Reloading 16 gauge shells on a 12 gauge Lee Load-All

It can be done but it is not pretty.

The de-capper works fine.

The male (upper) detail for the primer seating function is just a little bit fat for some of the thicker walled hulls.

The powder throw, wad seat and shot drop work just fine.  After clearing the Red Dot powder out of the loader and putting in some Unique, I found that it was dropping 20 grains.  That was close enough to the 22 grains the recipe called for.

The six point crimp starter worked fine.

The biggest problem was the detail that finished the crimp mushroomed the end of the hull.  Obviously I have more work to do.

Added later this evening...

This is what the hull (Remington) looks like with 20 grains of Unique, wad and 7/8 ounce of #4 shot.

Same hull with a 5/8" over-shot card.

After 6-point crimp starter

I tried using a sleeve of a 12 gauge hull to "shim" the 16 gauge hull in the crimp-finish station.  My thinking was that the hull could not mushroom out if the space between the 16 gauge hull and the side-walls of the detail were filled with something solid.

After finish crimp

Still a little bit of flaring but reduced by about 50%.  I will try a thicker walled 12 gauge hull (Winchester) to see if that helps even more.  Even with the thinner (Federal) hull I had to split the sleeve to get be able to easily slide the "shim" on and off.