSS or not as I have been adding up the cost and as I see it I will need to buy at least the fallowing:
#7 TSS shot as I wish to be able to kill a Tom to 60yrds
BPI hull crimping vise
Crimping tool
Shot cups
Wads for under shot cup
Over wads
Shot buffer material
New primed 12 gauge hulls (eliminates need for 12ga press)
Will not need to buy powder or primers or scales
I have a vibratory cleaner that should do great for mixing shot and buffer
Shell trimming jig
And due to my my limited knowledge of shot shell reloading I may have left out a item or two.
I am thinking I will need (hopefully) only two box of shells to pattern sight in and zero my gun. I don't see how i can go a season with only one box of shells so I will need to buy total 4 boxes of 3" shells at a minimum cost of +/- $160 if i go 3.5' my cost jumps to +/- $200. But I am basing this figure on getting maximum results first try with one of the xtra full chokes I have. If i end up having to try different chokes my cost would go up accordingly.

Then there is the unknown cost of load development that at this point I have no way of determining which could potentially raise my costs dramatically as I know no one who reloads shot shells let alone ones with TSS who could assist me in flattening out my learning curve and load development costs.

In almost 30 years of turkey hunting I have taken more than one shot at a turkey on only two maybe three occasions so a box of five shells is very likely to last at least two seasons as once I zero my gun I would usually only take two shots before season one at 40 and one at 60 to confirm my guns zero/pattern has not changed.

So I have to decide if spending, and I'm guessing at this exact moment close to if not over $300 on reloading equipment and components to reload less than 30 shells a year for myself. That number could increase if i decide to have both my sons use TSS in their guns.

I already have over $100 worth of turkey shells that will go unused as they patterned rather poorly out of my guns. For what ever reason despite trying four different ID's of choke diameters my turkey gun simply doesn't pattern #4 shot as well as #5 and although the difference is not great it is significant enough that it would be foolish to not use #5 shot. I also bought 5 boxes of 2.75" turkey shells for my boys to use when they were little in an attempt to limit recoil but they also patterned very poorly to the point of being unusable past 35 yards.

My most financially prudent course of action at this point is to buy one box each of the 12ga 3" and 3.5" and pattern them at 30,40 and 60 yards and compare the results to the Winchester LB/XR shells and base my decision on that.

Once again thanks for all the great replies to my request for help, they were exactly what I needed to hear.

Clay Target Guy has given you some very good & reliable information. Definitely use new, primed hulls. New hulls come long enough for folded crimp so be sure to trim at
least 1/8" off each hull for roll crimp to insure they will load in the magazine of various guns. (I usually trim about 3/16"). I have many of GAEP's tools & they all do a superb job, although expensive. I always use mylar or teflon wrap inside the wad as added protection of the barrel since Tungsten is so hard.

You are right--if your goal is just to save money or not spend very much--forget about handloading TSS. I have done it for several years in 12, 20, & .410. I consider it a great hobby & a lot of fun. If that's not your goal, purchase you a few of the commercially available TSS loads on the market today & forget about handloading.

Incidentally, you should never need 12ga. 3 1/2" TSS loads. They are way overkill! Most good turkey hunters that I know have found that 20ga is plenty of kill in TSS.
I've killed turkeys dead on arrival at 80+ yards with #9 TSS.
 
<snipped stuff> Incidentally, you should never need 12ga. 3 1/2" TSS loads. They are way overkill!<snipped stuff>
Plus 1 on this advice.
Forget the 3.5" shells unless you are going to try and take turkeys with steel shot. Even then...those things kick ferociously. Not worth it.

If you are using TSS shot, you don't even need a 3" hull in a 12ga. People are killing turkeys with .410's using #9 TSS shot. I'm thinking your 2 3/4" hull TSS loads out of a 12ga will git 'er done. Good luck whichever way you go. From the sound of it, buy two boxes of TSS loads, sight in the smoothbore, and go get some turkeys!
 
erle and F4ad,
Thanks for the additional great advice. There were/are only 2 reasons I considered still using 3.5" shells. #1 a 12ga 3.5" W/#9 shot has 91 more pellets than 3" shells and I'm being 100% honest and not trying to make myself out to be any tougher than the next average Joe in saying for what ever reason recoil doesn't have much affect one me. I would stop short of saying I am immune to recoil, but I can easily handle about 20 12ga 3.5" 2oz/2.125oz turkey loads and another 20 12ga 3" 1.75oz in a single days shooting from the bench off sand bags along with at least another 5 each of 3.5" and 3" while practice shooting from hunting positions. I do wear a PAST Magnum recoil shoulder protector and have replaced all my factory recoil pads with Sims Laboratory Limbsaver Airtech recoil pads, but that's it. Will add after using them for hundreds of combined rounds from my 300wsm, 338wm, 300wm 7mm STW 12ga turkey and slug guns and well over 1000 rounds out of my smokeless ML's the Limbsaver recoil pads ACTUALLY work as well as claimed.

I was rather amazed when I heard the recoil of a 12ga 2oz turkey load with a MV of 1200fps has recoil equivalent of a 404 Jeffery, although I still haven't used a recoil calculator to confirm if that statement is true or not.

You are correct in there are no varying degrees of dead and X amount more of pellets in a turkeys kill zone wont kill it any deader than the 10-20 that are already there.
I will as advised try one box of 3" and 3.5" and see what works best and then see if i want to reload my own.
My problem is I dearly love to reload and know it saves me no $$$ what so ever just allows me to shoot more for the same money as if I didn't. I didn't help matters when I bought my 300wsm and didn't know how scarce brass was to reload for it I ended up buying some Federal blue box hunting ammo just to have brass to reload and no B.S. first three shots I fired with it at 100 gave me a .6" group, and most reloaders with intermediate skills and equipment would be happy if their reloads shot .6 MOA.
 
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Plus 1 on the enjoyment of reloading. Sometimes it isn't about 'money saved' but rather getting exactly what I want and creating it myself, and then using it in the field. Something satisfying about that.

I can attest that a 3.5" load of high speed steel out of a 7lb. Beretta O/U really DOES kick like an elephant rifle. Limbsaver was on the gun, but it was still an eye opener (and eye 'waterer') when I touched off that load. Did it once more and then said, "Why am I doing this?" Found some 2 3/4" shells and went forward with those. Funny thing is, stuff still died just fine and with far less pain on my end. Live and learn moment for me.

Sounds like you have a plan and that's great. You'll get yourself some turkeys and have fun along the way. I think that's the whole point of all this.
 
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