what are shotgun cartridges made of?

Answer 1

Shotgun shells are made up of the following parts. A brass either high or low for holding the primer in place, a plastic casing some smooth and some have small ridges on them. powder,a plastic wadding that seperates the powder from the shots, and shots or bb's as some know them by. The casing is crimped closed on the end and there you have it. A shotgun shell
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Answer 2

The base is either brass or steel. Better ones have a brass base, cheaper ones have the steel base. Brass is better for the resizing process in reloading.

The "hull" is made of plastic. This includes the "basewad" in shells. If you were get the metal base off, you would still have a plastic shell with a bottom, complete with primer flash hole. However it would lack the headstamp and rim.

The metal base doesn't do much at all - in fact, many years ago a company made a 100% plastic shot shell. Base heights vary, and the base is more for looks than anything - as long as the shell has a rimmed base of some sort, regardless of the size of the metal base height, it'll work.

Back in the good old days, the cartridges were made of paper. Yes, paper. You can still buy Federal Champion paper shells for the shotgun sports.

Answer 3

Shotgun shells are made up of the following parts. A brass either high or low for holding the primer in place, a plastic casing some smooth and some have small ridges on them. powder,a plastic wadding that seperates the powder from the shots, and shots or bb's as some know them by. The casing is crimped closed on the end

Answer 4

The re-loader covered the inside pretty good, so I'll cover the outside.

Used to be all metal (brass) and you can still get them if you reload.
Then, they were a brass base and waxed cardboard.
Then instead of cardboard, plastic.
Then, they started using less brass (down from about 1/2" to about 1/4"). Some semi-automatic shotguns will only feed the "Hi-brass" ones, so they are still sold in addition to the low brass (regular) ones.

Then, for trap and to make shells cheaper, started making some from aluminum (those can't be reloaded). These are usually called target. Brass ones usually called game.

Actually, except for the fact that the aluminum ones are usualy only available in 8, 7.5, and #6 shot, they work just as good either way.

Slugs, buckshot, heavy game loads like turkey, and 3" or 3-1/2" load are almost always high-brass.

Then, all plastic except for the primer (a cheap brand of slugs named "Active" - which happened to be very accurate in my shotgun (if only I could find more).

You can still get Hi-Brass, low-brass (or regular), and aluminum.

I have not seen the steel ones. I assume they're varnished like some Wolf ammo so that they don't rust.

Answer 5

Metal base, usually brass, and plastic body.

I have some Russian military buckshot 00 which is 100% copper made for combat situations in the Saiga 12K shotgun.

Answer 6

In modern shells the Hull is plastic with a metal base. You have a primer inside the metal base that ignites the powder charge. The shot(projectile) is contained in a plastic wad inside of the hull. From bottom to top of the hull you have the following.
1 Primer ( this ignites the powder)
2 powder charge
3 plastic wad (holds the shot)
4 shot (projectile)

Answer 7

The wad incorporates 3 elements, the powder wad, the cushion, and the shot cup, which will nicely be separate products or be one section. The powder wad acts because the gas seal, and is positioned firmly over the powder; it may nicely be a paper or plastic section.

Answer 8

I have plastic and cardboard ones, both with a brass base.

Answer 9

They normally have a metal base and plastic sides.

Answer 10

They normally have a metal base (think brass although it isn't) and plastic sides.

Hope that helps, Boom!