Adapting shotgun cartridges

[bradaz11]

I have a very early Winchester 1897 shotgun, and at the moment I feed it lyvale Express super light 21gs, but these never seem to extract right. they cost £50 x250. I was told by a few club members to buy heavier cartriges, dump some shot back down to 21g and then roll crimp them, as it should give better extraction. is this mental or a good idea?

looking at cartridges, it looks like £50 is the best price anywhere for them, and I can't even see anywhere local to me selling them where I can see a price online.

If this was a good idea and safe, how would I go about it, as it looks like I'd need longer cartridges? as 65-70 is for usual length, am I going to have enough material to roll crimp after cutting off the end of the star?

[X500BEN]

Chances are you have a generous chamber made for papercased cartridges and modern cartridges are made to tighter tolerances and that's causing the problem.
Best not to alter factory loads.

[PeterN]

Altering factory cartridges as you suggest is mental. Find a cartridge that works even if it costs more. Fingers, hands and face are worth more than trying to save £1 on a box of cartridges.
Regards
Peter.

[walesdave]

I never have but could you load your own? I had a brief look into shotgun reloading when I saw the price of solid slugs but never took it further.
This is the press I looked at, appears to be simple and pretty idiot proof: https://www.amazon.co.uk/GAUGE-LOAD-ALL ... B000NTKD28

[bradaz11]

I've loaded slugs before, supplies from italy, but loading full on shot, shotgun cartridges seems like a huge ballache as powder, wad and primer supposedly all have to be spec'd out.

as I understand it, it is not dangerous to lighten a load, it is making it heavier where the problems occur. that's how americans like taofladermaus and demolition ranch were always able to safely reload their weird projectiles.

as for saving £1, that wasn't really my intention, I know it's going to cost more, but I also don't want to spend out hundreds of pounds on shotgun cartridges trying to get them to work and winding up with the same issues if there was a more straightfoward approach by tailoring them to me. as all those I can buy seem to be star crimped, the only roll crimped shells I see are 2" shells or blanks.

[Blackstuff]

I'd try a box of 'short' cartridges to see if that would even fix the issue first. Hull Comp X are some the shortest factory cartridges i've seen (or they used to be) and they come in 21g flavour

[1066]

I would suggest having a look on Pigeon Watch forum - Lot's shotgun reloaders there.

[Blackstuff]

Or if you're on Facebook the Pressure Detectives page

[Sim G]

An early 1897 is going to have a chamber length of 2 5/8. Old cartridges with roll crimps and made of paper, extraction would be no issue, even if cartridges were a little long. Modern plastic cartridges with star crimps are probably having the forcing cone grip the mouth of the expended cartridge, hence making extraction not quite right.

There’s a number of fixes like chamber reaming or experimenting with star crimped lengths or feeding it roll crimps. The weight of shot is not going to make any difference.

[1066]

If you want to investigate roll crimps, there must be loads of "antique" loading tools about for a few quid.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124855355921 ... SwZz1g2eGC