Alcan powdrs

Tomme boy

Well-Known Member
AL-5 is interesting. I found a couple references that said it had red flakes in it to identify it. So I went and looked and sure does. They don't jump out at you like the red, green, blue dots do but they are in there. Boy wouldn't that give someone a bad time mixing this with red dot?

Pretty sad though seeing the price tags on some of this old powders handed down to me. Cheapest was a $1.75 for hodgdon 4895. 20220520_022621.jpg
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Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I've done very little shotgun loading. The discussions above kind of indicate, to me anyway, that it's not for the wild eyed experimenter! I have a 410 Mec and a 12ga PW IRIC that have never been set up. I really should do more with it but I passed on 410 components that I should have grabbed and the same for others. Another in a long line of dumb moves. But just reading about the process makes me wonder how far I would have gotten anyway.
 

richhodg66

Well-Known Member
I shot up a little bit of Alcan 5 in Dad's stuff in .38 Special a while back. Seemed to work fine, but didn't have enough to really do much with. I didn't know about the Red Dots in it.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
shotgun is really the same steps as loading metallic.

the thing is they give you recipe with a small window to work in just like metallic.
that window will only be 1.5grs or so, and some are dead on specific.
they do that for a couple of reasons.
one is so your pressure window is pretty narrow, otherwise the powder won't burn worth beans.

and the second is so you have a proper stack height within the hull itself.
that's important because the crimp can mean the difference between a load that burns at 10-K [efficient] or at 8400 psi [not so efficient]
 

Tomme boy

Well-Known Member
I hate shotguns for that very reason on the length. If I find one that does not fit right but works it a roll crimp and is adjusted on the powder just a little. All of my old split 3.5" hulls are now 3" so I can roll crimp them. boy they roll fine with a hull that is not skived or folded. That 4 pin roll crimp from The Reloaders Network works better than the 3 other roll crimpers I have. It does pretty good even on star crimps that are not ironed out.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
shotgun is really the same steps as loading metallic.

the thing is they give you recipe with a small window to work in just like metallic.
that window will only be 1.5grs or so, and some are dead on specific.
they do that for a couple of reasons.
one is so your pressure window is pretty narrow, otherwise the powder won't burn worth beans.

and the second is so you have a proper stack height within the hull itself.
that's important because the crimp can mean the difference between a load that burns at 10-K [efficient] or at 8400 psi [not so efficient]
The big thing seems to be specific components that aren't so critical in metallic. Changing a wad or case seems to mean changing everything, which is fine, but it appears you have to have access to what you need as opposed to throwing stuff together to me. Again, that's fine, it's just that I'm in kind of a shotgun component desert locally.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
yeah that's about right.
your best bet is to get a good hull to start and work from there.

the hull thing is kind of a complete debacle now days until you get familiar with what's going on.
even packaging that flat out says something like 'game and field' can have a hull change 3 times in a year or year and a half.
Federal has been pretty brutal about that in the last few years. [but seem to be settling down on one promo load hull now]

the best i can say is if you just want some target fodder or dove hunting type loads simply stick with remington hulls. [taper base]

and if you want to shoot slugs, steel shot, or buck shot go with a straight wall hull.
those are Federal and the over seas type names. [Rio, Cheddite, Estate 'white box', Fiocchi [even though it's also American made] type hulls]
yeah They all take a slightly larger primer, but truly only the Rio hulls need the Rio primer, the rest will all do fine with the Cheddite primer.
 

JustJim

Well-Known Member
n more than one occassion over the years I've had folks ask me why my preferred shotgun is a >10# caplock double, when I've always got at least one other decent (i.e., "modern") double around. I tell them the truth: shooting my old heavy double is easier than puzzling out the recipes to load smokeless shotgun shells.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I used to be able to find Fiocchi "Golden Phesant" 16 ga 5's. I still have a couple boxes, but they were my go to for everything. Haven't seen them in some time sadly. I had it in mind I could load up a duplicate of that at home, but I never got all the parts and pieces together. If I do get a retriever I might have to look around for more, not that I would ever use lead to shoot the 3 ducks a year I might try at on a tiny pothole on the farm...