my hunting partner and I were talking with pheasant season now open we are headed out later this week

shot shells that you wear the markings off the side carrying them around

we primarily use 4,5 sometimes 6 for rabbit an squirrel

what we came up with is it won't matter to the crimp to have a little dot of paint marker on it

Black is 7.5 and 8 cause basically interchangeable as far as we are concerned
Green 6
Yellow 5
white 4

steel silver and another color to delineate size

my son came up with with a stripe of black and a stripe of the size to delineate turkey loads

it's a start that was what we had for paint pens between the two garages

could also get some cheap finger nail polish I suppose but for starting this was what we had for paint markers and our most common sizes carried

do you do anything like this ?

When lead was still legal for waterfowl and Kansas still had huntable numbers of pheasant and quail (probably 40 years ago), I used your method to color code all my reloads. You have a system that works!

I'm primarily a grouse hunter and stick with 7 1/2s for the most part. I roll crimp my loads. Ballistic Products sells numbered overshot cards if I were of a mind to load different shot sizes and wanted to keep loads segregated that way.

I shoot side-by-sides and there are times when it's advantageous to stuff heavier shot in the tighter choked barrel. Not this season. Worst grouse year I've ever experienced.

In my case green Gun Club hulls get 1 ounce of 7 1/2 shot, gold Nitro 27 hulls get 1 ounce of 9 shot and the black Remington Game Load hulls get 1 ounce of 5 shot. They all get the same powder charge and clock in at a very consistent 1250 fps. They all have the same internal volume and are interchangeable. Higher velocities don't mean squat under normal circumstances. My son and I break targets, lots of them, at 40 and 50+ yards, and kill critters just as far as anybody else in my circle of shooting buddies. My son is sold on the Fiocchi Shooting Dynamics hull. Their hull is almost clear so you can see the shot in the hull. He only loads 1 ounce of 7 1/2 or 1 ounce of 4's, same powder charge, again at 1250. For Trap, Sporting, FITASC, 5 Stand, or American Field Sporting we both use improved modified chokes. I use skeet chokes and 9's for skeet. To hunt we use the same loads but change chokes.

this is all factory loads mostly Win and Fed so shades of red

some of both have had very light markings

I started buying a case of my preferred load when a decent price , there were a lot of years of whats on the shelf at the store was what I got

speaking of whats on the shelf , as I predicted earlier this year opening day of pheasant there were very few pheasant loads on the shelf so it made me very glad I picked up plenty in April the first time I saw them.

only one of 3 stores checked had any and that store had Fiocchi for 20 a box

I found 23 #4 loose rounds and I can tell those came from at least 3 boxes some fed some win some high brass and a few low brass federals but it was probably more like 5

I had a cardboard box full of 20 gage shells from my grandpa. Plastic hulls, but no writing on them. Decide to use them up at sporting clays. Turned out they were no. 6 high brass, with paper wads. That got a few chuckles.

Talking about colors, I also got a box of 20 gage no.5 shot that have green hulls. I know those are old.

My son and I shot some #5 Rio's yesterday- we saved the casings for reloading- one guy said they can't be reloaded because it's not a standard 209 primer? Pete... T of F ?

RIO's in 16 gauge are cheddite hulls and can be reloaded. I'm not sure about 12 gauge, but I'm guessing they're also cheddite.

Yup- Shooting 12ga

The kid and I both use Cheddite primers. They fit and work just fine in our Fiocchi and Remington hulls. I have seen some, not many, shooters use Rio hulls and standard 209 primers without any issues at all. The only problem I could envision would be someone somehow getting some of the old Remington 57 primers. They were noticeably smaller in diameter and to the best of my knowledge were only used in Remington hulls. They are no longer manufactured and I haven't seen any in probably 40 or so years. Rio hulls are very re-loadable with standard components.

yes it looks like they can be reloaded but there are some recommendations that you only use Rio , Fiocchi , chedite or noble sport primers.

I am no shot shell reloading expert , used to load trap loads 25+ years ago but just been buying for a bunch of years

I mostly stick to metallic cartridge reloading

most of my 209s are used in muzzle loaders and there is definitely a fit difference I can get them to all work in my 209 guns but a few of them are definitely tighter than others

I do know Chedite primers are larger according to the ballistic products site 0.001 larger than a typical 209

possibly also a bit harder
uncle tom was saying chedite worked fine after going in very tight but once he loaded a hull with them the primer pocket was stretched and the regular 209s went in "too easy" so he marked brass loaded with the cheddite primers

lots of people compare RIO to other Euro hulls for construction while technically most Rio is made in TX and owned by a Mexican corp.

Federal introduced hte idea of purple 16ga and yellow 20ga in 1960
not sure what year everyone went to it but before I started doing any shooting it was a standard.

I had a sack of random 12a shells from the junk drawer at my grandparents house
probably a few in a lot of junk drawers

I have heard they don't have junk drawers in other places for any coasters , a Junk drawer is a Midwest catch all drawer typically in the kitchen but sometimes in another place that gets an assortment of hardware , tools , rubber bands , shot shells , batteries you name it it could be in there.
this is separate from your nuts and bolts bin and the coffee cans of nails , screws and other assorted stuff in the garage or work bench in the basement.

I know all about junk drawers. It's amazing what finds its way into those over the course of 20 years in a house. pocket knives, lighters, a box of 22 shells, scissors, tapes, cassettes, note pads, twist ties, flashlights, etc. And I have at least a half dozen coffee cans (plastic now) full of screws from taking apart a coworker's deck a few years ago. Reusing screws is sure easier than straightening old nails.

No idea what you guys are talking about

I have seen the Ballistic Products chart and being the pain in the butt engineer that I am I had to check for myself. After checking Remington, Winchester, CCI (standard and magnum), Federal, and Cheddite 209's. I found them all to be within what I would call manufacturing tolerance, .243 to .244 diameter. The thing that really surprised me was that none of them were truly round, running between the aforementioned .243 to .244. I used my Brown & Sharpe micrometer and dial vernier to do the measuring. They both agreed. I went through all this some years ago when primers were getting in really short supply. The one thing that did concern me was that some of the guys were having issues with their Kriegoff guns piercing the primers in the Rio ammo. I will also note that the literature that came with my sons Rizzini O/U stated that the gun was designed to be used with, if memory serves me, Fiocchi primers. Sounds a little silly to me, but whatever. Why would a manufacturer do that?

I have some rio in .20 ga that are reloaded with lead bb's to shoot coyotes with.

K Snow I figured you would understand junk drawers you seem well grounded in WI culture.

I only have a few coffee cans from back when we got decaf in a can, the coffee we drink daily is in a bag whole bean.

Claussen's big plastic pickle jars are my go too screw and nail vessels lid is just big enough I can get my hand in decent.

I eat a couple of those a month so a good supply of screw top half gallon rectangular containers

I think they do that so they have one standard which makes sense just about the time you say works everything someone finds the exception and says well it doesn't work with XYZ brand , much like companies offering a MOA guaranty with match ammo have a particular match ammo they use as a standard and probably a machine rest lock gun in fire 3 rounds of that ammo and it will pass or they work on it till it does.

it sure makes them easy to see as they are coming out of your pocket or getting ready to go, I had some 4 and 5 hunting the other day

black 7.5 or 8
green 6
yellow 5
white 4