Steel shot for Geese.

USP

USP

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Anybody else having problems with it? I find it just does not drop them at anything beyond maybe 15 yards. Tried multiple brands and loads from 4,3,2,1, BB, 2 3/4 to 3 inch with no huge improvement.

Really since when does it take 6 shells to kill a Goose? Going through the dead ones, found almost no BBs at all. They just blast right through with little to no tissue damage. I only aim at heads as well.

This steel thing is frustrating. Any suggestions? I have tried Black Cloud, Remington High Speed, Blindside and a few others. Patterns all check out ok, just lacks any ooomph.
 
USP said:
Anybody else having problems with it? I find it just does not drop them at anything beyond maybe 15 yards. Tried multiple brands and loads from 4,3,2,1, BB, 2 3/4 to 3 inch with no huge improvement.

Really since when does it take 6 shells to kill a Goose? Going through the dead ones, found almost no BBs at all. They just blast right through with little to no tissue damage. I only aim at heads as well.

This steel thing is frustrating. Any suggestions? I have tried Black Cloud, Remington High Speed, Blindside and a few others. Patterns all check out ok, just lacks any ooomph.
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Yes, I had 2 Black Ducks fly off with 6 shells worth of Hevi-shot in them last week. Me and my buddy were 30 yards away. He was shooting 3.5inch hevi-shot #4 from a mossberg 835 and I was using a mossberg 500 with 3 inch #4 hevi-shot. The same morning watched my uncle hit the same duck 3 times (2 times of which was on the water) with some #2 Winchester xpert steel. The last shot he fired he was so close the wad hit the tailfeathers of the duck. I have officially given up on waterfowl hunting. With the exception of turres which are the only Federal waterfowl you can still hunt with lead.
 
IMHO the rule on steel shot has done more harm to ducks than lead ever did. I could see the ban on lead in water bodies with a real problem but applying it to the whole country and even to field shooting was simply ridiculous.
 
It's funny, for ages I was a High Density believer. I'm making the switch back to steel as it's too hard on the wallet when every pull of the trigger is $3-3.50 when shooting premium stuff. I've not had any issue with effectiveness. You put pellets in the head/neck region and a bird isn't going to care if it's been hit with lead, tungsten or steel. I use Kent FastSteel 31/2" #4s and 3" #3s for ducks, and 3" and 31/2" #2s and BB for geese. With some 23/4" #4s and #2s thrown in when I use my pump gun.
 
I dropped 2 Geese last weekend with #6 Steel out of my 16. Both shots were around 20 yards (decoy range). The way I've figured it is a goose head and neck is about the size of a duck(~ish), so you want to have a good pattern density on target. If you hit a goose in the body, chances are it won't drop. Hit'em in the head, and there's no problem.

I find with steel it's better to shoot a lighter payload at a higher velocity (as high as you can while the patterns hold together) than a larger payload at a slower velocity. If it's not going at at least 1500 FPS, I'm not shooting it. I haven't been shooting without problems though. I've had a few birds centered in the patterns and end up with locked wings only to glide a few hundred yards.

I'm much too young :)rolleyes:) to have hunted with lead, so I can't compare it to steel.

Just my humble opinion,

Cory
 
ive been doing ok. but since that day i have had trouble to get they commited...any tips well be apreciated...

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Yeah only go for head shots. I rechecked the patterns and they are all mostly similar with my gun. Although Black Cloud does pull a fraction left. I gotta admit I am not happy with crippling alot of birds in the last four days. My buddy was the same and hes an excellent shot.

I hit a duck twice in flight, blasting off feathers all over the place and it keeps going? I put two full loads of Black Cloud into geese at 25 yards and they just sort of pause in the air..then continue on.

This is bulls**t!

I use lead on regular stuff and never have any issues its drt. I would like to see a chrony of this stuff at 15 yards plus, I think it really must drop off fast in speed or retains little energy do to it being light. I do not try body shots at all.

A frustrating weekend. Shooting them at 10-15 yards is no problem as they are down if not dead.

Turkeyslayer, not calling BS...but I just cant see 65 yards dropping a goose with steel unless it was some sort of freak head shot. These shells are garbage!

ARe the hevishot any better? I have used them for Turkey, but paid 20ish for 5. I dont mind paying a premium if something works. I am not to thrilled about crippling several dozen birds. BTW choke was LM and Skeet, pattern is tight as well.
 
USP said:
Yeah only go for head shots. I rechecked the patterns and they are all mostly similar with my gun. Although Black Cloud does pull a fraction left. I gotta admit I am not happy with crippling alot of birds in the last four days. My buddy was the same and hes an excellent shot.

I hit a duck twice in flight, blasting off feathers all over the place and it keeps going? I put two full loads of Black Cloud into geese at 25 yards and they just sort of pause in the air..then continue on.

This is bulls**t!

I use lead on regular stuff and never have any issues its drt. I would like to see a chrony of this stuff at 15 yards plus, I think it really must drop off fast in speed or retains little energy do to it being light. I do not try body shots at all.

A frustrating weekend. Shooting them at 10-15 yards is no problem as they are down if not dead.

Turkeyslayer, not calling BS...but I just cant see 65 yards dropping a goose with steel unless it was some sort of freak head shot. These shells are garbage!

ARe the hevishot any better? I have used them for Turkey, but paid 20ish for 5. I dont mind paying a premium if something works. I am not to thrilled about crippling several dozen birds. BTW choke was LM and Skeet, pattern is tight as well.
Click to expand...

These are my results as well. When 4 guys shoot at 4 different ducks in 1 day and they all fly away like nothing then I don't think the shooter is the problem.
 
