Shooting with Steel?

[kent]

Tim. Body shots are not reliable from.below straight overhead more so

Try head and neck. Never ever hope for a wing think dead in the air not can I bring it down. Shot from even slightly side on you would have had a better chance of pellets reaching vitals. Head and neck hits always bring them down though I only go for the body if I made a mess of the first shot and need to finish a bird ( some get hit in the body only but not by design)

 

Shells are adequate it's what I am using this year if range was 35 English yards rage was OK but geese do look close at 50.

 

Choke I shouldn't over worry about

 

Geese are tough customers no matter what you shoot them with often a goose will drop out stone dead when you thought it s clean miss maybe a few hundred yards away so always watch the skien

 

It's hard loosing a goose especially if you don't get out after them a lot

I lost one similar this year it set it's wings on the shot ( hard shooting lots of side drift shooting a good yard to the side of them) dropped three for three stone dead then messed up one it has landed not 100 yards away but the dogs never caught it up they are real sneaky and surprisingly quick down the gutters etc

 

The only real difference in the lead days was you got more lucky single pellet strikes the shot carried more energy further one shot kills with steel are rare although it patterns tighter and has higher shot counts. Velocity of steel falls off a cliff with a 5 yard window you turn from clean kills to total lack of sufficient energy and resultant cripples

 

Play the head and neck game think angle of fire and keep range down

[Tim Kelly]

Believe me Kent, I was trying for a head shot!

 

Hate losing them, but sometimes they just slip away. Funny, when I used to go a lot it was before I had a dog and I had to just not shoot most of the time as the birds would be unretrievable, but those I shot were always dead, or virtually dead and I never lost one. The last ten years or more I haven't been coastal shooting nearly as much, but the last goose I had was 3 years ago. Last two years I've either not got under them, or (last year) just bloody missed an easy shot! Goose fever is a terrible thing. LOL

[kent]

Yeah Tim it's a heap easier when you can get out after them more. It takes all the pressure off

[wildfowler.250]

Tim. Body shots are not reliable from.below straight overhead more so

Try head and neck. Never ever hope for a wing think dead in the air not can I bring it down. Shot from even slightly side on you would have had a better chance of pellets reaching vitals. Head and neck hits always bring them down though I only go for the body if I made a mess of the first shot and need to finish a bird ( some get hit in the body only but not by design)

 

Shells are adequate it's what I am using this year if range was 35 English yards rage was OK but geese do look close at 50.

 

Choke I shouldn't over worry about

 

Geese are tough customers no matter what you shoot them with often a goose will drop out stone dead when you thought it s clean miss maybe a few hundred yards away so always watch the skien

 

It's hard loosing a goose especially if you don't get out after them a lot

I lost one similar this year it set it's wings on the shot ( hard shooting lots of side drift shooting a good yard to the side of them) dropped three for three stone dead then messed up one it has landed not 100 yards away but the dogs never caught it up they are real sneaky and surprisingly quick down the gutters etc

 

The only real difference in the lead days was you got more lucky single pellet strikes the shot carried more energy further one shot kills with steel are rare although it patterns tighter and has higher shot counts. Velocity of steel falls off a cliff with a 5 yard window you turn from clean kills to total lack of sufficient energy and resultant cripples

 

Play the head and neck game think angle of fire and keep range down

 

Kent is there anywhere that tells you numbers for velocity drop over distance with steel? How are you finding using the 3" shells instead of 3 1/2?

[TONY R]

http://shotshellballistic.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/shotshell-ballistic-program.html r Wildfowler 250 This programe is a decent downrange performance indicator, not for everyone perhaps but can be a good start point for many a good load.

Edited January 5, 2016 by TONY R

[neutron619]

Funny this should crop up.

 

Someone laughed at me on the which 20 bore cartridge for pigeon thread and he said how poor steel was as he wounded nine on the trot .

I told him he needed to " learn to shoot steel " much to his amusement and quips about flat landers.

 

Steel is very choke sensitive and it important to find the right choke and load , when you do you will have no problems.

It took me a while to get my shooting sorted when I changed to steel for pigeon now I have I get on just as well with it as I did lead.

 

I'm afraid you've mis-quoted the "pilchard", so allow me to correct you once again.

