Shotshell hulls

You lucky dog you....lol

Down here, I don't see too many Remington STS hulls, most folks are loading the hell out of the Win AA for target (clays). The other hull I see the most of is the Federal Top Gun straight hulls. Yeah, I see the Cheddite and maybe Rio sometimes...but I believe folks are mostly buying the Winchesters.

Get (or find, most clubs throw them away) the Rem Gun club shells or the light green "cure" soft trap loads. They load the same as the STS hulls, but are 2 different shades of green. I've found them to last about as well as the STS shells without the annoying inconsistency of volume. If price is no concern, the AA HS hulls are plenty good too, but new AA ammo is significantly more expensive than the Gun club Remingtons.

Soonerpesek said:

There doesn’t seem to be much STS, Nitro or Gun Club loaded ammo available in my area.
Winchester AA is plentiful..
Are there AA and AA HS hulls, or are they the same animal…??

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The "old style" AA has been discontinued for 20+ years, but a lot are still in circulation among reloaders and occasionally show up at auctions and sales once fired. It was the gold standard, and IMHO was superior to the newer HS hulls. Age of the plastic is showing however, as a few I ended up with recently (someone dug deep in the ammo shortage LOL) didn't last more than a few firings before cracking in the crimp area. Load data is identical between the 2.

.......with the exception of very voluminous powders such as Red Dot, Green Dot, Blue Dot, Unique, and Promo. Those powders on the higher end of loads (18 grains and above) of the above powders in AA HS hulls require shorter wads like the Downrange DRA-12, a WAA-12 clone but shorter. Loading these powders with regular height WAA-12 wads will result in crimps pushing up. (Ask me how I know.)

Gun Club and AA Win are the 2 best to get. AA will give you the best compression load and Gun Club will give you lot of loading recipes and the darn things never seem to wear out. I like AA for handicap loads and Gun club for all else.

STS and AA are my go to hulls. In my experience, the AA's hulls start to split before the STS.

Soonerpesek said:

Trying to get the opinions of the experienced minds here…
LGS was consignment selling stuff from an estate sale and I was fortunate enough to get 2k of 2 3/4” 12 ga. Remington STS hulls (allegedly once fired)…
My question is if one was looking to buy loaded shells for future reloading, and I’m speaking of ONLY loading for target loads, what is the preferred brand among Remington STS and Winchester AA.
Loading data for both is VERY similar:
Same wad for 1 and 1 1/8 oz loads respectively- - - # 7.5 lead shot.
Same primer.
Same powder w/ similar charges to achieve 1200 - 1250 FPS.
Do you folks have any reasoning as to one or the other being the better choice?
Since I already have the STS and am loading them for 1 oz loads, I was thinking of Winchester for the 1 1/8 oz loads.
It would be easy to differentiate the loadings by color if they are deemed to be equal quality hulls.
Thanks for the input..

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Regarding your "same wad" thoughts... while you can use the same wad in AA and STS/Gun Club, I have found that using Remington style wads in Remington hulls provides the proper stack height and a better crimp. I'm sure there are a boatload of guys who break 25 straight with Remington hulls and WAA wads, but if you have both Winchester and Remington style wads available, why not keep it in the family? As I see it, neither Winchester nor Remington arrived at their wad designs by accident.

Regarding powder charge differences... I like to load to 9K psi when possible. AA hulls will get you to 9K psi with a smaller charge... but if I had 2K STS hulls in my stash, I'd find a way to make do.

Regarding my reasoning for which is a better choice... I have big Rubbermaid tubs full of both AA and Remington hulls, and that isn't the smartest way to do it. If I was smart, I'd stick to Remington. All of my components (wads and hulls) would be streamlined, which would make better use of my limited storage space. Furthermore, the plethora of once-fired Gunclub hulls that I pick up at sporting clays ranges would keep me stocked indefinitely. They are much easier to find than AA.

Regarding using STS for 1oz and AA for 1 1/8oz... I do something similar. I use AA for my trap and Annie loads, Fiocchi for my skeet loads (I get an unlimited supply of hulls from a shooting buddy, and the Fiocchi wads are $.02 per at Graffs), and Remington for clays. This isn't efficent, but I enjoy the tinkering as much as I enjoy the shooting. If storage space and budget made me choose, Remington would be the most sensible choice in my circumstances.

