Back when lead shot could still be used for waterfowl, I went from buying the extra priced, high speed Imperial Long Range loads as a youngster who figured velocity was the ticket, to a bit older guy with patterning board experience that found out I got better patterns and cleaner kills when I throttled my loads back to 1200 fps.
I didn't figure that out without help. More than a few shotgun authorities in books and Handloader magazine pointed out that when you calculated differences in velocity for a given pellet of birdshot at 40 yards plus, the "high velocity" advantage was pretty much nonexistent out there. And getting the same patterns was much, much more difficult the more you ramped up the velocity.
So now the wife has decided she wants to be a hard core waterfowler, which means I will probably be reloading steel shot in the near future. I am left wondering how much of a game changer steel shot is versus what we learned and practiced with lead shot.
I still shoot a lot of pheasants, sharpies, and other upland birds each year with lead shot, and what I learned about velocities, shot sizes, and patterns over the year still holds. But how much of that is true with steel shot?
The general concensus seems to be steel shot patterns tighter than lead because of reduced deformation, so more open chokes give similar results beyond the pointy end of the shotgun. And you need to go up in shot sizes to make up for the lower mass of steel, and thus the faster energy loss than lead as the distances increase.
So far so good, but what about velocity? Does much of what we learned about keeping velocities somewhat pedestrian go out the window with the ability of steel to resist deformation and pattern better? Along with, presumably, advances in wad technology that would allow retaining pattern density while jacking the velocities up?
It will all get checked out on the patterning board at some time in the reasonably near future, but I am wondering if steel shot isn't a case where mid-range velocities with heavier shot charges if anything becomes a case of actually taking a step backwards?
I didn't figure that out without help. More than a few shotgun authorities in books and Handloader magazine pointed out that when you calculated differences in velocity for a given pellet of birdshot at 40 yards plus, the "high velocity" advantage was pretty much nonexistent out there. And getting the same patterns was much, much more difficult the more you ramped up the velocity.
So now the wife has decided she wants to be a hard core waterfowler, which means I will probably be reloading steel shot in the near future. I am left wondering how much of a game changer steel shot is versus what we learned and practiced with lead shot.
I still shoot a lot of pheasants, sharpies, and other upland birds each year with lead shot, and what I learned about velocities, shot sizes, and patterns over the year still holds. But how much of that is true with steel shot?
The general concensus seems to be steel shot patterns tighter than lead because of reduced deformation, so more open chokes give similar results beyond the pointy end of the shotgun. And you need to go up in shot sizes to make up for the lower mass of steel, and thus the faster energy loss than lead as the distances increase.
So far so good, but what about velocity? Does much of what we learned about keeping velocities somewhat pedestrian go out the window with the ability of steel to resist deformation and pattern better? Along with, presumably, advances in wad technology that would allow retaining pattern density while jacking the velocities up?
It will all get checked out on the patterning board at some time in the reasonably near future, but I am wondering if steel shot isn't a case where mid-range velocities with heavier shot charges if anything becomes a case of actually taking a step backwards?
wholeheartedly with this.
