All American hulls?

[JBone]

Howdy folks! I'm new here so bear with me. I just came into about 3000 remington All American 12 ga. hulls and the RPA wads that I was told go with them. I also got in the deal about the same number of Remington Victor 12.ga. hulls. Now my question. Is there an up to date recipe for loadin these hulls and if so could someone plese post it Id like to load and use these the are i believe older than me. Thank you !!

[Graybeard]

Those hulls are easily more than 30 years old perhaps more. I'm sure it's been that long since the last time I found any new ammo loaded in them. It was quite old at the time. You're not going to find any loading info on them unless you go back to really old load manuals. Many of the newer powders folks prefer today weren't around then so for sure you'll not find data for those powders.

It used to be my preferred hull to load my skeet loads in 12 ga as you can sure load up the one ounce and even 7/8 oz loads in them and get nice crimps.

You'll need a loading manual at least 20 years old to find them listed I think. There is no other hull ever made that uses same data that I'm aware of.

[Couger]

JBone, could you describe those old cases more?  Like any letters or symbols stamped on their bases?  I agree those hulls are over 30 years old most likely.

I have several older Lyman shotshell manuals (#2 and #3) and couldn't find the 'All American' hulls.  That name sounds familiar however, like they were made by Federal perhaps?

The 'Victor' hulls if they're the same things I remember, were dark blue ribbed or corrugated hulls made by Remington [Peters].

They might still work well enough to reload, altho I'd examine them CAREFULLY! 

I once almost had a nasty accident using them.  Some of the [much older] Remington hulls from back in the 1960's or early 1970's used compressed sawdust looking material to build the inside basewads of the hulls.  Back when I was in high shcrewll I made some baby 2 3/4in MAGNUMs with HERCO, 1 1/2 ounces of #5's - using some of those 'Victor' (blue) Remington-Peters hulls.

Problem arose from two or three critical factors - beginning with the empty Victor shells having gotten wet at some time and despite being thoroughly dry when I loaded them they were still ruined!

But what does an inexperienced 16yo know? I went ahead and used them, and didn't notice how decapping and repriming those previously wet Victor hulls with their saw dust-looking (fiberboard-like basewad) had swelled.  During the decapping /repriming steps the channel the primer's gases would stream into the powder [got clogged] a bit!

Combine that point with the Model 1200 pump gun I was shooting - a right-handed gun that I was shooting left-handed (YES, I'm a southpaw!).  One of those 2 3/4Mag Victor hulls had a 'hang-fire', and the HERCO gun powder ignited only after I was pumping that M1200 on what I thought was a misfire.  I got a face full of flash (more than flame), but fortunately I was wearing glasses!

As I remember that incident the shot cleared the barrel by less than 30 feet and went bloooop into the lake we were shooting on.

I recognized that the wad was stuck and disassembled the gun enough to take the barrel off.  Pulled a reed from the blind to use like a rod and forced the wad out of the bore.  Reassembled the gun and continued to hunt, BUT NEVER AGAIN trusted Victor hulls, nor even considered loading them.

I would suggest cutting open with an Ex-Acto knife or similar blade, several of your old hulls to examine them before loading any if you think you want to.  Also too often those old "plastics" used in wads or shotshell construction simply get brittle from age.  YOU NEED TO CONSIDER EACH OF THOSE FACTORS AND COMPONENTS just for that possibility.

If you think they're worth using, can you post any pics of them?

[Graybeard]

All American is a very old plastic Remington hull with a really tall base wad covered with plastic. The hull capacity is less than any other 12 ga hull I've ever seen. I still have a few hundred of them boxed up but doubt I'll ever go back to shooting 12 ga skeet again due to my shoulder.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the Victor but was thinking it might be a paper hull. If so for sure don't load them unless 100% sure they've never been wet. That applies really to any hull that isn't a one piece plastic compression formed hull.

[Couger]

The Victor hulls I described were from Remington-Peters, and corrugated blue.  Actually they were very good looking hulls which always 'tickled' me.

Sometimes I've even seen (reproductions) old posters or other ads from Remington, usually featuring a black lab if not other dogs or flying fowl.

And to the best of my recollection, Remington-Peters was the only shotshell ammo maker that made their basewads from that saw-dust-like material.  I recall there were also some green Remington hulls that looked similarly that used the same saw-dust-like crap.  Before other manufacturers gravitated toward and adopted all plastic (inner) basewads, used to always betightly rolled paper!.  Sometimes getting those hulls with the paper basewads would be ruined if they got wet enough, but sometimes they could be safely salvaged too.

Of course all-brass hulls were also used, but back in Biblical times!

Nowadays we don't need to use such primitive hulls made from paper unless we choose to.   

[George Foster]

According to the Lyman Shotshell Manual 1st Edition you can use from 16gr to 18gr of 700X depending on what velocity you want.  You could use the CCI209 primers since the Rem 97's aren't available.  You can use also 18gr Red Dot or 19.5gr of Green Dot.

[armexman]

JBone would you be able to sell me some All Americans? I was given hundreds of Verelite wads and they are for these hulls, unless I use and OP wad to raise the shot column, and I don't feel comfortable doing that. I am in The Front Range of CO, Erie to be exact.Thanks