I was assigned to attend Tom Roster's Steel Shot Instructor's school a couple years before the nation wide ban of 1991. Some Federal Refuges phased in the ban before 1991. Early steel loads were junk compared to what is available today. I suggest to the OP - take your shotgun and chokes, along with a couple boxes of different brands and shot sizes to the range. Experiment !! Different chokes and loads at the ranges you think you will be shooting at. Aim and fire at the center a 30" circle on paper or cardboard. Examine your patterns. My two favorite waterfowl guns like Kent 3" 1 1/4 oz. #1 out of an improved cylinder choke. I have used that load for over 15 years for all my duck and goose hunting. Most waterfowl hunters I have instructed are over choked. For crows over decoys, I shoot Kent 2 3/4" #6 out of an Improved Cylinder choke. For pheasants over dogs, Kent 3" 1 1/4 #2 out of a, yup, Improved Cylinder choke. I have spent many days experimenting with chokes and loads. I built my own portable patterning board with a roll/dispenser of flooring paper. My hunting buddies are as fussy as I am about loads and chokes. None of us use the same ammo, but all of us tested and shoot the loads that work best in our particular shotguns.
School me on steel shot
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OntarioHunter
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I can't find anything but 1 1/8 oz that are listed at 1550 fps. Most 1 1/4 oz loads I'm seeing here are 1450 fps. Tried that and just as well throw the shells at geese.
I will echo others' thoughts on cheap shells. I have tried the expensive gimmick stuff (because it's all that was left on the store shelves). Didn't perform any better than the cheap Walmart Super X shells I usually buy. Actually performed worse. I mean how much better do I need to be? If I'm batting .500 with those cheap shells, it's a VERY bad day. Probably too much coffee and not enough sleep. Usually I do much better than that. Often I get a bird for every shell fired. I have also had fairly good results with slightly more expensive Kent FastSteel although I had one box a couple of years ago that simply would not bring down birds. Very bad. Maybe got three geese from the whole box. Next box was great. A honker in the bag for first seven shells out of the box. Go figure.
Nutrioso
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We all have opinions based on what seems to work for us in the field, but there is also quite a bit of scientific research done by Tom Roster, Bob Brister, and others. Tom has published some excellent pamphlets on steel shot lethality and Bob Brister’s book, published just in the early days of steel, is also excellent. My three takeaways from their work are:
1. Because steel doesn’t deform like lead does, the shot string is tighter so open chokes typically pattern better than tight chokes. There is some compelling patterning work that shows steel shot patterns getting worse in full choke guns.
2. Velocity is like aspirin, more is not always better. Objects launched at higher speeds lose velocity faster, so at 40 yards out the difference in speed between a 1450 fps load and a 1550 fps load is not material in terms of lethal energy. Shot size is much more important than speed. Steel being so much less dense than lead, we have to move up a couple shot sizes to deliver comparable energy at the bird. Especially if you are not using a gas autoloader, there is a price to pay in pain shooting high velocity loads.
3. As several have noted, the only way to know what works best in your gun is to pattern it. It’s not the most entertaining way to spend an afternoon, but it’s the only way to sort out what’s best.
Or, you can just buy a couple boxes of whatever brand steel #3s are on sale and go hunt ducks. Likely to work out just fine.
1. Because steel doesn’t deform like lead does, the shot string is tighter so open chokes typically pattern better than tight chokes. There is some compelling patterning work that shows steel shot patterns getting worse in full choke guns.
2. Velocity is like aspirin, more is not always better. Objects launched at higher speeds lose velocity faster, so at 40 yards out the difference in speed between a 1450 fps load and a 1550 fps load is not material in terms of lethal energy. Shot size is much more important than speed. Steel being so much less dense than lead, we have to move up a couple shot sizes to deliver comparable energy at the bird. Especially if you are not using a gas autoloader, there is a price to pay in pain shooting high velocity loads.
3. As several have noted, the only way to know what works best in your gun is to pattern it. It’s not the most entertaining way to spend an afternoon, but it’s the only way to sort out what’s best.
Or, you can just buy a couple boxes of whatever brand steel #3s are on sale and go hunt ducks. Likely to work out just fine.
For consistency sake, I shoot BOSS bismuth for everything. I never have to worry about if I have legal shells for waterfowl, and it patterns out of my guns well. It's spendy, but I've been very happy with the results. YMMV. With my 12ga I shoot 3" #2 for goose, 2 3/4 #5 for ducks and pheasant. With my 16 I shoot #5 for pheasant and #7 for dove and grouse.
OntarioHunter
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I also have read the reports about velocity of steel fading faster at distance. Forty to forty-five yards is most of my goose shooting. I have tried 1450 fps shells several times (often compelled to due to stock availability) and just can't get good results. The difference in sustained velocity at that range may not be significant but something is happening out there that's different.
I shoot a very heavy old Browning A5 Magnum Twelve which helps with recoil. I don't notice it being too severe with 1550 fps 1 1/8 oz loads. When the weather is real nasty I'll dust off my beat up 1968 Wingmaster magnum pump. THEN I notice the recoil! No small wonder I had three retina detachments back in those days.
