Dead Rebel Society - DRS Advent Calendar - Random Thoughts From the Reload Bench

December 10th

"Random Thoughts From the Reloading Bench"

For the first time in nearly a year I sat down on my Dad's reloading bench. That was two weeks ago, and I almost felt like I was violating a sacred place. I have many memories of spending time there with Dad, reloading shotgun shells of all the popular gauges (excluding 10 gauge). After just staring at the reloading press for about 15 minutes like a drooling idiot, I picked up the load manual and looked up a 1 7/8 oz. 3" magnum 12 Gauge load for Pheasant.

Remington hulls

Winchester 209 primers

37 gr. of Winchester 571 powder

Remington RP12 Wads

1 7/8 oz. of the shot size of my choice

Sweet... This load should do nicely. The nice thing about Dad's reloader is that he bought an adjustable charge bar. No worrying about which powder bushing to put in, just dial it in and go. Got the bar set to drop 37 gr. of powder then took the powder bottle off, filled the shot bottle with #5 shot and put it on. MOTHERFUCKER! The goddamn bar won't drop 1 7/8 oz. of shot. Kiss my motherfucking goddamned ass. The charge bar was made well before the big 12 gauges (3" and 3 1/2" 12 gauge have only came in favor in the last 20 years, 2 3/4" was and still is considered the norm) and the 10 gauge got popular. I can only drop 1 5/8 oz. of shot. Back to staring at the press like a drooling idiot.

My mind wandered a bit as I stopped and thought about all the time I spent here at the bench with Dad. From sitting on his lap, being allowed to work the press lever (with some help), to the first time I set it up myself. When Dad was reloading it was easy for us kids to have one on one time with Dad. He would tell us dirty jokes, always with the admonishment of "Don't tell your Mother that joke."

Then I remembered one of the last loading sessions with Dad; we started talking about the then new Remington Duplex loads. Remington had started loading up shells with shot sizes that were different by two sizes for increased pattern density for Turkey Hunters. We had came to the conclusion that Remington, more than likely, was splitting the shot charge in half, equally with the smaller shot size on the bottom of the shell.

What the fuck... Let's try it out. Empty the shot bottle and fill it with #7 1/2, true #7 shot is hard to come by, and get it set to drop 15/16 oz. of shot. Wait a goddamn minute, I have to split the charge now between two sizes. I decided it would be best to drop the larger shot size, the #5, first in 25 empty hulls and set them to the side to fill the shells I was loading by hand after I had dropped the #7 1/2 shot. So, empty the shot bottle and refill it once again with #5.

OK... I have my 25 shells with #5 shot ready to go, powder bottle mounted back on the press, and the shot bottle changed out once again. Find 25 empty Remington hulls and decide they are in good enough shape to reload. Deprime and resize the brass on all 25 hulls and see what happens with my "Duplex Handload."

Seat new primer

Drop powder (weigh again to be sure it is still set, bad things happen if you drop too much)

Insert wadding, seat with 20 lbs. pressure

Drop shot

Add shot by hand

Pre Crimp

Final Crimp

Beautiful... Looks like a brand new fucking shell. Repeat above steps 24 more time while grinning like a lunatic.

I took those loads out with me on Thanksgiving Day. It pleases me to report that on paper, at 40 yards, they give a pattern a fucking sparrow couldn't fly through. Pheasants drop like I had hit them with a sledge hammer.

Dad would have been pleased, and I like to think he is smiling somewhere about it.