Into every conversation between reloaders will come the question, "What load do you use"? After one decides to reload ammunition, the quest to find a load, THE load, begins. Many things must be considered, from ballistics to component prices and availability, each of which will be discussed right here in the coming months. But the heart and soul of any shotshell reloading recipe is the hull.

The hull is what we "reload". The hull is the starting point and ballistic foundation for any reloading recipe. The size, shape, and construction of the empty hull influence how easy it is to reload, how well certain loads fit, how long it will last, and most important, the ballistic outcome from a given combination of primer-powder-wad-shot. So important is the hull, that it is always the first component listed in a reloading recipe, and it deserves special consideration long before the first shotshell is ever reloaded. Let's try to understand some of the differences between a variety of hulls, and how those differences affect the loads we see in the reloading data.

Hull Identification

I cannot over-emphasize the importance of knowing which hull you are reloading. Unfortunately, positive ID has become increasingly difficult with the expanded number of hull-types loaded by ammunition manufacturers. For beginners, there is no better reference than drawings or photos of the hulls named in the reloading recipes. The best current source is the 4th Edition Lyman's Shotshell Handbook. The drawings give attention to the inside of the hulls, where many important differences between hulls exist, as well as the outside appearance. Outside characteristics alone, like the number of crimp points (8 or 6), the ribs in the plastic, or the height of the brass, seldom allow you to positively ID the hull. You must look inside the hull for the shape, color, and height of the basewad, which can be found at the bottom, around the primer opening. Using both inside and outside characters, a hull can almost always be precisely identified.

For simplicity, I will only discuss the most common hulls from 5 shotshell manufacturers: Federal, Remington, Winchester, Activ, and Fiocchi. There are others, but these include the hulls for which the vast majority of reloading data has been formulated.

Federal makes 3 hulls which are clearly identified by the basewad inside. The "Field" hull has a gray, rolled-paper basewad, the "Gold Medal" has a plastic basewad, and the "One-piece" has no basewad with the primer opening appearing elevated. In 12-gauge, these hulls are a maroon color but can be either high or low brass. Federal hulls are purple in 16-gauge, orange-yellow in 20 gauge, and are almost always of the Field variety in these gauges. The popular Game Loads, Dove Loads, and Multi-purpose 4-packs are loaded in Field hulls, and Gold Medal hulls usually carry that name on the side, but you really have to look inside Federal hulls to determine which hull you have.

Remington also makes 3 basic types of hulls. The "Premier" is very smooth and has no basewad, the "Unibody" has slight ribs and no basewad, and the "SP" is ribbed but has a plastic basewad that is either green, black or yellow. All the 12 and 16-gauge hulls are green, and the 20-gauge hulls are bright yellow, but the descriptions are the same. The Premier hull (also described as the RTL or STS hull, which have slight differences) is very characteristicly smooth, but the Unibody and the SP require visual inspection of the basewad for identification.

Winchester produces 2 basic types of hull. Winchester's compression-formed "AA" hull has been the most popular hull among reloaders since I can remember. It is a smooth-sided, one-piece, bright-red hull with no basewad. Winchester's "Polyformed" hull has a similar color, but is made from much softer plastic and has a plastic basewad. It is easy to distinguish between the AA and Polyformed hulls from the outside, but the Polyformed hulls have a variety of basewad colors and heights. Some data sources list different loads for 3 different basewad configurations while others lump them all together. The basewad heights are different enough that Polyformed hulls should be sorted by specific basewad because it influences how loads fit. These same 2 hull-types are found in the yellow 20-gauge shells, but all Winchester 16-gauge shells at this time are loaded in red AA-type hulls.

Activ and Fiocchi hulls are very distinctive and can be indentified mostly from the name on the rim. Activ hulls are all plastic with no exterior brass. Even the bottom rim of the shotshell is plastic and there is no plastic basewad inside. Fiocchi hulls usually have brass of medium height and a plastic basewad similar to the Federal Gold Medal. Basewad-heights vary in Fiocchi hulls, and they should be treated similar to the Winchester Polyformed hulls.

These descriptions are not complete. I've obviously left out the 3 ½ inch 12-gauge and 10-gauge hulls. However, a quick glance through any reloading data shows very similar types of hulls for these loads. The gauge, length, name on the rim, and a look on the inside of the hull can usually identify it. I've also left out a number of hulls like the Cheddite (sold by Ballistic Products), and those used in Estate, Victory, and Lyalvale shotshells. Data for these hulls is quite limited at this time.

Importance of Hull Differences

2 3/4 inch Hulls:

The hulls discussed above have different characteristics important to reloaders. The highest-quality hulls are those used in each company's competition target loads. Winchester's AA and Remington's Premier are by far the best hulls for reloading. They are rigid, one-piece hulls that load smoothly with most reloading machines, keep their shape during the final crimp, produce a very attractive factory-looking crimp, and last for many reloadings. There are reams of lead-shot reloading data for these hulls, and they can be purchased from many sources. However, these hulls are also tapered (narrower toward the primer because of thicker plastic than at the mouth), have less space for powder and shot, and they generate much higher chamber pressures than other hulls given a set of components.