MEC 600 jr. 28ga.

[gould]

I am looking in to getting a 600 jr. for my 28ga. because its just to expensive to keep buying by the box. The other thing how are the new HS hulls for reloading? That is all I can get locally the shipping on a case of STS are out of sight or I would be shooting them.                                                          Thanks Jason

[Graybeard]

Most of the 28 gauge shells I've reloaded over the years were loaded on a MEC 600 JR. It's all I ever used back in my competition days and I shot a lot of 28s in those days. But 8 or ten years or so ago I sold off my Browning O/U skeet gun and let the reloader go with it.

When I got back into skeet shooting non competitively these days I again bought a Browning O/U and this time a MEC Sizemaster 77 which is what I'd recommend but the 600 JR can still load them if that's what you prefer. I still load .410s on one but only because the 77 has no primer feed on the .410 so I saw no need to spend the extra money is I wasn't going to get a primer feed. If you buy a 600 JR and add the primer feed you're almost at the cost of a 77.

I prefer the AA HS hulls for my reloading these days but still use some STS Remington hulls as well. I probably have more of the HS than the STS but I have quite a few hundreds of both. I have a separate loader set up for each as it is a real pain to have to adjust that cam each time you change hulls. I highly recommend you decide which hull you want to use and use ONLY it in 28 gauge.

[Questor]

GB:

How you have managed all this shooting without a progressive press amazes me!!! If it weren't for progressives I'd be shooting 22s and factory shotshells only.

[Graybeard]

I've never used a progressive Rudy. I have no clue how many tens or I guess hundreds of thousands of rounds I've loaded on single stage presses. I would guess that this year I've loaded over 10,000 and perhaps as many as 15,000 shotshells. I only recently even started to count the shotshells I load but have kept some records on centerfire over the years but never tried going back to count them up.

I remember once long ago ordering 60,000 12 gauge wads at one time. I didn't use all of them as I did sell some but I'd guess I must have loaded at least half of those myself. I've bought primers in 5000 packs for years and usually multiples at a time.

[Questor]

This makes you eligible for the George C. Nonte Lifetime Award for single stage handloading. I think he claimed to be able to do up to 500 rounds per hour on a turret press.