Saluki91 said:

Regarding your "same wad" thoughts... while you can use the same wad in AA and STS/Gun Club, I have found that using Remington style wads in Remington hulls provides the proper stack height and a better crimp. I'm sure there are a boatload of guys who break 25 straight with Remington hulls and WAA wads, but if you have both Winchester and Remington style wads available, why not keep it in the family? As I see it, neither Winchester nor Remington arrived at their wad designs by accident.

Regarding powder charge differences... I like to load to 9K psi when possible. AA hulls will get you to 9K psi with a smaller charge... but if I had 2K STS hulls in my stash, I'd find a way to make do.

Regarding my reasoning for which is a better choice... I have big Rubbermaid tubs full of both AA and Remington hulls, and that isn't the smartest way to do it. If I was smart, I'd stick to Remington. All of my components (wads and hulls) would be streamlined, which would make better use of my limited storage space. Furthermore, the plethora of once-fired Gunclub hulls that I pick up at sporting clays ranges would keep me stocked indefinitely. They are much easier to find than AA.

Regarding using STS for 1oz and AA for 1 1/8oz... I do something similar. I use AA for my trap and Annie loads, Fiocchi for my skeet loads (I get an unlimited supply of hulls from a shooting buddy, and the Fiocchi wads are $.02 per at Graffs), and Remington for clays. This isn't efficent, but I enjoy the tinkering as much as I enjoy the shooting. If storage space and budget made me choose, Remington would be the most sensible choice in my circumstances.

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Win. And Rem. are the same style wads. They are both tapered wads. Since the change over of AA-CF (compression formed) to AA-HS (high strength, which have a tapered internal base inserted into a straight walled case) in 2000, nothing has changed as far as loading, except as I noted in post #7.
As far as Remington wads giving better stack height in Remington hulls, and Winchester wads better stack height in Winchester hulls, that is not necessarily so. Remington and Winchester do not use the same exact powders in their factory shells as reloaders use. The closest match is WSH, which is almost the same as the powder Win. uses in their Super Handicap shell. No powders are marketed under the Remington name, so reloaders have to match those loads' velocity from the plethora of available powders, same for the Win. 1200, 1145, and lower velocity shells. These combinations will result in varying stack heights, thus requiring different wads. Loading with one powder in either a Rem. or Win. hull may require a Remington Tgt 12 wad, but an equivalent load using a different powder might require a WAA-F114 wad.
This is why I use Downrange wads almost exclusively. I just finished off the last box (yes, WAA-12 wads used to come in boxes) of WAA-12s I bought from a fellow member on a shotgun forum. Downrange makes copies of all the popular wads, as does Claybuster, but Downrange makes several different height versions of some of them. The DRA-12 I mentioned earlier is the one I use most, for handicap loads using Green Dot in Win. hulls.

Random 8 said:

Get (or find, most clubs throw them away) the Rem Gun club shells or the light green "cure" soft trap loads. They load the same as the STS hulls, but are 2 different shades of green. I've found them to last about as well as the STS shells without the annoying inconsistency of volume. If price is no concern, the AA HS hulls are plenty good too, but new AA ammo is significantly more expensive than the Gun club Remingtons.

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Random8, check your local Walmarts, the AA shells, except 28ga & .410, recently took a rollback to 10.and change vs. Rem. STS and Nitros still being at 12.47. Gun Clubs are at about 105-115 a flat at other places, so the AAs are close in price.

entropy said:

Random8, check your local Walmarts, the AA shells, except 28ga & .410, recently took a rollback to 10.and change vs. Rem. STS and Nitros still being at 12.47. Gun Clubs are at about 105-115 a flat at other places, so the AAs are close in price.

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Gun clubs are 7.99 at several stores, and AA North of 10.50 by me. Probably varies by where one is located.

I noticed prices are coming down a little all over town especially with Winchester and Remington.

Fleet Farm had Gun Clubs priced at 7.99, but none in stock. The Gun Club "Choice" were 8.99, plenty of them in stock.

In Order:

- AA/HS
- STS
- Gun Club (not top gun)

for practical purposes, they load same powder/shot/wads/crimp ... interchangeable.

Soonerpesek said:

what is the preferred brand

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Whatever wad and hull the machine is set up for.

I don't reload shotshells the same as metallic. Mixed brass, in and of itself isn't a deal breaker for me most of the time. Reloading mixed hulls would overflow the swear jar in no time...

Constantly adjusting the machine for different combinations gets old quick too.

This is my understanding after having reloaded both....
• Winchester AA (gray or red) are supposed to be "the best". (I cannot prove this one way of the other.) These load completely differently than any other Winchester hull. That is to say, different wads, different powders and different press set ups.