 

To my shame, I wounded nine woodies / ferals with steel #5 shot when out decoying before Christmas, not one of which was closer than 35 yards. Since this was in the space of 11 shots, I can't put it down to my shooting, so it must have been the cartridge. As a result of that experience, I disposed of the rest of the box. I'm happy to tell you however, that they patterned perfectly well through a half choke in my semi-automatic - it was simply that the shot wasn't carrying enough "oomph" to do the business when it hit the bird. Steel #4's and #3's on the other hand, have given me some of my best kills on woodies.

 

Just a shame the " Pilchard " never saw the Pink I shot this morning with Steel 36grm 3 shot it would have Scrambled his Scientific Mathematical Physics head lol lol

 

Why would it have scrambled my head, pray tell? #3 shot is perfectly adequate for geese.

 

If you're going to try and take the ****, at least work out what it is you're ridiculing me for in advance. I've never said that steel shot is useless - only that insufficiently large steel shot for the ranges at which I needed it to work was.. err... insufficiently large.

​

For what it's worth, I'd suggest to the OP that 36g of #3 or 42g of #1 would be my choice for geese - either through a half choke should (assuming they pattern well) be perfectly sufficient at all ranges. I've shot both kinds of cartridge through a quarter choke also and didn't experience any problems there either.

​

Edited January 5, 2016 by neutron619

[fenboy]

Pilchard :

Please do not try to tell someone who has shot an awful lot of pigeon with steel 5s that they are not effective at good range , you seem to have a problem in that you think if something does not work for you then its no good , rather than expecting that the problem may be yours , so to cover that you spout a load of clap trap , much of which is just regurgitated from other sources

You seem to pick and choose what you will reply to , for instance you seem to have neglected to mention that I told you that your lack of success is down to you not learning to shoot steel , something which others on this thread seem to understand , including I might add someone who has shot for his country for a number of years and who is a respected shooting coach.

 

Learn to shoot steel 5s go out and shoot several 1000s of pigeon with them then form an opinion on it , not on a few shots where you was not competent enough to put the pattern in the right place.

Sometimes its best to listen rather than talk Pilchard but as you always like the last word feel free , I will make no further comment on this thread , its very difficult to argue with a know it all anyway.

 

Happy new year Pilchard.

[neutron619]

Pilchard :

Please do not try to tell someone who has shot an awful lot of pigeon with steel 5s that they are not effective at good range , you seem to have a problem in that you think if something does not work for you then its no good , rather than expecting that the problem may be yours , so to cover that you spout a load of clap trap , much of which is just regurgitated from other sources

You seem to pick and choose what you will reply to , for instance you seem to have neglected to mention that I told you that your lack of success is down to you not learning to shoot steel , something which others on this thread seem to understand , including I might add someone who has shot for his country for a number of years and who is a respected shooting coach.

 

Learn to shoot steel 5s go out and shoot several 1000s of pigeon with them then form an opinion on it , not on a few shots where you was not competent enough to put the pattern in the right place.

Sometimes its best to listen rather than talk Pilchard but as you always like the last word feel free , I will make no further comment on this thread , its very difficult to argue with a know it all anyway.

 

Happy new year Pilchard.

 

Well then, last word from me as well:

 

I can shoot. I'm not the best shot or the most experienced, but I do hit the birds pretty often when the shots are there to take. I've killed pigeons cleanly with all manner of cartridges - lead #7's, #6's, #5's, #4's, steel #4's, #3's, #1's - even the odd Bismuth #5, though that was a very expensive pigeon, in hindsight. I've never thought that I wasn't the problem with any of those cartridges, if the bird came down flapping.

 

Steel #5s are different though. For whatever reason, every bird I've ever attempted with a steel #5 has come down flapping. Ok - I haven't used a lot of those cartridges - but wouldn't you stop shooting them if you'd had 9 in 9 come down, still needing to be bashed over the head to finish them off?

 

As you've implied repeatedly in your previous offerings, you have to put the pattern on the bird to kill it. Maybe, in spite of the fact that I was shooting brilliantly well with my lead cartridges on that particular day, I did miss with every one of the steel #5 cartridges. Maybe I didn't. I can't prove it either way.

