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So a friend was given a MEC 12ga, 20ga, and 28ga. Guy he got it from said he ran Red Dot in everything and all the presses were setup for it. He thought that was just great since he's been running 12ga with Red Dot for decades and already had plenty of it. Instant red flag to me though when he says he's loading Red Dot in 28ga. Friend had already loaded up 5 boxes but has not shot it. He loaded a mix of AA, AAHS and Fiocchi hulls with CB5034-28HS wads and Winchester 209 primers. Apparently my friend doesn't own a powder scale either even after two decades of loading 12ga and had no idea how much powder was in these shells. So I took one apart and it had 0.73oz of shot and 12.16gr of powder.

My opinion is he should set them aside and never shoot them. First the crimp on the Fiocchi hulls was very deep since it's a different hull and obviously has more volume. Second I can find mention of people using Red Dot in 28ga but no loads. Generally just finding tons of people saying don't do it. Sounds like some people use 12.5gr of Green Dot which makes me think 12.16gr of Red Dot is on the hotter side.

Anyone think it's safe to shoot these shells with this load and then never load Red Dot again? Personally I don't think I would run them through my gun.

The fact that Alliant doesn't list a Red Dot load for 28ga would worry me. Just for yucks I checked my Lyman Shotgun Load manual #3, and there's no Red Dot listing in there either.

Red Dot is faster than Green Dot.

I don't think I'd risk my pretty face with it.

Depends.

You could load a light enough charge with red dot that it would be safe, pressure wise.

The shotgun recipes that are published meet 3 criteria; safety, fit, and performance.

Lots of loads can be ok pressure wise, but don’t fit well in the hull, and the performance mismatch makes it a poor choice.

A safe load of red dot in a 28 ga would typically result in the sunken crimps (unless you add some additional wadding) and will be lower velocity, due to inadequate gas volume.

The biggest reason shotgun reloading is strict recipes is that getting the hull to close right while generating adequate velocity is quite challenging.

If you go and look in older data, you do find things like 20 ga loads with red dot… they just have characteristics that make them not desirable.