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was watching the shooting show last night they did a bit about steel shot.

All they keep on about was the gun and how there going to check it after 1000,s of shots.

Never once did they compare the knock down/kill data against lead.

I might be stupid but my concern is for the birds im hitting/KILLING with it, not what its going to do to my gun in the end.

We need to talk about ranges and such like.

Im only thinking out loud because i was shooting the other weekend and a mate further down the line ran out of his normal cartridge so started using steel shot cartridges which he had with him for the duck drive.

His words after were "i was on them just the same but not killing them"  this worried me. because hes a good shot and knows his gun/shot placement.

Then seeing the shooting show its made me write this tag.

anyone got any input please

Ian

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31 minutes ago, wabbit warren said:

His words after were "i was on them just the same but not killing them"  this worried me. because hes a good shot and knows his gun/shot placement.

anyone got any input please

Ian

If he was on them but not killing them, either they were out of range and pattern and\or penetration was lacking or alternatively he was only clipping them with the pattern where previously the lead load spread wide enough to kill on the edges of the pattern if they were within range.

 

I have used 36g No 4 steel for several seasons now and they kill reliably to 50 yards on mallard (equivalent to 32g lead no 6) and 36g no 5 (equivalent to 32g no 7) steel on teal to similar distance. I would expect no difference with pheasants on the former, however the latter would be 40 yards only on pheasants.

 

Not knowing the gun, choke, cartridge load and shot size, etc it is difficult to give advice.

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Not stupid at all, but eminently sensible.

The vast majority of our knowledge regarding shotgun performance is empirical in nature and has been gained from a couple of centuries or so of using lead shot.

It is possibly fair to say that many of our 'fowlers have never used lead so cannot make any comparison and just get on with it and have also learned by experience. I think that by grasping the nettle they've done us proud. Initially, of course, comparisons were made and the upshot was to disguise the fact that although 'steel' does work it does not fare well when compared with lead. To avoid it looking ridiculous by comparison by having to go up three shot sizes, the designation of steel was changed so that for any given size steel shot was physically one size larger than the same size number for lead. This then made "going up two shot sizes" appear more acceptable. However, even so this does not cut the mustard.

Currently, with home (half?) baked ideas and possible legislation in the offing, all shooters are going to have to go through the same rigmarole which is - or should be -  totally unnecessary. With the introduction of non toxic shot (NTS) major studies into the various aspects of both its (NTS) and lead performance were carried out both in the USA and here in the UK. One fact that these trials threw up was that relying on energy alone was insufficient to make a valid comparison as it gave a false - higher - assessment of steel's capability. It was found that using the pellets' energy density which is a relationship between its energy and physical size gives a far more accurate - we're talking shotguns so nothing will be exact - idea of a pellets' capability. Given this it then became quite easy to deduce with a reasonable degree of accuracy a pellet's lethal effectiveness for any given shot material.The UK report commissioned by the then DoE and undertaken by University College London at what became known as the Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) became available to the various stakeholders of which BASC was one. The head of BRL said to me that we'll produce the information but it's up to you,  the shooters, to use the information as you see fit.

 

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You also need to have in mind that as a generality steel will pattern tighter than equivalent lead loads. I have experience as a wildfowler of both lead, when we could use it, and steel. With the cartridges that we now load I see no discernible difference in performance or kill ratios at typical wildfowling ranges out to about 60 yds. We are simply using larger shot travelling at 1400fps or more.

I cannot comment on the new game cartridges as I have no experience of using them yet.

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