How to properly load 12-gauge cartridges, several ways

Nowadays, 12 gauge hunting rifles are among the most common. There is a huge variety of 12-gauge cartridges on sale from a lot of manufacturers, but according to reviews from many hunters, they consider the best to be those that they assemble themselves, the so-called “roll-your-own” cartridges. This is due not only to the fact that “rolling a cigarette” is cheaper, but the savings are sometimes multiple and this is a very important factor. The main reason is that just as each gun has its own characteristics, so each hunter has his own shooting style and hunting characteristics in certain conditions. It is the self-rolling cartridge that makes it possible to choose the optimal combination of all its components, tailored to the individual characteristics of each.

Loading hunting cartridges, on the one hand, does not require any complex equipment, but on the other hand, a number of hunters equip entire workshops with special presses and equipment for this purpose at home. The latter affects primarily the speed and number of loaded charges.

We will now look at how to load 12 gauge cartridges and what is required for this. Let's go from simple, with a minimum of special equipment, to complex.

Loading a cartridge with a container

Initially, the shot container was intended to increase shot accuracy. Now manufacturers are mass-producing container wads that contain a seal, a shock absorber and the container itself. They have a number of advantages. The plastic seal does an excellent job of preventing the breakthrough of powder gases; the shock absorber slightly smoothes out the pressure surge in the chamber, which helps maintain the shape of the shot cloud. The container's polyethylene cup prevents contact of the shot with the walls of the barrel, preventing it from deforming and reducing lead in the barrel.

Loading cartridges with a container is no different from usual, except for greater convenience and speed.

Container selection rules

• The size of the container must match the weight of your shot, it all must fit in the container
• The height of the container should match your cartridge and packaging method.
• The shock absorber and seal must be strong to avoid their deformation and distortion of the container when packing or firing.

We listed the equipment for equipment earlier, now we will focus on the order of the nuances of equipping a cartridge with a container.

Required supplies and materials

To make hunting cartridges, you must purchase the following equipment (all products are offered in hunting stores):

Scales

A device for determining the weight of shot and gunpowder is necessary to independently make safe ammunition. The measurement accuracy range of the balance should be within the range of 0.01–50 g.

Dispenser

The gunpowder measure for one charge does not exactly correspond to the weight quantity. Each factory has its own standards, so every time you need to look at the factory calibration of gunpowder.

Factory name	M e r k i
	Dispenser, g	Scales, g	Dispenser, g	Scales, g	Dispenser, g	Scales, g	Dispenser, g	Scales, g
"Falcon"	2,25	2,70	2,00	2,30	1,75	2,05	1,50	1,65
"Sunar-42"	2,25	3,30	2,00	3,10	1,75	2,70	1,55	2,44
Black powder	2,25	4,55	2,00	4,00	1,75	3,55	1,50	3,20

Hunters who practice making cartridges with their own hands often prepare devices that greatly facilitate and speed up the work. You can make a dispenser yourself by cutting paper or plastic sleeves to a level equal to the desired weight.

Note! The amount of gunpowder should be as recommended. Excessive quantities may cause damage to the hunting rifle or injury to the shooter.

UPS machine

Sidorenko's universal device is used for rolling cartridges. The capsule is seated in a special groove on the head of the cartridge case. After completing the equipment, tighten the screw of the machine, bending the edges of the cartridge case. The second use of the equipment is to remove a broken igniter.

Die cutting

The device is suitable for making wads at home. Cork, felt or foam are used as available materials.

Powder

Smokeless gunpowder is more often used, since smoky gunpowder forms carbon deposits in the bore.

Navoynik

Serves to compact gunpowder and place wads. The diameter must match the sleeve, otherwise distortions may occur when installing the material.

Bullets, shot

When hunting, it's best to have multiple ammunition options, so have both ready.

Gaskets

The products are inexpensive, so it is better to purchase ready-made ones at a hunting store.

Sleeves

Paper ones are practically disposable (it is possible to re-equip them in rare cases). In humid air, cardboard gets wet, which creates additional difficulties.

Plastic - suitable for equipment up to 10 times.