 

On the other hand - and you'll forgive me for bringing this up again - whether you're shooting steel, lead or blancmange, the gun has to be pointing in the right direction if you want to hit the bird. This is why I chuckled at the idea of shooting steel being any different to shooting lead - it was as if it was being suggested that one has to mount, hold or swing the gun differently depending on what substance the shot was made of. On this point, I'm afraid I remain a sceptic - either the tube is pointing in the right direction, or it is not.

 

One observation for you and for others who have posted your videos and proclaimed your experience: it's very nice, isn't it, when the birds will actually decoy to within 30-odd yards? I'm not that good at decoying, you see, and most of the land I shoot doesn't have the right crops on it to attract pigeons in their thousands anyway. It's almost all grass / rye at the moment, in fact. Not many birds interested in that, so it's hard to do and hard to learn via experience.

 

For the record, I do a lot of reading (= listening) in the tips forum, trying to find out what I'm doing wrong, so I'm not too much of a know-it-all to learn from others. Sometimes I do have a reasonable day on my "grassy plains", but mostly, I end up walking the hedgerows with a tightly choked gun, taking very long-range shots at spooked birds flying away from me. This is why the small shot that works for you lot doesn't serve me well.

 

I'm actually probably less good at hitting birds in close decoying range than way out there, because "way out there" is 90% of my experience. You can see then, why steel #5's might not be my preferred choice of shot size, any why - when I manage reasonably at range with larger shot and suddenly start wounding with smaller - I might suspect the choice of cartridge.

 

As for what I say being claptrap - well, holding that opinion is your right. However, whilst I recognize that many people have more field experience than I do, I'm afraid that I do have quite a lot of experience in mathematics, physics and ballistics and I have no particular concerns as to my abilities in that regard. In another lifetime, you and I might not have disagreed so much and I'd have been pleased to explain some of the more interesting points to you, but there we have it.

 

Nonetheless, if you feel that you cannot believe in my abilities without proof, I would be happy to direct you towards instances of the software I have developed in this area and give you what samples of code I can for you to examine. I can assure you that nothing less than a deep understanding of the principals and equations involved in ballistic modelling will allow a person to develop software of this kind (not least because when it goes wrong, one has to be able to work out manually what the correct result should have been so as to rectify the error).

 

Finally, I'd appreciate it if you'd stop referring to me as "pilchard". I trust that I won't need to ask any of the board administrators to repeat that request on my behalf.

 

A happy new year to you too.

 

With apologies to the OP.

[kent]

 

Kent is there anywhere that tells you numbers for velocity drop over distance with steel? How are you finding using the 3" shells instead of 3 1/2?

No great difference backs up patterns more easy to get left and rights and mentally it stops you stretching the boundaries

 

I use a chart from the people who make Sam wads programs are said to be unreliable in thier calcs not sure on why I am no white coat

[fenboy]

Ok so I lied , I cannot help but have one more go .

Firstly yes I will refrain from calling you Pilchard , it's very childish of me.

 

You use words such as " not the best of shots" and "not the most experienced " , which is pretty much the issue I have with you .

Because despite being both those or certainly the later you feel the need to try and educate people that have had the experience over many , many years ( over 30 in my case ) who have shot 1000s upon 1000s of pigeon and other game ( I include people like motty here ) that what they do is wrong or indeed immoral .

 

Yet when someone like myself try's to offer you a little education that steel is different to shoot than lead and you need to learn to do so you find it laughable , despite me having shot 1000s of the things and having to go through the process myself .

 

You make much of your facts and figures so I am amazed you have not figured that when you patterned your steel that you did not consider it tells you nothing about shot strings unless of course you were shooting a moving pattern plate , that is the very reason steel needs to be learnt to shoot with and why you think just because your barrel is pointing in the right place you should be getting a kill , when in reality your barrel needs to be somewhere else , it is also much more critical to have the right choice of choke when shooting steel .

 

All the maths and formulas / programmes in the world mean nothing compared to going out and doing it .

 

I am really done with this now but will finish with the same advice I gave in my previous post , sometimes it is better to listen than talk .

Edited January 5, 2016 by fenboy

[Zapp]

Any more posts containing name calling are getting pulled in their entirety, regardless of whatever content is in them.

