Shotgun Speedloaders

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One time while shooting around of Sporting Clays, I noticed that I was constantly fumbling fresh shotshells prior to adding them to the chambers of my shotgun. I wanted a solution that would allow me to load both chambers simultaneously and quickly. I took a lot of inspiration from revolver speedloaders in the design process.

After spending an inordinate amount of my free time designing the parts on the pile of graph paper on my desk and remembering hearing a colleague of mine tell me, "When it comes to design, first comes the problem!", I came up with an easy-to-manufacture concept. I also realized that I would need a set of these loaders to allow fast and precise reloads for each station of the Sporting Clays course that I frequent.

First, I decided to use 6061 aluminum alloy as I have scrap chunks of it lying around from making soft jaws for my mill vise and bench vise. I started by machining the end that holds the shells, since both sides of my clamp-style loader are identical.

After measuring the rims and brass hull diameters, along with the distance between centers of my two chambers (which worked out to exactly one inch on Notice the undercuts for the rims. my shotgun), I cut the half-round pockets in all ten pieces, including the undercut for the shells’ rims. This was the easy side to the design and make. Now, onto the opposing top halves.

I decided to do a split clamp style for my speed loader, so the opposing tops needed to be machined in away that allowed me to actuate the splitting of the two pieces to drop the shells freely into the chambers. I drew two finger grooves into one side, and on the opposing side I machined most of the top away. I really only left enough metal there to The side with the finger grooves contains the holes and counter bores for the shoulder screws and spring. The "clamp" side has the holes threaded to bolt them together.

After testing with both shoulder bolts installed, I found the lower, smaller screw to be redundant and that it impeded the function of the loader. It has been eliminated from the design, and the shells themselves keep the parts aligned while in use. hold the threads of the screw used to join the two halves together. To make this unit a clamp and to keep the parts aligned to one another, I originally employed two shoulder bolts. The bolt up top is bigger and also acts as the

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push-button to activate the splitting effect. The lower bolt is much smaller and simply aids in alignment. I counterbored the holes for the bolt heads considerably deeper than the standard depths, so as to allow the parts to separate the appropriate distance. The upper counterbore also acts as the spring’s retaining pocket. It took a little bit of trial and error to determine the proper spring length, coil rate, wire diameter, etc.

Once I found what worked, I ordered the needed hardware from Mc Master-Carr to outfit this trial run of five speed loaders. Once everything arrived, I assembled and tested all five of them with snap caps. After attempting to test and determining that the lower shoulder bolt was hindering proper use, I eliminated it from the design as having the shells themselves physically keep the parts aligned worked well.

It was at this point that I realized that there are things I could have done better on this design, such as reducing weight, a better shape and Far more comfortable contours, improved aest het ics and functionality, etc. Future iterations of these loaders will have the needed changes until I perfect them. For now, though, I am off to the Sporting Clays course for my first live test run! AG Far " "