USP said:
Yeah only go for head shots. I rechecked the patterns and they are all mostly similar with my gun. Although Black Cloud does pull a fraction left. I gotta admit I am not happy with crippling alot of birds in the last four days. My buddy was the same and hes an excellent shot.

I hit a duck twice in flight, blasting off feathers all over the place and it keeps going? I put two full loads of Black Cloud into geese at 25 yards and they just sort of pause in the air..then continue on.

This is bulls**t!

I use lead on regular stuff and never have any issues its drt. I would like to see a chrony of this stuff at 15 yards plus, I think it really must drop off fast in speed or retains little energy do to it being light. I do not try body shots at all.

A frustrating weekend. Shooting them at 10-15 yards is no problem as they are down if not dead.

Turkeyslayer, not calling BS...but I just cant see 65 yards dropping a goose with steel unless it was some sort of freak head shot. These shells are garbage!

ARe the hevishot any better? I have used them for Turkey, but paid 20ish for 5. I dont mind paying a premium if something works. I am not to thrilled about crippling several dozen birds. BTW choke was LM and Skeet, pattern is tight as well.
Click to expand...

I was shooting an Improved modified choke, using BBB's going about 1625fps. We kill hundreds of geese a year, we get pretty good at it and you keep challenging your self with longer and longer shots.

I found Hevi-shot to be excellent because you can switch to a smaller shot, I used 4's when I used them. Had some pretty long kills with them too.
 
davemccarthy707 said:
These are my results as well. When 4 guys shoot at 4 different ducks in 1 day and they all fly away like nothing then I don't think the shooter is the problem.
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Your ducks must just be tougher out there.

I would be willing to bet you weren't all clouting the ducks like you think you were. Chances are you were just fringing them, I would say without going to indepth if you switched to a smaller shotsize and a higher velocity shell you would see an improvement.
 
Turkeyslayer, come out and show me how its done, dropping Geese at 65 yards. I will buy you enough beer that you fall down and have brain damage for a week.

I am not a particular bad shot, my buddy is an exceptional shot. We both had similar results. I tried several different brands with no improvement. I did not try what the other poster mentioned, faster small loads as I thought 4-6 was to light for Geese.

I had one Goose on the ground. I was about 10 yards away. It was sitting there looking at me so I went to finish it with a 3 inch magnum of #2. It messed it up big time but it still had mobility in its head and neck. I finished it off point blank with another shell.

Inspecting the meat revealed very little damage, almost drill like through and through punctures with only one BB being found in one of the Geese.

I get that these are somewhat sturdy birds...but this is just stupid! They are not armoured plated!
 
There is alot of died waterfowl that fly a long way before they die because steel does not work as good as lead.I watched one mallard fly away after what I thought were good hits thinking I
missed it the dropped out of the sky some 600 yds away and these were 25 yd hits.One load that I find works ok and is cheap to shoot is the winchester 2.75 OR 3 IN 12 GA.1550 fps BB or #2.
 
I used to ge t the same results even with black cloud untill about two years a ago I started shooting in the off season way more (me and a buddy would shoot a box of clays every weekend)and these past 2 season I have had a total of 1 cripple out of probably around 100 birds and the biggest problem is leading way more than you think you should,I like to remember while swinging that "90% percent of misses are behind the bird" most of the time we think "arggh what the heck I hit that bird I saw feathers fly" all we did is put pellets in there gut,while out hunting with the same buddy on the first day of the season I watched him FOLD! (and I mean fold) a teal at a measured 97 yards with one shot of 3 1/2" #2 black cloud.So not sayin.................just sayin........some practice usualy helps.
Thanks,
Hunter.
 
The lead on waterfowl is different /shorter than when you could use lead.Harold.....I just got in tonight and wacked a couple geese with Hevi-Metal
 
I use an xtra full choke (designed for steel) and small shot like # 6 on ducks early on. I go to 3 inch 4's for this time of year and use 2' for geese, though honestly I end up shooting most of them with the same 4's I shoot ducks with. With the xtra full you have to give bluewings a second or two to get out from you or it's messy. Otherwise it seems to kill them dead.

That said, I was using 2.75 inch Winchester HV 4's on Saturday and there were a couple of birds that were hit and didn't go down. One mallard was hit 3 times in a row and there were feathers flying with every hit -- I kept him in mind and left with one bird short of a limit to -sure enough -- pick him up about 500 yds down the lake. I switched brands to 2.75 Black Cloud 4's and went 4 for 4.

Bad batch of shells? Psychological benefit from switching shells? Who knows? But I'll be avoiding Win HV in the future if I have a choice.
 
I started waterfowling too late to ever hunt with lead but use it a ton on pheasant and crow.
Don't forget that as you use bigger sized shot (BB's say) there are considerably less of them to hit the goose. Years ago I tried to finish off a cripple duck on a mud back in the Bay of Fundy. It was a longish shot but he was just sitting still and I didn't want him to suffer. Seeing the pattern of pellets on the mud around him (and the holes in said pattern!!) really opened my eyes. Two shots later his were closed....... :redface:
Point being, I switched to #3 and #4 after that and started busting a ton more clays in the off season. Both seemed to help me fold birds and not have them fly away from a puff of feathers.
Of course my buddies out east will tell you that a Wad Wizard is the magic solution to your problem! :p
 
I think the only one I havent tried is Kent Tungsten Matrix, is it any good?
 
Get yourself a box of 3 inch Winchester Xpert 1550fps 4 shot. Put the bead on their beaks and follow through. It works for me and my buddies on hundreds of ducks and geese a year. I think if you are leading for a head shot like you were using lead you are not centering them in the pattern. You need less lead when using high speed steel.
 
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