3" Hull Information

[BT Justice]

Seems to be a bit of confusion on some 3" hulls and what types they are ...try to give what I have on them here..if I miss or get something not quite right please correct me.

Federal and Estate....Federal has two main types they use ..090 plastic base and Paper/Fiber base(sometimes called 7/16 basewad)...these are easy to tell apart if you look in the hull you you will either see the paper basewad or the same color plastic of the .090 basewad. The Black Cloud hulls again look to see what kind of base wad you have, use .090(plastic base) basewad data for plastic and 7/16Paperbasewad data for paper base hulls...they all load up using the specific basewad data.
With Estate hulls some of the older Estates were Cheddites, look at the basewad if its white plastic and there are stars on the bottom of the brass they are Cheddites. The newer Estates I have run into have the paper basewad, again you have to look inside the hull use the Federal Paper basewad data if they have those basewads.
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Fiocchi...I have run into many paperbasewad Fiocchi hulls, if you look at them not knowing they are Fiocchis they look just like the Federals, you can use the Federal paperbasewad data for them.
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Remington...No matter what it says on the outside NEWER Remington 3" hulls are all the same on the inside and all use the same data. There were some taper wall SP 3" hulls made years ago but only for a short run, so you probably won't encounter them. OLDER Remington 3" hulls are where you may encounter problems, some of them had higher basewads and some of them had a greyish fiber material basewad. Best thing to do if you think you may have some old Remington hulls is use a measuring stick marked for what you know are the newer hulls and measure the inside hull depth ...takes a bit of time but saves on headaches.
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Winchester....Here's the problem child, NO matter what it says on the outside of Winchester hulls, ALWAYS check the basewads. I have bags of 3" and 3.5" Winchester hulls that are seperated out by basewad type and they all say something different on the outside of the hull. I have Experts with very high basewads, and very low basewads,same goes for Supremes, Super X, Upland and anything else that says Winchester on it. Then the older Winchester hulls also have paper basewads on them and many of use also have the Compression formed 3" hulls..NEVER,NEVER use Compression formed hulls with plastic basewad data..Compression formed hulls will be just like the older AA hulls and use different data as they are taper wall hulls.
Most of the time the steel shot reloading data we have is for the low plastic basewad Winchester hulls, with the high plastic, paper basewad or compression formed hulls you can't even get the recipes to fit in some hulls.
The Winchester hulls make some excellent reloads, you just have to segregate them out. If you want to load up steel shot loads then always use the lower plastic basewad hulls. I have made some up using the high plastic basewad and compression formed hulls but you have to use different wads and lower the amount of powder you use.

[Capt. Ahab]

Thanks BT-Great info there. I thought I might offer some images of hulls I recently cut to go along with your descriptions, and to bring up some general questions for anyone to answer. As answers are given, I will include that info and edit out the questions. Some of these are my own and others are from guys on the forum that I have saved. If it is your image and you would prefer to have it taken it down, no questions asked, just PM me. I really would like to see a general "Hull id & Information" sticky. I'm convinced that descriptions like the one you have posted here and the pics of hulls and cut hulls would be referenced time and time again.

Federal:

Federal Hulls: Gold Medal and Federal Integral Hulls(photo by pitted bore)


Federal 3" Steel 7/16 basewad and 2 3/4" steel headed Top Gun & Game Load
Notice the paper basewads appear different in size. Would I be correct in saying that the steel headed Federal Top Gun utilizes a 9/16 basewad? It would be great to have measurements on the brass headed Federal Top Gun. Anyone have one?


This is the basewad from a 3 1/2" Federal Black Cloud hull. I'm very unfamiliar with variations in the hull design regarding Federal Black Cloud loads, but I'm curious if this is similar to the basewad you've referenced in the 3 inch BC loads.

Remington:

3" Remington Nitro Steel and 3" Remington Sportsman-both containing the .20 inch Yellow plastic basewad.


This photo of Ohsay's shows a possible variation in the Remington basewad (2 right sided hulls). Notice that these are Nitro Steel and Sportsman loads as well, but this time the Nitro Steel hull contains the black plastic .25 inch basewad. In case you are curious, the Red and bright green hulls are Cheddite with 7mm clear plastic basewad and ribbed hull. Kent uses these hulls.(images below)

Kent:

3" Kent Fasteel-Cheddite

This view shows the tiers within the basewad

Remington:

2 3/4" Remington Sport Load & Game load-green or black, slightly ribbed hull (Same as Nitro 27, STS, Premier, and Gun Club hull) This is another hull I don't hear very much about in steel reloading, but I would be interested if anyone has been loading effective steel loads in these hulls. I think there are loads for these hulls listed in Lightning Steel, but I'll have to check that after I get home.

