Old paper hulled shotshells

G

Geezerbiker

New member
I recently came into possession of bunch of old shotgun ammo. Included is around 50 rounds of old factory paper hulled rounds. How likely are these to be safe to shoot?

The plan is to shoot them though my Stevens double but I could run them though my Remington 870 if that would be safer...

I'm still going thought the couple dozen boxes of ammo I have but almost all of it is factory rounds. I've sat aside the few reloaded rounds to tear down and salvage the shot for my .410 hand loads.

Tony
 
i buy old paper shells in good condition at flea markets and garage sales and hunt small game with them. the smell from the powder takes me back 60+ years to frosty mornings with my dad and grandad and his dogs hunting rabbits. those times are gone forever along with my dad and grandad. i say shoot-hunt them and take in the smell of the powder from a time long past.
 
I might shoot a few just so you can say you've done it. When I 1st got into hunting there were a few still around and I've used them before. But if I were to find more at this point I'd just save them for the novelty of it.

There isn't any advantage to using them, and they ain't making them anymore. They may never have any real value, but it would be nice to show the grandkids how they used to be made.
 
They may never have any real value...
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Speculation. I speculate that some day they may have antique value, especially as the remaining supply is shot-up and become more scarce.

Given that, I have seen some pretty serious hang-fires from old paper shotshells.

In all, there is no real good reason to shoot them up...they are antiques.
 
How old? That will determine how much dahermit will pay for your antique shells.

When I was shooting Trap regularly, I always liked shooting paper shells, the smell was nostalgic and the wax kept my chambers from rusting... My Browning Broadway would have red chambers by the time I got home after a day of shooting AAs.

But I was too cheap to do it often, the paper shells did not hold up for but a few reloads while the AAs would last and last.
 
A couple of them are labeled #4 Eastern Buck. I plan to not shoot those ones and keep them for the novelty of the markings but I'll shoot the rest of them. If I hand any of the really old full brass hulled rounds, I'd save those for sure.

Anybody know when paper hulls went out of production? As I recall they were still making them in the 1960's... I'm getting old but I don't consider things made in my lifetime antiques.

Tony
 
A waste of time !!!

Included is around 50 rounds of old factory paper hulled rounds. How likely are these to be safe to shoot?
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As long as you keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, you should be okay.
I have shot old paper shells with varying results and mostly a waste of my time. The biggest problem is that now you feel obligated to do something "positive" with them. As for me, I cut them open and salvage the shot for my M/L shotgun. Then I soak the loaded bases, in an water filled coffee can, for a week and to the garbage they go. .... ;)

Be Safe!!!
 
64-65 was the first plastic hulls. some were made beyond the new rage. federal still makes them today.
an indication of a bad paper hull is when the powder decomposes and turns to fluid. it will seep thru the paper were it sits inside the hull. if any have any of that...toss em a bucket of water for a week. thall kill em.
 
I came into a bunch of them once many years back & some would go POOF & some would go BOOM. Not sure I'd mess with them at this stage.
 
1962 I bought and hunted with Western Auto paper purple hull 12 ga. 2 3/4".

I was hunting dove in MS, over milo fields with my father's double barrel side hammer 12. I had a right to left crosser; drew down and fired. I knew I'd hit, because I saw the feathers. I looked and looked but couldn't find the bird. When I broke the action to reload I pulled out a hull with the front 1/4" shredded. That was the feathers I saw. The shoghun was a 2 1/2" chamber, and I had shot a 2 3/4" thru it. It retired to the car and I used my Wards single shot afterwards. In retrospect, I'm glad plastic wasn't available then.
 
Most of the the ones I have are Winchester but some of them the brand info is too faint to read.

They all look like they have had pretty good dry storage but a few look like they spent some years in a junk drawer...

My curiosity is riled up now so I now have to shoot at least some of them.

Tony
 
If they've been stored well, I'd consider them *probably* safe to shoot.
But I wouldn't. They make good decorations, props for photography, etc. And, there's always the chance that they're someone's unsafe reloads.

There isn't any advantage to using them, and they ain't making them anymore.
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There are several advantages.
1. They last about 10 times longer than plastic hulls, when reloaded with a star crimp.
2. They last about 5 times longer than brass hulls that are roll crimped.
3. They don't melt when used with black powder.
4. They can be more forgiving to feeding bobbles in some shotguns.

And, they are still making some of them.
There is Darkgael's list above, "FYI. New paper hulled 12 Gauge: Federal, RST, Kent and Gamebore." Plus RIO, Fiocchi (probably also RIO), several head stamps from the RUAG conglomerate, and probably more that we just don't see in the US.
 
They don't look like reloads. I've reloaded enough shotgun ammo to know what to look for and I'm not seeing any signs. I do have about a half box of unknown reloads that I'm going to pull down to salvage the shot.

On the other hand, in the same lot of ammo there are several boxes of 3" 12g rounds all in Remington plastic hulls and the rounds in the boxes all seemed to match. Two boxes are labeled 00 buck and the rest #2. They're packed in white boxes and they're either the best reloads I've ever seen or some kind of factory seconds. Of the 2 rounds not in the same box (both right on top) seemed to have failing crimps or I would have not guessed they were not regular factory loads. I dumped out and repacked one box and all the rest of them look factory new.

At first I was pretty thrilled to find 2 25 round boxes of 00 buck but I gently opened one of the rounds marked 00 buck that had a bad crimp and it looks like #2 or BB shot. The hulls look like new so I'm not sure what to do with these.

BTW, I'm sorting though about 2 mil crates of shotgun ammo... Most of it 12g and kinda old..

Tony
 
I've got:
1/2 box Western Super X #6
over 1 box Superior (Italian) #4
21 60's Remington Plastic 4-1 1/4- #4
4 Peters 00 Buck
6 Remington Slug
And the Remington 58 (barrel date 1960)of my father's that hadn't been shot since I can remember....at least 1970 until I cleaned it up and shot it last year.

Had I known in 1993 that the 4 rounds of #4 he handed me were from that box of Remington I would not have shot them. But at ~30 years old they fired just fine. For the last 27 years most were stored in a So Cal. garage with the temp changes that go with that. They mostly look fine (actually most look real good) but at this point I wouldn't trust the powder.
 
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