I was joking about "standing with the hoarders," but I think the posters are right.

I always keep enough "stuff' so I can shoot for a year if ammo or components become unavailable. That includes factory ammo and shot, wads, powder and I hate to think about how many once fired hulls I have-several 33 gallon garbage containers full.

And, of course, my wife shoots as much as she can. I am really pleased she has chosen to delay her retirement for two more years as:

I like the money she brings in.

And she can only shoot on weekends and vacation or other days off. Hence, I "save" ammo.

I created a monster when I first took her to the trap club and put a 12ga. in her hand. I thought she'd treat it like she did handguns-shoot it just enough to "please" me and go back to scrapbooking, hiking, etc.

Unfortunately for my wallet, she really, really liked it and now I have to really work to keep her in ammo, guns, etc.

bgrafser: I am aware of Clay Dot powder. I noticed they have an identical load for singles, with CB wads and Remington or Winchester hulls, but, unlike Clays, don't list a 1200 fps load.

700X is an older powder, used for many years by clays shooters and works fine except for being "dirty." Since all I have now are break open guns, that's not a problem. If I had a semi-auto, I'd probably not use it since I really hate cleaning my guns.

One of the benefits of break open guns is that it is really not necessary to clean them (but do wipe them down with the oily rag) unless they get wet or look so dirty as to be embarrassing if someone else asks to see my gun.

Bob