More Old/New Hevi-13 Discussion

[Nimrodmar10]

There's been a lot of talk lately about the old and new Hevi-13 loads. Well I bumped into it today at the range. Now this info is all about 20 gauge shells so if it needs to be moved to the 20 Gauge Board, so be it.

I'm trying to get a Remington 870 Youth Model for a friend's son for this coming weekends Youth Hunt. I took a Lohman Long Shot Turkey Tube (.558") out of my Rem. 11-87 turkey gun and took it to the range with the shells I had on hand. These included a box of Hevi-13 3" 1 1/4 oz #6 Turkey Loads (1090 FPS) and a box of Hevi-Shot 3" 1 1/4 oz #6 Duck/Goose loads (1250 FPS). I wasn't really impressed with either load but I was surprised that the Hevi-13 load only put 80 pellets in a 10" circle at 40 yards and the Hevi-Shot Duck/Goose load put 92 holes in the circle. Nothing to write home about on either one but the higher velocity shells patterned better. I also wonder if there is any other difference between the two types of shells such as buffering or coatings.

I didn't like the patterns so I made a trip today to a nearby Gander Mountain to pick up a Primos Jelly Head Choke Tube (.570")  I've heard good things about them and it was quickly available.  Should have saved my gas money and the $50. The Jelly Head didn't even shoot as good as the Long Shot. The Hevi-13 Turkey Loads only put 60 pellets in the 10" circle and again the Hevi-Shot Duck Loads did better by putting 75 holes in the circle. Still not satisfied with the patterns I dug out some Remington Hevi-Shot loads with #5 Shot. When I pulled a shell out of the box to shoot it I noticed it was a Hevi-13 1 1/4 oz of #6 load but it looked different. The writing on the shell was different and the head stamp on the brass did not say Hevi-Shot. All it had was 20 ga and stars.

I put it in the gun and fired it at 40 yards. I don't know anything about the shell since I didn't have the original box but it ended up with 105 holes in the circle. Best load so far.  I'm assuming this is an earlier version of the Hevi-13 load that I had put in the box of Remington Hevi-Shot loads to keep them from rattling in my turkey vest.  Still not satisfied with the patten in the short barreled youth gun. The kid may have to end up shooting the 26" barreled 11-87.

[sugarray]

I can't talk about the Hevi loads much, but in my 870 compact with a 22" barrel the Rem SF only gave 91-100 with the Hevi #7 loads.  No difference with a Hastings .562.  The Fed HW increased from 91 to 110s to high of 134.

You are shooting #6's, if you change to the #7 you will get what you are looking for.  The #7s have plenty of energy to kill at 40 and farther.

Those 90s at 40 have plenty of wiggle room in closer too, don't forget that.  Hopefully, your buddy's son won't be shooting one at 40 yds anyway.

[surehuntsalot]

the jellyhead chokes are pretty much a big joke with the 20ga guns

[Nimrodmar10]

Now you tell me!!!!!

[shootumindaface]

Yes the old star brassed can be very very good.. I cannot remember if that is from the 05-07 vintages or if that is from Waaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day at the inception of hevishot whereas they were 12 g /cc I still have one of the old 12g hevi shot 20 g turkey loads.

[Reloader]

The duck loads do not have buffer and should contain h12 if the have the "Way Heavier than Lead" label.  Some of the newer ducks loads are less dense than lead.

The new h13 6 20ga loads have come in several different recipes component wise and some do pattern better than others, but none as good as the old h13 loads.

I sort of like the duck load pattern you speak of, if indeed it was a even pattern.  I say that because there's not many pellets in that load and the overall patterns are tiny when you get over 100.  I wouldn't want that shell to pattern over 100 and I would want the kid to shoot past 40 personally.  The last time I took a kid with a 20ga it was with the h13 6s and a flush full giving mid 80s at 40.  80 in the 10 will do it every time.  Even those patterns were not all that big for normal range kills.  I wouldn't even be opposed to letting a kid shoot 3" 1-1/4oz 7.5 lead and keeping the shots out to where the patterns fall to 100.  Some kids can shoot outstanding, but big tom fever can sure lead to the need for a large pattern.

