Hand-loading 16 gauge shotgun

The 16 gauge is a traditional upland game shotgun (for birds and rabbits). It is an excellent mix of power and light weight, especially in single-shot, break action configuration for the mountain hiking, my Springfield 1928 model comes apart into less than 20 inch pieces in 5 seconds.

The shells are however hard to come by, even in lead loads (usually shot #6) they are rare. In most of south-central California we have "lead-free Condor zone" so every time you hunt and leave animal internals behind, even when buried, you would be leaving potentially dangerous lead behind. In any case I find it 1) necessary 2) cheap 3) fun to reload my own shells.

*** Reload at your own risk! ***

To reload a shotgun shells the only new "tools" you need are:

• long nail
• wooden dowel in diameter smaller than the shell

In addition I use:

• rubber mallet and hard flat surface (white cutting board)
• small scissors and paper cards 
• IMR HI_SCOR 880-X smokeless powder
• Winchester W209 shotgun primers
• Claybuster WWA16 replacement wad CB0100-16 (optimum load 1 oz. lead shot) 500 pack
• Steel 1/4 shot (kind you buy for slingshot) - I have to get per pound to save money

• I've cut a small piece of wood dowel to serve me as a guide to primer pocket, then I nailed thru it as shown in the picture. 

Note that the wood dowel is slightly tapered to allow for the thickness of plastic wads.

I use plastic LEE 2.2cc scoop which measures about 20.1 grains of "IMR HI-SKOR 800-X" powder. See UPDATE below.

I cut the top of the crimp

I put 20 "steel ball shot 1/4 inch size", they fit in neat layers of 4, each is about 1 gram in weight which give me about 310 grains total

lead equivalent - one (1) ounce is 437.5 grains, about 28 balls, but they would not fit in there with plastic wads I use, I will try to find traditional flat wads (packed felt)

I cut and use simple paper card disks in size a little bigger so they form an crimp when pushed in

I use small amount of wax to seal it, then wait to cool down, then add more wax to reinforce it

UPDATE: 

I've shut the 2.2cc (cubic centimeter) scoop loads, which were sweet and gentle* and shooting well at 40 feet (9 holes on the top of the paper). The spread of the shot is due to my shorter barrel and no choke, which is fine with me and still makes it an effective rabbit/upland bird gun.  

This load, however, is significantly LESS kicking than the factory 1 ounce (437.5 grains) solid lead slug -- which tells me that I could go to the next scoop size about 24 grains of 800-X.

* gentle - definition derived after shooting: solid shotgun slugs, 7.62x54R and .45 ACP P+ rounds