Quick ?? maybe...

[Blucollar]

I have a friend who's daughter is shooting trap at the High school level, They can only shoot factory ammo in competition, he would like to reload for her ( and him to save money) to practice with.

How can he best match the reloads to the factory ammo as not to throw her way off from one to the other?

[Graybeard]

Standard trap loads come in two primary varities (used to be only those two) usually referred to as light and heavy altho the difference is minimal. Three dram equivalent loads move at 1200 fps and 2-3/4 dram loads at 1150 fps. Both contain 1-1/8 oz of shot usually #7-1/2 or #8.

So pick any receipe that promises that performance level and it should match the factory loads well. To be honest tho these days in 12 and 20 gauge you can't save any money reloading ammo over just buying the standard field promotional loads at places like Wal-Mart.

[wmurrell]

Agreeing with GB- match the info from the factory boxes to a load recipe

Disagree- the promo shells do not pattern as good as the target loads . I have shown it on a pattern board for years. And the smaller the gauge the bigger the difference ( try it with 3" .410's). The price for the promo's is about what it costs to load your own in 12 and 20 ga.
Now if  you load (for example) Win AA hulls, wads, primers at the same velocity/ shot size & weight you will get a load that closely imitates AA factory rounds.

[Graybeard]

I didn't say they did. Merely said they work fine and unless you're a AA shooter it's not gonna make much difference and for practice no difference.

[patriotpa]

Go to http://precisionreloading.com/2004catalog.htm order PRBK01     P.R. INC. BLANKS TO SUPERSONICS MANUAL. This will have the info you need. Best shotshell manual I ever bought.

[wmurrell]

GB
Sorry , I was not trying to put words in your mouth. I taught 4-H skeet shooting for awhile. It was incredible the difference, I saw kids who were shooting 11s and 12s go to 15s and 16s just by changing ammo.

[Blucollar]

Thanks guys, this has helped him, he's still thinking about it but this info helped alot!
Blu