Reloader

[shootumindaface]

Reloader I believe you and I went through this a couple a years ago where you identified the components in the duck load.. It is buffered here is the pic

[allaboutshooting]

We shoot a lot of 20 gauge shells here. Both Doris and I shoot 20 gauge Remington 870 guns on a regular basis, so we go through a lot of shells. Our guns are all stock guns with no barrel modifications. We shoot 26" and 28" barrels. The 26" barrels always shoot better but there's a little less muzzle jump with the 28" barrels and that can be a factor.

We just can't find any shells that do better than the 3" Hevi-13 with 1.25 oz. of #6 shot, as far as consistency goes. If you can shoot #7 shot where you hunt, that's also an outstanding performer.

The early, 2005 20 gauge Hevi-13 shells loaded by Jay Menefee at Polywad,  were imprinted
"HEVI - 13 (TM)
3" - 1 1/4 OZ. NO 6"
Those shells also had the "stars" and were not imprinted with "Hevi-Shot" on the brass. There were not a lot of those made but they set the standard for 20 gauge shells. They had moly-coated pellets like all Hevi-13 shot, which differentiated it from regular Hevi-Shot used in other shells.

There have been a few different versions but the current ones and those for the last 2 years or so have been excellent.

We shoot 2 different brands of chokes. One has an exit diameter of .550 and the other .555. They have totally different internal geometry but both work equally well. We've found that's what it takes to get the kinds of patterns that we and most other shooters and hunters want.

These are truly 40 yard guns without throwing baseball sized patterns at 20 yards. I get reports from all over, many with pictures, of turkeys shot by folks of all ages, who've successfully used these combinations to cleanly kill turkeys.

It's all just a matter of matching the shell and the choke.

All my best this spring.

Thanks,
Clark

[hookedspur]

Well said Clark.

[Nimrodmar10]

Great info Clark. I appreciate it. The only thing you forgot was what brand choke you shoot.

[shootumindaface]

There have been a few different versions but the current ones and those for the last 2 years or so have been excellent.

Lets not get back to this good, better, best and now excellent thing..

What type of numbers in a 10 inch at 40.. 140s? 150s? Those were the numbers I was getting with the old H 13 6s in the 20.. I would consider that Excellent...

Not one pattern I have seen has even come close to touching these numbers.. Essentially with EM we sacrifice performance every time they change a load..

IMO EM has no business loading their own shells.. They are lost without Polywad

[S.C.C]

I can't understand how or why they would want to or have to change a load that is selling and shooting
good after all they only employ around 13 people at the most,most of the time you can count on a small
group to hold quality much better than a larger one! Unless of course there all greedy as we see so much
of in the world today!Its a shame to see a company built on quality with a name and then to just drop the
quality and try to keep selling the name!IMO to much of that is going on in the world business's of all
products!It take time to produce quality and as they say time is money is greed!

[Timberline]

What EM should have done was introduce the new load as an "Economy" H13 load and still keep the original load.  Call the original load the "Trophy" load or something like that.   Other ammo companies do something like that where they offer products of different quality at different prices.   Then if the economy load sells as well as they think it is going to, they could have eliminated the original load.  People would still not have been totally happy, but in that case EM would not have been hiding anything.

The problem is they would have had to lower the price of the economy load (at least for a while), and that is the step they are trying to eliminate.

[TrackeySauresRex]

I can't understand how or why they would want to or have to change a load that is selling and shooting
good after all they only employ around 13 people at the most,most of the time you can count on a small
group to hold quality much better than a larger one! Unless of course there all greedy as we see so much
of in the world today!Its a shame to see a company built on quality with a name and then to just drop the
quality and try to keep selling the name!IMO to much of that is going on in the world business's of all
products!It take time to produce quality and as they say time is money is greed!

True Dat!