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Old December 1, 2011, 10:39 PM   #18
David Wile
Senior Member
 
Join Date: June 14, 2001
Location: Mechanicsburg, PA
Posts: 585
Hey folks,

Big Jim mentioned using wax on a crimp mouth is "old school" reloading. I agree with his statement if we are talking about reloading modern shells with plain shot. If we are talking about reloading modern shells that also use buffer material, then I would submit that "old school" wax sealing is still a practical idea.

Like Big Jim, I have no need to use sealing wax for the vast majority of my reloading which is simply #8 shot in 12, 16, and 20 Guages. With these shells, the crimps work just fine as they come off the press.

Every so often, however, I do load #1 buckshot in 12 and 16 Gauge. When loading buckshot, I use a MEC Sizemaster single stage press instead of my progressive, and I pretty much batch load them by operation like I would do with metallic shells on a single stage press. Once the batch of shells is sized, re-primed, charged, and stuffed with a wad, I then hand stack the buckshot in the case and load a weighed amount of buffering in each shell before closing the crimp and finishing the crimp in the sizer/crimp station.

The crimps on my regular shotshells work quite well and do not leak shot. When doing buckshot and using buffering, however, the crimps are not good enough to keep the buffering from leaking out of the shell. For these buffered shells, I find the "old school" use of melted wax to work real well.

After "finishing" a batch of buffered rounds, I light a candle and drip perhaps up to ten drops of wax on the case mouth crimps of three or four shells, put the candle down, and then place each of the three or four shells in the final crimping station again and seal them again. If you time this right, the wax will be soft enough to spread out over the whole crimp and yet not stick to the crimping plug.

The wax really seals the crimp and stops any buffer leak. It has no discernable effect on the performance of the load, and I do not see how it can have any significant effect on load pressure. Does it take a lot of time to load shells with buffered hand stacked buckshot sealed with wax? You better believe it. But then again, how many of these loads do you really need to make in a year?

So for my use in making buckshot loads, the "old school" use of wax sealing is still a good idea to me. Thankfully, the majority of my shooting does not require wax sealing, and for those loads it is "old school" for me, too.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile
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