Wet stretching leather shotgun loops

[Cheyenne Ranger]

Got a shotgun slide with individual loops for the shells.  They were a might tight and to speed the breaking-in process I soaked the loops in warm water for a minute, then put a shotshell in each.  I had put one rap of duct tape around each shell.  Put the slide with the shells in it in front of a fan.
After a day, took the shells out and let it fully dry.  When I first took the shells out the loops were just a might too big for the normal shell (the ones with no duct tape  :wink: ) but as it dried the loops got a bit tighter.  Not sure how long that took but the slide was out in the open for the rest of the week.  
Now the shells have a great slip fit.  They stay where I put them but come out with little or no resistance.
Now if I could just hit the targets with them....
Cheyenne

[howdy doody]

Then to really make the shells come out easy, you go to the auto parts store and get some silicone lube like they apply to spark plug cable ends and put that into the loops and twist a shell around to distribute it and it will protect the leather and you can pull shells fast as a jack rabbit on a date. Leaving shells in the belt when not being used will keep the loops from returning to the tight size too.  :-)

[Cheyenne Ranger]

great ideas,  Thanks
Cheyenne

[Mainspring]

Whenever I wet form leather, I let it soak until the bubbles stop coming up (time varies), then put it in a zip lock bag over-night.  Then I put the item in (usually a wooden mold of the item...in this case I'd 'donate' some loaded shells to the cause and shoot them up before they rusted from the wet leather/tanning compounds) and leave it there until the leather dries.  This will take several days, but the leather will mold to size in a rock hard fashon.  Your duct tape trick may work out for this process.

This process works best when constructing leather items/cases (when you can nail the "raw" leather around a mold), but still works pretty darn well on already constructed/dyed items.