20 gage hunting loads for the BBF97

[Corjack]

I bought a Lee load all press today to assemble some custom hunting loads for my Blaser. I had some 20 year old Winchester AA hulls. I ran into trouble right from the start. I followed the directions and used the powder and the wad that was called for but the hull was too full and would not crimp.The loads would have worked for a 7/8 ounce load but I wanted a 1 ounce heavy field load. To rectify the situation I just took a pair of scissors and cut the fingers off of the wad, then they crimped up nicely.

My load

1 ounce number 5 shot
23.1 grains Blue Dot powder
Winchester wad with the fingers cut off
Winchester AA hull
Winchester 209 Primer

At 42 yards on a paper plate it put a nice even pattern that would have put 5 or 6 pellets into the body of a squirrel. A one ounce factory number 7 shot load that I shot at the same size target put about the same number of pellets into the target. So my load met my goals. I will load some 7/8 ounce loads next and see if leaving the fingers on make a better pattern.

[NE450No2]

Corjack

I have never loaded shotgun shells, but one thing you might want to try is Duplex loads.

They make them for 12ga but not for 20.

The method is load some bigger shot on top of some smaller shot, say 3/4 of the shot # 5 ,1/4th #2. Or maybe 2/3 #5, 1/3rd #2.

[retrieverman]

The method is load some bigger shot on top of some smaller shot, say 3/4 of the shot # 5 ,1/4th #2. Or maybe 2/3 #5, 1/3rd #2.

I don't know about a Lee loader, but with a MEC, that would be much easier said than done. It is not exactly like hand loading for a rifle.

[NE450No2]

Rman

You are correct, on a progressive it would entale a little different technique.

But, for a combo gun user it might be worth the trouble.

You could set the progressive to throw the correct amount of the smaller shot and by hand, add the amount of larger shot.

Then procede as normal.