[McDerry]

Federal 3" Steel 7/16 basewad and 2 3/4" steel headed Top Gun & Game Load
Notice the paper basewads appear different in size. Would I be correct in saying that the steel headed Federal Top Gun utilizes a 9/16 basewad, or do both of these hulls implement the same 7/16 basewad? What about the brass headed Federal Top Gun?

Federal uses a rolled paper basewad in the top gun shells. The 7/16 paper basewad in the photo is what they refer to as the 7/16 fiberwad. They also use a rolled paper basewad similiar to the top guns in various 3" shells.

[bassmaster624]

i have black could hull in 3" with fiber base wad and plastic.there is .080 differance between fed regular fiber base wad and b/c.have not checked the plastic base wads yet.nice photo's.

[Griffin4590]

this ought to be a sticky

[Capt. Ahab]

3rd from the right is another example of a 3" Black Cloud hull.(Photo by Ohio Wildfowler) This one is sporting the short paper basewad. Note that just to the left of the Black Cloud hull is the 7/16 Federal paper basewad which is significantly taller. Federal Black Cloud reportedly use both paper and plastic basewads in 3" and 3 1/2" hulls with the basewad differing in measurement from other Federal hulls. Pretty unpredictable.

[Norsky]

Ballistic Products states that all 7mm Fiocchi hulls are the same now. Data applies to to length of hull. I bought a bunch of the 3 1/2 inch and plan on cutting them down to 3 inch to use for more firings. Fiocchi hulls I have are made up of some kind of composite synthetic material. Federal also has integral and two piece plastic 3 1/2 inch hulls. I was told the two will generate different pressures.

[grnhd]

Nice work guys.
Sticky this sucker,lots of good info that will be used.

[Capt. Ahab]

Good info there on the Fiocchi hull and thanks for posting the picture to reference as well. Hull #3 looks to hold the same basewad as the close-up picture I posted of the 3 1/2" Black Cloud cut hull. Thanks for the contribution Norsky.

[lostknife4]

Has anyone ever done anything like this with primers? Lost

[cartervj]

Nice thread

needs to be a sticky

[Capt. Ahab]

Remington:

These hulls fall under the same category as the Remington Sport Load & Game load, often data is listed under Nitro 27, STS, Premier, and Gun Club hull.(see green and black hulls above-immediately following Kent hull) However, from what I understand they do not crimp exactly alike and you can see why when you look at the overall height of the hulls.

Same hulls cut. Something to note is that the blue hull is not an original Blue Magic, but you'll see them referred to that way along with Blue Peter's, Peter's Blue Magic's, and almost every variation thereof.

[BT Justice]

Nice pictures on the hulls.
If you guys notice many of the hulls are quite similar in internal volume and basewad makeup/height. I don't think anyone who publishes reloading manuals would have the time or space to make up loads for each individual hull on the market.
Your Remington straight wall hulls have a .200 and .250 basewad insome instances, internal volume is slightly different but they generally use the same loads for them. You will have slight differences in many of the Federal paper/fiber base wads but unless the basewads are very different in height again they group them together.
Best thing to do is segregate them out by basewad type and maybe even hull type by name, then you can adjust your loads as you try the different hulls. I do this with the newer and older Remington 10 ga hulls, with the older plastic basewad hulls, which are higher than the new ones, I reduce down by a grain of STEEL powder and get near the same results as the newer Olive drab hulls.
The final decision is the individual reloaders, your never going to get ever hull to match up from each manufacturer as they make them to suit the needs of the Lot of shells they are producing at the time. As you can see by pictures posted,,nothing is exact in shotshell reloading...

[lostknife4]

The hulls vary, the primers vary, the powder Lot varies and the only thing we can really control is the mass of the payload... hmmmmm Lost

[Capt. Ahab]

After Norsky's post, I thought the Fiocchi hull/basewad could use a bit more attention:

This is a close-up of a Fiocchi 7mm gray plastic basewad. Older Fiocchi's also can hold a larger 10mm gray plastic basewad. BT Justice also pointed out that Fiocchi hulls can hold paper basewads like the Federals, but I don't have an image or any information on this basewad.