Brass - reusable. The weight of the material makes the cartridges quite heavy, which is not always convenient for hunting. In addition, regular inspection of the metal for the appearance of traces of oxidation and soot is required.

Capsules

Note! Products have shelf life. Sealed packaging is good for 12 years, with the box opened no more than 6 years.

The “Javelo” brand is intended for loading plastic and paper cartridges. “Center breaker” is used for brass specimens.

Gauge Ring

The tool serves as a final check of the cartridge diameter after loading. Sometimes hunters use too much force when rolling the case. Efforts lead to the fact that the cartridge at the location of the shot slightly expands, that is, it becomes useless for hunting.

Stages of loading cartridges

Before work, you should inspect the sleeves. Material even with minimal defects is immediately removed, the rest are placed in a row.

• Installation of capsules : the operation is performed on the UPS. First, a sleeve is placed, a primer is placed on top along the central axis, which is carefully pressed in using a lever. For spent cartridges suitable for further use, the primer is removed using a special needle device. After this, the crumpled barrel is straightened with a cone and a new igniter is installed.
• Loading gunpowder : an accurate measure is placed into the cartridge case and forcefully compacted with a gunpowder.
• Installing wads : after adding gunpowder, seals are installed one by one. The number of components (wad + gasket) is selected in such a way that all equipment, together with the shot, almost reaches the edge of the cartridge case. The wad must fit in tightly, so for each type of sleeve of the same diameter they are selected individually.
• Loading fractions : small fractions are filled with a measure. Craftsmen working with cartridges count out the buckshot one by one. For bullet sets, instructions are printed on the packaging. The charge is placed in the cartridge after the wad; the weight for 12 gauge is 34±2 g.
• Rolling : a gasket is placed in plastic and paper sleeves, after which the edges are twisted into the UPS. For brass products, choose one of the following methods:

1. Secure the gasket with glue.
2. Install the factory plug.
3. Cover the cartridge with plasticine.
4. Fill the hole with paraffin.

• Marking : marks about the type of shot are made either with a marker on the body, or by assigning a certain color of the cartridge case to the selected number.

What to pay attention to

In order for the shot to be sharp and powerful, you should not exceed the dose of gunpowder. Firstly, it is unsafe, and secondly, good results can be achieved by other methods.

• The wad should be installed tightly, adhering well to the walls.
• The gunpowder should be compacted and compressed with the shot.
• Rolling should be done carefully, tightly closing the sleeve without distortion.

With careful preparation of ammunition, the gunpowder completely burns out, transferring all the energy to the ejected charge.

In winter, you should increase the proportion of smokeless powder by about 0.1 g. If you own a semi-automatic weapon, then at any time of the year the amount of powder charge is slightly reduced. Do not neglect the instructions on product packaging, adhere to the terms and conditions of storage.

Do not rush to try foreign-made cartridges on your weapon. This does not mean that imported products are worse (for rifled samples they are more effective), but self-equipped ammunition with proper preparation will be better suited to your model. When you work on your own, you know exactly how and what you worked with, so you are absolutely sure of what to expect.

Safety precautions

Do not smoke or use open flames during operation. Try not to be distracted by anyone. Strangers in the room often cause errors in powder and shot measurements, as well as in the sequence of operations.

Don’t try to master all the wisdom at once - experience comes with time. For beginners, it is recommended that the first loading of cartridges at home be carried out under the guidance of a master with many years of experience in preparing ammunition.

Using the UPS-5 press

How to load 12 gauge cartridges efficiently? Using special equipment that every self-respecting hunter should have. UPS-5 is a hand-held multifunctional device for loading shotgun cartridges with your own hands. Using this unit you can perform the following actions:

1. Encapsulation of cartridges (removal of used ones and installation of new ones).
2. Installation of gaskets and wads.
3. Rolling (sealing paper and plastic sleeves).

What fraction should I use?

A projectile in the form of shot is used for hunting duck, pheasant, wood grouse and other birds. How to load 12 gauge cartridges with shot and which one to choose? Let's try to figure it out.