• The thing about Remington hulls is that although the hulls vary in quality, they ALL load the same from Gun Club all the way up to Gold STS. So for the reloader the advantage is that you simply pick up all Remington hulls, reload them all in one session, then you use the Gun Club for practice and the STS for competition. So much easier !!

Contact me by PM. I'll be glad to send you a 5-gal bucket full of either.

The reason most experienced reloaders consider the AA better over Gun Club/STS/Nitro hulls is the Remington hulls can be inconsistent as to height, and thus crimps.
I've found over the years the 'sweet spot' in crimp height on my 600 jr. that works for most hulls, and if I do have to adjust, it's half a turn usually.

As far as reloading Winchester hulls other than AAs, some of the promo loads use hulls with the same tapered base insert as the AA-HS, but steel based, some guys will load them "one and done". Otherwise, mostly it's guys loading 3" steel waterfowling loads. AA hulls work fine for 2 3/4"
hunting loads, the black Diamond Grade AA hull would be particularly suited for waterfowling loads, as they have a 'high brass' nickel plated steel base and 'look like' hunting loads. They load up exactly like red or grey AA-HS hulls.

I loaded all my duck loads before steel shot in regular AA-CF hulls, using Blue Dot and WAA-12R red wads and #4 Lubaloy shot. My pheasant loads were the same with #5 Lubaloy.

My history with reloading shotshells goes back over 50 years when I came home from school one day to find a new Texan loader on the desk in my bedroom (in which the 2nd bedroom closet doubled as ammo dump.......and still does). I had burned thru what he thought was a lifetime stash of shells in only one year. Said if I was going to shoot that much, I'd have to load my own to save money.

Back then, the gold standard for reloading was the Win AA's. One piece, compression formed hulls that could be loaded seemingly forever. Buy a 20 box case of new hulls and bags of Win AA white wads, case of primers and a big sack of Red Dot and you were set. Places like Gibsons (pre-curser to Walmart) had all that on the shelves in the sporting goods dept. If not, go to the mecca of all things guns, Walls Grocery in Blairstown. If Remington or Winchester made it, he had it and in abundance.

But even then, there were economy shells. Flimsy, cheap plastic shells with 6 point crimps. Still have some samples of total failures of those due mostly to trying to find components to fit. Load data was non-existent, sketchy or just plain wrong. Even someone schooled in "waste not, want not", you learned to just throw them away.

Out of current crop of hulls to buy, to my knowledge, Rem STS / Nitro remain the only "premium" hulls to reload, and even now, remain a very close copy of the original Win AA compression formed hulls. Rem Gun Club is a full notch lower in quality (steel heads vs brass), yet retains same basic internal shape. The plastic holds up better than you might expect. And due to price, if I go to the local trap club....where guys bring their own shells, shoot them and leave them lay, you will find 99 Gun Clubs for every 1 STS or Nitro.

But far and away most common are Fed Top Gun hulls, which are sold by the club to people who don't bring their own, and which are routinely abandoned by all shooters. Yet, if you know what you are doing, they actually load pretty well. As good as Gun Clubs or even the current Win AA HS hulls. They probably won't hold up for 10 loads, but don't have to, since you can pick up once fired by the thousands for free.

Current Win AA HS internals are close enough internally to use same load data, but as far as hull quality, are no better than some of the cheaper hulls. Winchester also sells a lot of low end ammo leaving you with cheap hulls that are a clone of the cheap Federals Top Gun and Euro trash. They can be used for one and done, but why would you when better options exist?

Probably one of the most stunning discoveries I've made in recent years is that even way back when, was that the high "brass" shells sold by Remington......Express, etc, typically loaded as 3 3/4 - 1 1/4 hunting loads......had brass plated steel heads even back then. A magnet will pick them up. Who knew.

BTW, in context of Remington STS / Nitro, the newer Federal High Overall hulls are off the same line as Remington and aside from color and headstamp, these hulls are othewise identical. So if you come across a deal on those, they are premium too.

I prefer AA's. 12 and 28 gauge
I can usually get 8-12 reloads out of each hull. Other guys I shoot with reload the STS or Gun Club hulls. They all work well. Don't know anybody reloading Federals.
Most people don't switch hull brands once they get their loader set for one brand.

There's a youth trap shoot coming up here in a couple weeks, they're required to shoot factory ammo so they just toss their hulls. Looking forward to a nice haul of hulls

I got a lot of them that way when I coached.....and I get about 100-200 a week during summer leagues.