"Please don't be offended but everything so far is none fact based, does anyone know of articles or videos of this subject?? Don't misunderstand, I'm not reckless and don't plan on doing anything stupid, but my suspicious side thinks the manufactures may have instigated a fear tactic in order to increase sales?"

Yeah, right up until the time you see a firearm blow up in someones hands because they fudged a load.

In reality it would be very very foolish, AND a huge liability, for manufacturers to do anything but play on the strait and narrow.

Here is a pretty good sight for reloading info and data,
http://www.hodgdon.com/

Yes you can play around with quantities of powder, but you better know what the powder is and what its rates are and what it will do in various size cases.

I dont even mess with trying out different powders for something they were not ment for, and I have been reloading for 40 + years. There are to many good powders, for pistols, rifles and shotguns for there even to be a need to cross the genres.

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Gonna try again first wouldnt post.
Filagog pretty much is right.
I have .38 spec. cases from the 1920's my grandad bought that we have only used for target shooting. Huge amount of reloads on them.

What you want to do is wash decap and inspect your shells after each firing.

Watch for , Bulging, particularly around case heads, (impending head seperation)
Primer pocket enlargement
Work hardening of the mouths, this can cause neck splits and moutn or neck seperation.( you can cure this by annealing the case mouths evrey 6-10 reloadings.)

Things to avoid doing to increase case life:

If the cases are to be used in the same firearm, dont full length resize. This overworks the brass an contributes to hardening.

Avoid heavy crimps on rimmed pistol and any rifle cases, only enough to retain bullet. ( you dont crimp rimless autopistol cases as they headspace on the case rim.)

Keep your loadings to 75-90 percent of maximum. You probably dont need the extra power you gain from going full on, and it overworks an stretches cases.
As my Grandad always said; " If you need to go full on with your loadings, you ain't using a powerful enough cartrdge to start with!"

This is a real good sight for checking loads and pressures
http://data.hodgdon.com/cartridge_load.asp

Because of their lower operating pressures shotshells can generally be loaded untill you start to get cracking of the crimp plastic or flattening of the rim ( this will start to enlarge the rim dia. so its good to check them)

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