The shot itself is small lead balls with a diameter of up to 5 mm. Lead is the most popular material for shot production, but other types of alloys are sometimes used:

1. Steel shot. It does not deform, but can damage the bore and is used only in close combat, since such a projectile quickly loses speed.
2. Hot shot. Various chemical elements are added to lead to improve its performance: arsenic, tin, antimony, etc.
3. Clad shot. The top of this shot is coated with nickel or cupronickel. This is the most expensive and high-quality shot.

There is a special nomenclature that divides fractions by size, but it is not very convenient to use due to its volume. Most hunters use a simplified form of shot division:

1. Small (1.75-3 mm).
2. Average (3-4 mm).
3. Large (4-5 mm).

Shot size is important when choosing a type of hunting. Each type of game has its own most practical type of shot projectile. It is better to shoot small birds (quail, great snipe, snipe) with small shot. Ducks, black grouse, pheasants - average. Hares, geese, wood grouse - large ones.

What gunpowder should I use?

Gunpowder is a substance that releases a large amount of energy when ignited; it is thanks to this energy that the projectile is launched. The force of the shot and the range of the projectile depends on the amount of gunpowder in the cartridge and the type of projectile. How to load 12-gauge cartridges with your own hands in order to achieve a good shooting action? One of the important components of the correct cartridge is gunpowder.

There are several types of gunpowder that differ in burning rate. The fastest burning gunpowder is smoky, the longest burning is rifle gunpowder; it is not used to load shotgun cartridges. Hunters prefer to use something in between - smokeless powder based on nitroglycerin or pyroxylin. The most common brands of pyroxylin powder are “Falcon”, “Fazan”, “Sunar”, “Berkut”. Popular gunpowder based on nitroglycerin are “Bars”, “Ballistit”, “Cordite”.

Smokeless powder is superior to smoky powder in terms of technical characteristics: it is much stronger, generates more heat, and does not ignite at atmospheric pressure. The smoky one leaves a large deposit in the barrel, which must be constantly cleaned off, which is extremely inconvenient.

Component Selection

To equip cartridges you will need:

• plastic or metal (brass) sleeves;
• capsules;
• powder;
• wads;
• shot, buckshot or bullets;
• for loading cartridges in metal casings - plastic plugs for shot.

It must be borne in mind that to make 12-gauge cartridges in brass, you need to take 10-gauge wads and spacers.

Which sleeves to choose, plastic or brass? The second ones cost about 10 times more. But at the same time, metal sleeves turn out to be much more durable, and plastic sleeves will sooner or later become unusable. But, for example, a star twist allows you to use plastic sleeves at least 10 times, so their use is more than justified.

It should also be borne in mind that cartridges with brass casings cannot be fired from a repeating gun, since the barrel tube can be damaged by shot if some of it spills out.

It would also be useful to use varnish, which can be used to attach primers and seal them, since they fit into spent cartridges very easily. You can use water-soluble acrylic varnish, which is odorless. Floor or nail polish is also suitable. You can also use glue, for example, “Moment”.

Among the gunpowders, Falcon is very popular. It is inexpensive, but it also has a serious drawback - it does not burn out completely, so it heavily contaminates the gun.

The most common mistakes

Some novice hunters do not have the necessary equipment in their arsenal to load cartridges and try to get out of the situation using any available materials. This concerns primer clogging. The capsule can be fixed efficiently and correctly only on a special machine.

Violation of the proportions of the charge and the projectile can lead, at best, to low performance of the gun, and at worst, to powerful recoil or an explosion that kills the shooter. The proportions of gunpowder and projectile must be calculated individually for a specific gun based on its weight.

The use of cartridges with defects and deformations when loading can lead to a decrease in combat performance, so such cartridges must be rejected. When fired, the cartridge can simply explode, releasing a large amount of energy and gas that moves backward. The shooter or the weapon may be seriously injured.

Insufficient or excessive crimping of the cut of the neck of the sleeve can lead to deformation of the walls of the cardboard or plastic sleeve, which is unacceptable. Insufficient crimping will create serious problems when shooting. The recoil of a shot increases several times.