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orhunter wrote:Thanks. I like these personal experience field tests. Far better than some expert claiming this or that ammo should do a particular job as opposed to what it will do.
One important bit is shot choice. Only shoot at birds you can kill.
The one thing I take exception to is the killing ability of No. 2 steel. Although penetration tests say it's finished at 41 yards, being hit with something that large in diameter has a certain way of adding additional killing power. Well past 41 yards.... in my field experience.
stubblejumper wrote:I used the Kent Bismuth loads in my 16 gauge for hunting sharptails where non toxic shot was required. I didn't kill a lot of birds with them, but I saw no difference between the bismuth and lead with the birds that I did shoot.
blue04 wrote:stubblejumper wrote:I used the Kent Bismuth loads in my 16 gauge for hunting sharptails where non toxic shot was required. I didn't kill a lot of birds with them, but I saw no difference between the bismuth and lead with the birds that I did shoot.
Thanks stubblejumper. Bismuth is pretty good.
For those who may be interested, here's a quick overview of some common non-toxic alternatives to steel shot.
Bismuth was the only alternative to steel shot during the early years of the non-toxic shot era. It's not as dense as lead, but it's enough better than steel that waterfowlers took notice of it's knock down advantage over steel when it first came out. The knock on it at the time was the cost. It's now cheaper than most of the other non-steel options. It's also a lot softer than steel so (as you noted) it can be used in older guns. Currently about $1.60 per shell in 12 ga 2 3/4 MSRP in boxes of 10.
Kent makes a product called Tungsten Matrix that's about the same density as lead, and is soft enough to be used in older guns. It's virtually identical to lead in performance. Pure tungsten is quite a bit denser than lead, and too pricey to make shot out of it alone. They blend the tungsten with (believe it or not) plastic to get the hardness down to something that can be shot in older shotguns. This yields shot that is similar in hardness and density to lead. Currently about $3.80 per shell in 12 ga 2 3/4 MSRP in boxes of 10.
Hevi-Shot is a blend of tungsten, nickel, and iron. It's about 5.5% heavier than lead. In my experience, standard Hevi-Shot hits harder than anything I've used and patterns well in all the guns I've shot it through. Regular Hevi-Shot is too hard to be used in older guns. But they've more recently come out with a Hevi-Shot Classic Doubles line of shells that is more like Tungsten Matrix and is targeted at guns with softer steel barrels. Currently about $4.20 per shell for 12 ga 2 3/4 MSRP in boxes of 10 for standard Hevi-Shot waterfowl loads. Currently about $3.80 per shell for 12 ga 2 3/4 MSRP in boxes of 10 for Classic Doubles.
The Hevi-Shot folks also have a line of shells called Hevi-Metal that is a mix of standard steel pellets and tungsten+nickel+iron Hevi-Shot pellets (roughly 50/50 of each by weight). The advertised advantage of these shells is that the Hevi-Shot pellets are two sizes smaller than the steel pellets, which allows for matching of velocity between the two pellet types and also gives quite a bit more pellets per shell than standard steel. It can be considered a compromise to get some Hevi-Shot performance at a greatly reduced price. I have used these with good results on big Canada geese. There is no doubt in my mind that they hit harder than regular steel, but they're not as good as full Hevi-Shot or Tungsten Matrix. Currently about $1.04 per shell for 12 ga 3" MSRP in boxes of 25.
I presume since you're shooting Bismuth, you're using some fine older shotguns. If that's correct, you owe us some pictures of them
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