Reloading shotgun is a bit different than rifles or pistols.I pick up 12 gauge at the WMA ranges all the time.
I have reloaded the cheap hulls and see no issues with them.
What issues are you guys seeing with cheap ones?
When I was a kid the father of a man my father worked with ran a shotgun range. He gave me a 55-gallon drum of old hulls if I would pull out a few hundred AA's for him. As a result, I have loaded a lot of different hulls.
First, the older recipe books are a bit more particular because the volume inside the case varies by manufacturer. Head construction and wall construction are different in the cheap hulls than the AA's. As with any reloading, get a good book and follow the recipe. Most will tell you that don't mix and match shot/wad/hull, unless you like a little extra bulge in the barrel.
Hulls
Paper - not many floating around anymore, but they can be reloaded.
Plastic
AA hulls and the good Remington's taper in wall thickness and are thicker near the base. The failure is around the crimp. They just ware out from too many uses and are an 8 point crimp. These tend to have a smooth outer wall.
Plastic cheap hulls, made from thin plastic tube cut to length and crimped into a head. These tend to have the corrugated hull walls. The side wall is not as sturdy, and they are not as forgiving when reloaded. Some load fine, some have tight restrictions on the primer pockets and hang on the de-priming punch (toss them, not worth the headache). Most are a six-point crimp, rather than 8 points, so you need the correct crimp starter. They are more likely to crumple when crimping.
I can confirm the blue peters hulls were in the same quality class as an AA Winchester. I have loaded thousands of them. Not sure how they will behave now, as they will be old.
Last edited: