Old hevi shot question

[Borden811]

I ran across some old hevi shot turkey loads at a local store yesterday. They didn't say hevi 13 on the box. I believe they were 3 inch shells with a 1 5/8oz payload, and the hull was black. I've heard of the "old white" hevi shot shells, but never the black hulls. They were marked 17 dollars for a box of ten, and they had 4, 5, and 6 shot. Did these loads pattern well? I'm thinking at that price, they would atleast make good duck loads, if they didn't pattern well for turkeys? Anyone have any feedback?

[dpittman]

I never heard of black hull hevishot.

[Borden811]

Me either, hence the questions, lol. I figure someone on here has to have some info on them. Where's MightyJoe when ya need him? 

[allaboutshooting]

I ran across some old hevi shot turkey loads at a local store yesterday. They didn't say hevi 13 on the box. I believe they were 3 inch shells with a 1 5/8oz payload, and the hull was black. I've heard of the "old white" hevi shot shells, but never the black hulls. They were marked 17 dollars for a box of ten, and they had 4, 5, and 6 shot. Did these loads pattern well? I'm thinking at that price, they would atleast make good duck loads, if they didn't pattern well for turkeys? Anyone have any feedback?

Those were the first Hevi-Shot shells, not Hevi-13 which was a later development.

The early Hevi-Shot shells were loaded by 3 different companies and you can tell which company loaded them by the hull color.

The black ones were loaded by Remington, the red ones were loaded by Estate and the clear hull (later called the white hull) was loaded by Polywad.

There were several differences in how each company loaded those shells as well. They used different wads, powders and buffering materials.

Even though those shells were marked as 1 5/8 oz. they really contained 1 1/2 oz. of shot.

EM continued to have shells loaded even after Remington started loading and marketing Remington Hevi-Shot loads in 1 5/8 oz. and 1 1/2 oz. in 2001.

Thanks,
Clark

[Borden811]

Thanks Clark! Have you ever patterned any of them in your Benellis? If so, how did they do?

[allaboutshooting]

Yes. I have shot all of them. The black shells pattern very much like the Remington Hevi-Shot shells. They used the same powder, primer, wad and shot in both of them.

I still have a couple of cases of the Remington H.S. shells with that same load and shoot some of them occasionally. They have very little recoil and I could never tell the difference in the "Black" H.S. shells and those shells.

They pattern well in all of my Benelli guns. They like the SSX and the Hevi-13 turkey chokes best in those guns.

I don't think you'd go wrong with the #6 shot shells, especially a that price. Those were very popular shells for several years.

Thanks,
Clark