380 shot shell

[jmorris]

380 shot shells.

First step is to turn the .223 case back and I built a little fixture to trim them to .980"

Once locked into the fixture I rough cut them long then hit it on a disk sander that gets it to .980"

I used Winchester SPP to ignite the N310 under a cardboard wad with 60 grains of #12 shot (about 250 pellets), then a plastic overshot card crimped in place using an old RCBS 45 ACP round nose seat die.

Not the best pattern in the world but not too bad with the small payload.

Even cycles the pistol, here is a video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAIcV5CR7eM

 

[briandg]

I'll be darned. I never imagined that.

 

[nhyrum]

That's cool.

I know nothing about shot shells, but would larger shot be useful? I know it's handy that it cycles the pistol

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[briandg]

You couldn't pack sufficient#9shot for it to be more effective. It looks like it has slightly less capacity than a Speer capsule, and reducing that amount might take it below that threshold of usefulness. Looks like the mouse has a pretty good chance of survival already,cut the number of pellets by half and it's near hopeless.

But that shot on the paper is jus fine for bigger critters.

 

[briandg]

Would it have worked to swage it down and ream the inside? Don't know how it would work, just curious.

 

[jmorris]

It looks like it has slightly less capacity than a Speer capsule,

Speer doesn't offer any capsules for use in semiautos and no one sells 380 shot loads, with or without capsules, so there is no benchmark to compair them to.


Larger shot would further reduce the weight of the payload as you would just have even more air vs lead in the limited space.

 

[gwpercle]

That's a good pattern , the 380 doesn't give you much to work with.

Same idea might work for 9mm Luger.....COOL !!

I remember seeing old article in American Rifleman of making 45 acp shot shell in the same way , starting with 30-06 case. I believe they were for 1917 revolver .

Gary

 

[jmorris]

30-06 doesn't have the right extractor groove but you can do it with the 308 family of cases, for 45.


They also give much better patterns than any other pistol method when you use cut down .410 wads.

This is the thread on that project a couple of years ago.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=544168&highlight=45+shotshell

 

[griz]

Neat idea and well done. Thanks for posting that.

 

[jmorris]

Had an idea the other day and had a few min to see how it would work.

I took a spare Lee powder through die I had and removed the flare portion from the inside and replaced it with an insert I machined to swage the 380 case down like my 45 ACP die does.

Much faster and the crimp looks a bit better.