Buying once-fired hulls

[deafsg1]

I'd like to see what the typical experience is for buying once-fired hulls. I just started reloading, and I chose to go the route of buying the Win AA-HS hulls, once-fired. It appears that a lot of these hulls are actually multi-fired hulls, complete with pin holes in the crimp lines, even some with deformed, expanded primer caps (the part of the primer the firing pin hits.) that appear to be signs of overpressure, and powder rings around the circumference of the crimp area. Out of about 130 or so hulls, I tossed maybe 25-30 of them. Is it normal to experience 20-25% rejection rates for once-fired hulls? Suggestions on buying reloading hulls would be great.

Thanks!

 

[ReloaderFred]

There is a big difference between the older AA hulls and the newer ones. The older hulls were made with a tougher plastic, and would hold up to several loadings before giving up the ghost. The new AA hulls, which can be identified by a shinier plastic and lighter in color, sometimes split on the very first firing.

If you bought the older style AA hulls, then they've been fired more than once, but if you bought the new style AA hulls, it's entirely possible to get that kind of rejection rate.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[winchester243]

I have quite a pile of the older style AA, I don't care for the new style and won't buy them.

What I would recommend is you use is Remington hulls. The Nitro and STS are good hulls, the Gunclubs are pretty good too.

 

[scout26]

I've also seen the new AA's split and crack around the crimp on the first firing. The new hulls aren't nearly as good as the old AA's. That said, they're still better then the Winchester Universal's, Federal Top Guns' and other Valu-pak loads (Except Remingtons). The best hulls out there these days are the Remingtons and current manufacture ones all use the same load data, no matter the color (Black, Green, Shiny Green, Gold, or Blue).

Buying used hulls can be a crap shoot. Some guys save all their once fired hulls and other guys scrounge hulls off the trap and skeet fields. Unless I fired the factory load myself, I consider any hull I pick-up as having been reloaded.

 

[ReloaderFred]

I don't load for trap or skeet, but I load a whole truck load of shotgun shells for Cowboy Action Shooting. I've found that the Remington Gun Club hulls are as good as anything. I'm loading light loads (7/8 oz. @ 1150 pfs) and use the same load for AA or Gun Club, etc. It all hits the knockdown targets and puts them down, which is all I need.

Hope this helps.

Fred