Time to look at wads that are suitable for reloading your own steel reloads. You CANNOT use lead wads to reload steel. The pressures would be very dangerous. So what is the difference? Lead is very soft and the lead wads are used to protect the shot from rubbing the inside of the barrel and deforming. Steel is the opposite and very hard. Steel wads are used to protect the inside of the barrel from being scratched by the shot. Therefore steel wads are thicker and when reloading it is necessary to be sure not to have more than a half a shot sticking above the wad. Because of their design and limited use compared to lead wads, they are more expensive.
Where can you get these wads? There are 3 companies that make steel wads. They are Reloading Specialties, Ballistic Products, and Precision Reloading. The first 2 are located in Minnesota and the last in Connecticut. All steel reloading recipes are based on the wad. So it matters which one you purchase them from. All of these companies have printed and tested recipes that use their wads .As mentioned in the last article, Alliant makes Steel powder and they also have recipes based on the wads from these 3 companies. Shot, primers, and powder can be acquired from other places, but wads must be purchased from these 3. Ballistic Products and Precision sell directly to the customer as well as at retail outlets. RSI must be bought from a retailer.
Which is best? I have tried all 3 of these companies. I look for recipes that that move out at about 1500-1700 fps. The loads from Precision are slower. They have had problems keeping the pressures down at those fast speeds. Therefore, the loads I will talk about in future articles will be from RSI and Ballistic Products. I especially like the loads from RSI and have patterned several of them to find the best one for my gun.
Lastly, what about steel shot? All 3 of the companies mentioned above sell steel shot. I have purchased shot from all 3 and found it acceptable in various sizes. Prices of steel are about the same, so the major consideration is the cost of shipping and handling. Since you are paying by weight and shot is heavy, this additional cost can raise the cost of reloading. High quality steel shot is expensive to make, therefore it is the highest cost item for reloaders.
If you are interested in starting to reload steel, it is necessary to purchase reloading manuals from the 3 companies mentioned. All have recipes based on their wads. All have recipes using many kinds of empty hulls in both 2 ¾ and 3 in. Happy reloading.
