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Reloading at Sportsman’s Park – Part 5: Problem solutions
Now that you have made a few shells, you likely have also made a few mistakes and encountered a few problems. One of the most prominent problems with the NSC steel target recipe is fitting the wad into the hull. Remember, the recipe uses a Remington STS hull (which is tapered), a Ballistic Products MG42 wad, and one ounce of steel shot. On the MEC presses, some difficulty can be encountered getting the wad into the hull smoothly and at a good depth. This is because the MG42 wad is thicker, stiffer, taller, and non-tapered compared with many other common lead wads.
When the wad doesn’t get seated down far enough, it is difficult to get a good crimp. Also, since the wad tends to hang-up on the way down the hull, the down stroke on the MEC is not smooth. NSC re-loaders have experimented with two solutions to this problem. The first solution was to use a smaller (16 gauge) wad ramming tube. With more room between the wad shot cup and the rammer tube, it was felt that there would be less friction between the shot cup and the rammer tube on the upstroke, so that any upward withdrawal of the wad would be eliminated. I have used this solution and noticed improvement in the wad seating and crimp, but the MEC was still jerky and not smooth on the down stroke. The jerking on the down stroke would cause some shot in station 5 (hulls that have been pre-crimped and are about to have the crimp finalized) to bounce out of the shot cup and lodge in the crimp on the outside top of the hull. I found it tiresome to pluck shot out of the crimp on about 4 shells per box.
About a year and a half ago, I had a chance to check out Gary E.’s reloading bench which was sporting a brand new Dillon SL900. Gary let me run off a few shot shells and I was impressed. I was amazed at how much smoother and more efficient the Dillon press was at loading the MG42 wad into the STS hulls. Since I just couldn’t part with the cash to buy a Dillon, I closely examined the Dillon and how it functioned to figure out why it was smoother. While I will not go into all the differences between a Dillon and MEC in this article, I noticed that the Dillon press did not have a compression spring on the wad ramming tube. Taking a close look at the MEC in operation, I noticed that there was substantial compression of the wad ramming tube spring on the down stroke, and it was the compression and expansion of the wad rammer spring that was causing the jerking. Mr. Dillon is a very smart and wealthy man who knows everything there is to know about reloading, and he didn’t put a wad pressure gauge or compression spring on his press. Since the MEC design has been around for decades, I guessed that the wad pressure gauge and compression spring were necessary in the past with paper hulls, but not today with plastic hulls. Yet the spring remains in the design.
My solution for MEC smoothness? Eliminate the compression and expansion of the wad rammer spring. Since doing this, the MEC now has a smooth and uniform down stroke with the MG42 and all other wads. Furthermore, since there is no compression on the down stroke, I was able to seat the wads deeper and easier while actually raising the wad rammer tube. This gave more clearance between the wad guide and the rammer tube, making wad placement on the press easier and faster. As a bonus, when I converted over to loading lead shells, the raised ramming tube allowed enough room to place a lead wad directly onto the wad guide without swinging the wad guide out, saving time and effort for the lead loads. The shot no longer bounces out at station five. Furthermore, it works well with both 12 gauge and 16 gauge rammer tubes, so if you haven’t already tried the 16 gauge rammer tube solution there is no need to do so. So far I have loaded about a hundred boxes of steel and a hundred boxes of lead after modifying the MEC without any problems. How did I eliminate the action of the wad rammer spring? I contacted MEC customer support about my observations. They stated that before changing the MEC configuration, make sure the wad guide is not more than 1/8 inch into the hull on the down stroke, and if there is still difficulty inserting the wad, there is an easy way to disable the wad rammer compression spring. All you need to do is take the compression spring out, flip it upside down and reinsert it!
As time goes by, steel components and loading data for them will become more prevalent. Hopefully, the price of steel components will come down. I am anxiously waiting for the availability of less expensive steel wads that are tapered to better fit the Remington STS hulls, and the pressure tested load data to go with them. I would like to see a variety of recipes, perhaps some with velocities greater than 1200 fps for shooting yardage. Until then, I will continue with the current Ballistic Products steel load recipe. I am quite satisfied with the current recipe, since it offers good performance at both reduced recoil and reduced price. My last estimate of reloading cost was between $3.75 and $4 per box.
I hope you have enjoyed my essays on re-loading. But more so, I hope those of you who were curious but not yet re-loading might take the plunge and start. I think you will find it an enjoyable and rewarding hobby. I’ll see you on the line.
Tom K Member, NSC
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