[Capt. Ahab]

Winchester:

Old style one piece Wichester AA

New style two piece Winchester AA. The red colored plastic basewad can make this hull appear to be an old uni-hull design.

New style two piece Winchester AA with the clear plastic basewad.

I have not reloaded AA's but according to the reports of others, internally the new Winchester hulls are more or less identical to the old one piece hulls. Others on this forum will certainly have more experiential insight with this particular hull.

[Sagebrush]

the new win hulls with the 2nd pce base wad can cause problems with some wads with some load data,since
it sticks out a little and might keep a wad from going deep enough or other problems............ I have hear guys at the gun club say that they dont use the new style any more,due to its make up and have gone to other hulls that work without
any problems, no matter what powder or wad they use.

Win and Rem are both tapered hulls and maybe this new design makes things worse,who knows?
I do know that a Federal 12 so wad does not like the new style win hull,however...............

Sure is some good info and pictures on this post......................... !!!

[BT Justice]

the new win hulls with the 2nd pce base wad can cause problems with some wads with some load data,since
it sticks out a little and might keep a wad from going deep enough or other problems............ I have hear guys at the gun club say that they dont use the new style any more,due to its make up and have gone to other hulls that work without
any problems, no matter what powder or wad they use.

Win and Rem are both tapered hulls and maybe this new design makes things worse,who knows?
I do know that a Federal 12 so wad does not like the new style win hull,however...............

Sure is some good info and pictures on this post......................... !!!

All very good information....
For the New style HS hulls, I do see a lot of guys not using them or just tossing them. I just pick them up and use them, but you have to adapt a bit as many wads don't fit in them . For recipes that call for the WAA12 wad that won't fit just use the WAA12R wad, with the shorter leg section it works with those hulls very well. Claybuster makes a good copy of it so you can get them, at the trap range I didn't notice any difference in shooting loads with the WAA12R wad vs the WAA12 wad except for the fact I got lots of empties that no one seemed to want....

[lostknife4]

That's why we handload ~ free brass LOL Lost

[McDerry]

Figured I'd add that the remington 3" 20 ga shells are still compression formed on the last box I bought.

[Ned S]

I shoot the AA two piece hull using RSI 108 a 7/8 oz load only using a Baschieri & Pellagri Shotcup in my 935. No problem with this shotcup seating properly. Also I have limited my 3" loads to using Rem and Cheddite Hulls only. I have a 35 gallon garbage container, 90% full of 3" black Rem hulls. Ned S

[lostknife4]

Respectfully requesting what were the pressures and velocities on this RSI load before and after the shotcup substitution? Lost

[Ned S]

Respectfully requesting what were the pressures and velocities on this RSI load before and after the shotcup substitution? Lost

I got this info from 43x and was asked not to post it. I just ref the RSI load as it is similar but diff. Ned S

[lostknife4]

Thank you, Lost

[Capt. Ahab]

Though I have never reloaded Rio's, I thought I would at least post a few images for reference sake. These are relatively popular for reloading, though from what I have read I would have some concerns regarding the basewad.


This is an image of a cut blue Rio hull laying next to one of the two piece Winchester AA hulls pictured previously. Notice that the hull immediately above the blue Rio is also another Rio hull with matching basewad, but this time in gray. Note the position of the basewad in this gray Rio hull. Also to note, according to the photographer the other half of the basewad fell out of the blue Rio after cutting. Just sayin.


Here is another image Ohsay posted a while back. On the left is a standard Cheddite in red and on the right is another blue Rio hull. The following quote is a bit of commentary by Ohsay regarding loading the Rio hull. I hope you don't mind, Ohsay.

The Rio hulls are another one people often load improperly. The basewad is virtually identical to a standard cheddite, but the outermost tier is considerably taller. It limits capacity a little, and with small powder charge loads can stick a wad in the hull temporarily, similar to high taper target hulls. I hear someone say every now and then to load them with cheddite data. The people that say that obviously don't test their shells. Even with just a simple chrony. Load a cheddite recipe in a Rio steel hull, and it'll be FAST and HOT. It's amazing how much of a difference that little basewad variation makes.