Federal Wads and Tapered Hulls

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Scorpion8
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Federal Wads and Tapered Hulls

Post by Scorpion8 » Tue Apr 10, 2018 4:38 pm

The LGS has bags of Federal 12S3 wads basically at a give-away price. But somewhere I read these are only for tapered hulls, not straight hulls. Yet Hogdgon's reloading data center has loads for these wads all mixed in with all the rest. Example of a 12-GA Win AA-HS hull and a certain powder you'll see loads for Rem Fig-8 wads, Win WAA12 wads, CB0118-12 wads and Federal 12S3 wads.

How does one tell which hull you can or cannot use a certain wad with?
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Re: Federal Wads and Tapered Hulls

Post by John A. » Tue Apr 10, 2018 9:10 pm

This image may help. What you're looking for is on the left side of the picture. Straight or tapered wall around where the inside of the hull where the powder goes

Image

With that said, I use Fed 12S3 and 12S4 wads in Remington (tapered) hulls all the time, granted that I don't ever go straight to max powder charges even though I have never been steered wrong with hogdons recipes.
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Re: Federal Wads and Tapered Hulls

Post by Scorpion8 » Wed Apr 11, 2018 12:59 am

John A. wrote:
Tue Apr 10, 2018 9:10 pm
With that said, I use Fed 12S3 and 12S4 wads in Remington (tapered) hulls all the time, ....
I was at the SW tonight and looking at the bag of Federal wads, the back says "...any hunting wad." But somewhere somehow someone told me that there are straight wads, straight hulls, tapered wads and tapered hulls. And the 'twain bemixedified shall not.
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Re: Federal Wads and Tapered Hulls

Post by John A. » Wed Apr 11, 2018 2:10 am

I have a whole white trash bag full of range pickups, and a lot of them are Winchesters, but I typically stick with the Rem's because I've reloaded them a ton of times and I have used numerous different wads in them. And like I said, if hogdon has a recipe for the combo you want to use, they'll be fine.

Downrange (hornady style) Versatite
Remington Figure 8's
Fed 12s3 and 12s4

I've actually wanted to try some MG42 and cushioned lbc wads. I bet they'll shoot some tight patterns. Only reason why I'd like to try the lbc is because they are not slit and I can cut my own slits into them and I planned on a somewhat hybrid flite control slit. Both of those wads are a lot like the figure 8 base but only have 2 petals in the former and solid shot cup in the latter.

From my experiments, the more petals there are, the sooner the pellets leave the wad and spread out more.

The fewer the petals there are, the longer the shot stays in the wad and the tighter the patterns are because they go quite a way downrange before separation.
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Re: Federal Wads and Tapered Hulls

Post by Synchronizor » Wed Apr 11, 2018 4:15 am

A lot of wads are intended for either tapered or straight hulls, but there's no fundamental reason a straight-hull wad can't work in a tapered hull, and vice versa. It's pretty common for powder companies to work up loads for those "mismatch" combinations to give reloaders more options to work from. If you want to be picky, using a straight-hull wad in a tapered hull can limit how much powder can be used without hitting pressure limits (though this may benefit efficiency), while a tapered-hull wad in a straight hull may not seal quite as well, but neither are major problems.

If you have certain wads and hulls you want to use up, and can find data for that combination, go for it. I've used a lot of Federal wads in both straight and tapered hulls with good results. Don't do much with tapered wads in straight hulls, personally.

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Re: Federal Wads and Tapered Hulls

Post by Scorpion8 » Wed Apr 11, 2018 3:54 pm

Been perusing the Lyman Shotshell Reloading Handbook (always good to do now and again) and it pretty much confirms all the comments above. The Federal wads doo seem to cause higher pressures according to a table in the handbook, compared to (e.g.) a Remington Fig8. But still well within limits. And for some reason, the Federal wads go for $4/bag of 250 compared to $13/bag of 500 for most others at my local SWh.
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Re: Federal Wads and Tapered Hulls

Post by Scorpion8 » Thu Apr 12, 2018 3:00 pm

I did a bunch of Internet searching last night and found nothing to relate tapered hulls and tapered wads. The Lyman book discusses wads quite in depth and makes no mention of it. And every load book that I've checked has loads for all hulls, all wads applicable. The Federal 12S3 is a 1-1/8-oz load wad, so I'll get a lot of use out of them and compare them to the Rem Fig8's that I have, also a 1-1/8th-oz load wad.
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Re: Federal Wads and Tapered Hulls

Post by John A. » Thu Apr 12, 2018 3:15 pm

For hunting, the 12s4 is pretty good too if you can find them locally. It holds 1-1/4 oz of shot and the "stem" (from lack of better term) is just a little shorter than the 12S3 wad to allow a little more room up top, and while that may not be enough difference to jump up and down in a circle to do a happy dance, I do prefer them with my 00 buckshot loads because I can stack the pellets better and get a better crimp without having to use overshot cards or such.

If you can get a bag of wads for that cheap, I'd get a couple bags and use them as long as you have load data for your specific combo. The federal wads do OK. I paid more than that for mine though. And my versatite wads were about $12 a bag iirc.
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Re: Federal Wads and Tapered Hulls

Post by Scorpion8 » Fri Apr 13, 2018 3:42 am

John A. wrote:
Thu Apr 12, 2018 3:15 pm
If you can get a bag of wads for that cheap, I'd get a couple bags and use them as long as you have load data for your specific combo.
Sadly the price of living in Paradise is even when we get "stuff", we usually don't get all the stuff. Our Sportsman's Warehouse isn't a full-sized store. So the Federal 12S3 is the only Federal wad they stock except for .410 wads. They only have one Remington wad RT12XP me thinks. Sure everything is available via the internet, but a guy likes to be able to walk in and fondle a purchase first. Ya know, weigh his options so to speak. I do think I'll lay in a bunch of the bags of wads though.
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Re: Federal Wads and Tapered Hulls

Post by John A. » Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:07 pm

Do it and load and blast away. They'll shoot just fine. You'll probably be hard pressed to notice a difference between them and factory patterns.
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