Howdy and welcome o the forum from The Free State of North Dakota, Double R!
Put this in your "For What It's Worth" file. In my formative days learning my hunting chops in the mid-60s, my shotgun was a side by side .410 hammer gun made in Spain (you could buy them pretty much anywhere back then, wish I had a safe full now), and plastic hulled shotgun shells where just making their appearance in the bigger gauges. About the only truly waterproof hunting coats were costly waxed canvas, and most got by with a brown cotton duck coat that was anything but waterproof. Well, I and my couple boxes of shells had been well and truly soaked the week before Dad took us 250 miles north to our lake cabin, where we often duck hunted in a WPA across the road. When we got into our blind Saturday morning, I found my waterlogged shells had swollen and I couldn't chamber them. My Dad was not really the sympathetic sort, followed the Rule Of The 7 Ps to the letter (proper prior planning prevents piss-poor performance), and firmly believed lessons learned with some pain were lessons that stuck with us kids. No way he was driving to town for shells that weekend, so I had to sit in the blind all morning and watch he, my brother, and uncle shoot ducks. The lesson I took away was to do a better job TCO of my gear and when plastic hulled .410 shells were available, never again buy waxed paper shells...