[neutron619]

Ok so I lied , I cannot help but have one more go .

 

In which case it seems fair to respond:

 

I don't think it's moral to go out and hunt live game with tools that are the bare minimum necessary, when it's certainly not difficult to obtain less marginal tools for the same job.

 

I don't think everybody has the same moral code, that it's necessary for everyone to agree on moral issues, or that there is only one moral code which is "right" - I'm not religious like that.

 

We will have to agree to disagree about shot stringing and choke. I have never found shot stringing to be anything other than a red herring and no real world experience or simulation convinces me that it has any appreciable effect on success (or otherwise) in humanely killing quarry. I will go so far as to say that I'm prepared to re-evaluate if experience throws up new evidence in future.

 

Choke is merely situational - combine choke, cartridge and gun and you get a particular behaviour. It's either the right behaviour or the wrong behaviour - there's nothing peculiar to steel about that.

 

Anyway, apologies again to the OP.

[muncher]

Quick question what brand of cartridges have you been trying as there are some terrible steel shells out there ,I use steel all the time and for me 5s are a good shell but I like 4s ,motty will vouch for me when this summer we used steel and shot a bag of 180 ish and we had a friendly competition on doubles I just beat him 15 to 12 I think I a strong wind nearly all clean kills and a lot were a long way out as they were decoy shy .i would estimate 50 plus yards .please look up stevo vids on pigeons where he is using steel,he remakes that he found when he was clearing up a mix of lead and steel shells he did not notice what he was shooting,worth a look.

[Old farrier]

 

In which case it seems fair to respond:

 

I don't think it's moral to go out and hunt live game with tools that are the bare minimum necessary, when it's certainly not difficult to obtain less marginal tools for the same job.

 

I don't think everybody has the same moral code, that it's necessary for everyone to agree on moral issues, or that there is only one moral code which is "right" - I'm not religious like that.

 

We will have to agree to disagree about shot stringing and choke. I have never found shot stringing to be anything other than a red herring and no real world experience or simulation convinces me that it has any appreciable effect on success (or otherwise) in humanely killing quarry. I will go so far as to say that I'm prepared to re-evaluate if experience throws up new evidence in future.

 

Choke is merely situational - combine choke, cartridge and gun and you get a particular behaviour. It's either the right behaviour or the wrong behaviour - there's nothing peculiar to steel about that.

 

Anyway, apologies again to the OP.

Sorry it's a lot more than choke cartridge and gun

And computer generated programs are a guide

 

Do you take into account ambient temperature cartridge temperature wind chill clean or once fired gun speed of bird height above sea level and many other factors when you create these programs

Sorry again but I'm with a vote of experience over theory and you defiantly have to re learn a lot when you shoot steel

As for your wounded birds flapping your not on target and either shooting out one wing or a tip of one causing the bird to fall out of the sky

 

Anyway just my thoughts

Tin hat on

All the best

Of

[motty]

Mr Neutron, you do make me chuckle. A steel no.5 is no good for pigeons, yet a steel 3 is quite adequate for geese. Interesting...

How do you make steel 5s to be so poor, yet steel 4s are so good? Please enlighten me as to the theory behind your findings.

Edited January 5, 2016 by motty

[motty]

One more thing, off topic again. I shall be devoting my next pigeon video to you, Mr Neutron, along with the other naysayers. I shall only be using 7.5 lead.

[6.5x55SE]

Sorry it's a lot more than choke cartridge and gun

And computer generated programs are a guide

Do you take into account ambient temperature cartridge temperature wind chill clean or once fired gun speed of bird height above sea level and many other factors when you create these programs

Sorry again but I'm with a vote of experience over theory and you defiantly have to re learn a lot when you shoot steel

As for your wounded birds flapping your not on target and either shooting out one wing or a tip of one causing the bird to fall out of the sky

Anyway just my thoughts

Tin hat on

All the best

Of

No need for Tin Hat OF as you are correct

[neutron619]

Sorry it's a lot more than choke cartridge and gun

And computer generated programs are a guide - yes, a very good guide in many cases, or I wouldn't waste my time on them

 