Here are a couple more suggestions I can make about modern waterfowl hunting equipment. Shoot an auto, preferably gas operated or long recoil (my old A5). Inertia is better than fixed breech for recoil mitigation ... but only slightly. A pump will work but it takes some effort learning to deal with the recoil. Won't work for those who are recoil sensitive because generally speaking anything less than twelve gauge won't work for waterfowl ... especially for geese. Secondly, choose a heavy gun. I simply do not get the current manufacturing trend towards lightweight waterfowl guns. Duck hunters are usually, though not always, shooting from their butt in a blind. They typically are not carrying their guns all day like pheasant hunters. Besides being worse for recoil, lightweight guns also don't swing as well as heavier ones. If you buy a newer waterfowl auto that doesn't weigh eight pounds (and I doubt you'll find one that does), make it so. Add weight inside the stock and/or magazine tube. Reduce the felt recoil and muzzle jump and you'll see significant improvement in your shooting, especially with follow up shots. And finally, stay away from 3.5" shells or anything faster than 1550 fps. They will brutalize both your pocketbook and shoulder (and probably the gun in the long run). The benefits of hyper steel, if any, clearly are outweighed by the disadvantages.
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OntarioHunter
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3" BB for pheasants? Really? And lead shot I suppose. Wow! Reminds me of the little guy foreman at the plant who hunted deer with a 300 Weatherby. Bang flop was worth the additional charges at the butcher for piecing together what was left.
A few years back I stopped at Sheels in Grand Forks on the way to Montana to pick up pheasant hunting ammo. I always hit a federal refuge along the way and needed steel shot. All they had was heavy duck loads in #4 or larger shot and some low base #6 dove loads. Not wanting to "ruin" the birds unnecessarily, I reluctantly bought one box of the latter. Wish I'd bought a flat! Boy, did those shells kill birds. I shot the first twelve pheasants without a miss or losing a bird (mind you I had three dogs working). Several weeks later further west after the snow fell, due to limited shelf stock I was compelled to buy expensive Federal super duper copper plated #5 lead pheasant shells @ 1500 fps and much $$$. I think I maybe shot three birds from that entire box. The recoil was too much and set me to flinching (I don't hunt waterfowl in Montana and had left my A5's magnum setting friction brake and rings in Canada). The soft shooting dove loads let me pick up where I left off at the trap/skeet range.
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A. I've never seen bb lead. B. Notice i said late season rooster. And yeah ishot my antelope this year with a 7 mag
MThuntr
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I used to use Black Clouds. This stuff worked great especially when I only shoot maybe 2 boxes a year. I've started using Prairie Storm for upland birds since I only shoot maybe 1 box a year. My only complaint about Federal shotshells is that is seems to be a bit dirty but I shoot recoil operated semi autos so I've never had an issue.
Runnin_Chupacabra
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Take this for what you will:
Mallardsx2
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#3 HV Steel. The 1550 FPS loads. Its deadly on ducks to geese 50 yards. Trust me. All you got to do is break a wing...and it will. No good for further than that. Trust me. Full Comp-n-chokes throw the stuff well. No duck or goose can survive mine.
Its a 3" load in a 3.5" hull....just going faster and they have significant recoil. But I am too cheap to buy the good stuff. (Hevi-whatever)
Its a 3" load in a 3.5" hull....just going faster and they have significant recoil. But I am too cheap to buy the good stuff. (Hevi-whatever)
MinnesotaHunter
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I primarily hunt with an Benelli M1 Field and a SBE2, so it hasn't been an issue for me either. I have never done much high volume shooting on waterfowl either, it seemed like I have always been clawing and scratching for highly pressured birds, so I want my shots to count.
One drawback I will say the flitecontrol wads have, is at shortrange the pattern is really small, and you cant put an open enough choke in the gun to get the pattern to open inside of 10 yds. Last weekend, we missed some really easy shots on decoying woodies at <10yds, but were dumping birds easily out past 40....
MThuntr
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sounds like you need another shotgun with skeet choke
OntarioHunter
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Yeah, I'd say it's a good thing he missed at that range. Skeet choke wouldn't help much. No sense in taking home a sack of feathers and bloody guts. Almost criminal to pancake beautiful woodies.sounds like you need another shotgun with skeet choke
MinnesotaHunter
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You are probably right...we did end up incurring a taxidermy bill. We took a couple of beautiful drakes....
OntarioHunter
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I shot geese with BB lead almost exclusively back in the 70s and 80s. I was just given a couple boxes yesterday by my African hunting partner. I can maybe trade or sell them to Indians. The government lets them shoot lead anywhere anytime. They claim it's their treaty right to poison their sacred eagles. Try to figure that one out! Fortunately few around here have the ambition to hunt waterfowl.
Late season roosters aren't feathered heavier enough to make a difference. Maybe they're spookier but I don't see the point in trying to shoot at them forty yards out unless already hit. Watch where they land, go hunt somewhere else for an hour or two, come back and work it up again. Waste a shot at it and the rooster won't even let the dogs get close for the rest of the day. A bird gets up close and 1.25 oz 3" steel will turn it into a bloody pile of guts.
7mm mag for antelope? Okay.
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