Do you take into account

ambient temperature - yes, and ambient pressure, calculated from first principles using the composition / partial pressures of the components of the particular gas mix under consideration - I can model the behaviour of a rifle bullet or shotgun blast in 100% Helium if you'd like me to

cartridge temperature - irrelevant to the models I usually use - a simplification of final muzzle velocity incorporates the properties of combustion / powder / shell construction well enough for most models

wind chill - irrelevant - wind chill is the temperature drop perceived by a human in response to the movement of air - it doesn't affect internal or external ballistics

clean or once fired gun - no - unlikely to be significant

speed of bird - depends on what's being modelled - I have some comments relating to shot strings which I can post elsewhere if anyone's interested

height above sea level - yes, see above - incorporated into general environmental properties as a component which gives the partial pressures of the gases comprising the modelled atmosphere

many other factors - certainly, including humidity, roundness of shot, hardness of shot, composition of shot (I could model ping-pong balls or pellets made of solid gold if you wanted), calculated and interpolated drag functions (i.e. do you use an approximation of G1 for deformed pellets or interpolate GS for small pellets?) which are modelled over all useful velocities (the drag function of an individual pellet changes dependent on its velocity / orientation)

 

Sorry again but I'm with a vote of experience over theory and you defiantly have to re learn a lot when you shoot steel

As for your wounded birds flapping your not on target and either shooting out one wing or a tip of one causing the bird to fall out of the sky - doesn't explain the holes in the body of the bird where the shot went in but didn't adequately penetrate, but thank you for sharing your theory

 

Anyway just my thoughts

Tin hat on - no need for tin hats, but PM me if you'd like to see some computer code. The above is not the BS you lot seem to think it is - it's professionally developed ballistic modelling software.

All the best

Of

[motty]

Back to the topic. I personally think choke is critical to successful goose shooting with steel. For me, the tighter, the better. Years ago I used half choke with steel on the geese. At 50 yards and over I really struggled. Now I use the tightest chokes I can, and I have faired far better, especially on anything that is 'up there'.

[neutron619]

Mr Neutron, you do make me chuckle. A steel no.5 is no good for pigeons, yet a steel 3 is quite adequate for geese. Interesting...

How do you make steel 5s to be so poor, yet steel 4s are so good? Please enlighten me as to the theory behind your findings.

 

Isn't it obvious? It's experience - that thing you all keep telling me I don't have and are always going on about.

 

Steel 3's have worked and killed the geese I've shot with them, mostly cleanly.

 

Steel 5's have never yet cleanly killed the pigeons I've fired them at.

 

If all this experience is so important, why do you all ridicule me for paying attention to it?

 

Either it's important, in which case you can all push off because I'm simply recounting my experience, or it's not, in which case you can all start listening a bit more carefully to the theory and giving it the respect it deserves.

 

What's it going to be chaps?

[Old farrier]

Back to the topic. I personally think choke is critical to successful goose shooting with steel. For me, the tighter, the better. Years ago I used half choke with steel on the geese. At 50 yards and over I really struggled. Now I use the tightest chokes I can, and I have faired far better, especially on anything that is 'up there'.

Awesome difference when I put a pattern master choke in mine totally different 👌😋

[Big Mat]

Mr Neutron, what do you do for a living?

[6.5x55SE]

One more thing, off topic again. I shall be devoting my next pigeon video to you, Mr Neutron, along with the other naysayers. I shall only be using 7.5 lead.

Can I be invited to join you in the Video please mate !!!!!! Using my 20ga and 24gms Steel 5's

[motty]

 

Isn't it obvious? It's experience - that thing you all keep telling me I don't have and are always going on about.

 

Steel 3's have worked and killed the geese I've shot with them, mostly cleanly.

 

Steel 5's have never yet cleanly killed the pigeons I've fired them at.

 

If all this experience is so important, why do you all ridicule me for paying attention to it?

 

Either it's important, in which case you can all push off because I'm simply recounting my experience, or it's not, in which case you can all start listening a bit more carefully to the theory and giving it the respect it deserves.

 

What's it going to be chaps?

 

You won't be getting any respect from me.

[neutron619]

Mr Neutron, what do you do for a living?

 

Software engineer - not that it's really anyone else's business.