Ducking the Question

In between the SHOT Show and the Safari Club International Convention, I’m going to take a break and go duck hunting in Florida. That got me to thinking about steel shot. Back when lead was legal for ducks, I happily used the same 3-1/4-dram 1-1/4-oz No. 5 load for both ducks and pheasants. I still use it for most pheasants. Since 1991 nontoxic shot has been required for waterfowl, and some public lands now require nontox for pheasants. At something approaching $3 per shell for the exotic (but excellent) tungsten or bismuth loads, many hunters prefer the much-less-expensive steel loads.

So I was curious. On paper, what would it take to equal my favorite old lead load in today’s steel? It’s a simple question, but one that requires a convoluted answer.

Figure a load of 1-1/4 oz of lead No. 5s contains 212 pellets, so I would want about that many steel pellets to give me equal pattern size. A No. 5 lead pellet from a 3-1/4-dram shell starts out at 1,220 fps. At 40 yards that No. 5 lead pellet is going 697 fps and has 2.74 foot-pounds of energy.

What would I need in steel to give me the same pellet count and same per-pellet energy at 40 yards? The usual rule of thumb is to add two pellet sizes to the lead pellet to get the appropriate steel pellet. That would mean No. 3 steel. At a muzzle velocity of 1,300 fps, a No. 3 steel pellet retains 2.77 foot-pounds of energy at 40 yards while going 661 fps. Close enough to the lead No. 5. A load of 1-3/8 oz of steel No. 3s contains 217 pellets, which is about the same pellet count as 1-1/4 oz of lead No. 5s.

Therefore, technically (a weasel word if ever I wrote one) 1-3/8 oz of steel No. 3s started at 1,300 fps have the same pellet count and 40-yard pellet energy as 1-1/4 oz of lead No. 5s starting at 1,220 fps. It should have the same performance at 40 yards. Should. Maybe. Sort of.

Many students of the game recommend nothing smaller than No. 2 steel for ducks. So much for my above computation. Using the same comparison to 1-1/4 oz of lead No. 5s, I would need 1-5/8 oz of steel No. 2s to get a pellet count of 203. With the bigger No. 2s, a 40-yard individual pellet energy of 2.73 foot-pounds would come with only 1,025-fps muzzle velocity. The fact is, you simply can’t buy a load of No. 2 steel going that slow, so velocity and energy is not the issue. Pellet count is.

The problem is that steel is a lot bulkier than lead. The heaviest load of steel that Winchester stuffs into its 3-1/2” Roman candle shells is 1-9/16 oz. That’s 247 No. 3s (more than equal to the lead No. 5 count) or 195 steel No. 2s (10% less than the lead No. 5 count).

In 3” steel shells, Winchester loads up to only 1-3/8 oz. In steel No. 3s, that’s 217 pellets, equal to the No. 5 1-1/4-oz lead count. In steel No. 2s, it’s 172, or 40 pellets (20%) less than the lead No. 5s.

So, based on the above meaningless calculations, if you want a steel shell with the equivalent pellet count of a 1-1/4 oz of lead No. 5s, you’ll need a 3-1/2” shell for No. 2 steel or a 3” shell for No. 3 steel.

Pellet energy isn’t the issue any more with steel. Some shells are now running up to 1,600 or 1,700 fps. A No. 2 steel pellet started at 1,700 fps has 5.02 foot-pounds of energy at 40 yards—twice that of a lead No. 5 started at 1,220 fps. A No. 2 started at even 1,400 fps has 4 foot-pounds at 40 yards.

But there are other issues. A 1-1/4-oz lead load at 1,220 fps has 26.3 foot-pounds of recoil in an 8-pound gun. A 1-3/8-oz steel load at 1,700 fps (Remington’s new HyperSonic 3-1/2” steel load) has a whopping 78.2 foot-pounds of recoil in the same gun. Aarrgghh! Speed kills all right. At both ends.

So perhaps the real question is whether you need a pellet count of around 200 when the individual pellet energy of fast, large steel pellets is so much higher than that of my lead No. 5s. Would fewer high-velocity steel pellets do the job as well?

The CONSEP (Cooperative North American Shotgun Education Program) study undertaken in the late 1990s by 24 states, the Feds, the Canadians, three other countries and US ammo makers determined that No. 2 steel pellets worked better on pheasants than No. 4s or No. 6s when used in 1-oz loads. From my experience, wild pheasant are harder to kill than ducks at the same distance. Many pheasant shots are going away, where maximum pellet penetration is needed, and many duck shots are crossing, where the birds are more vulnerable. Therefore, what’s good enough for cacklers is plenty for quackers.

But then there’s the Florida issue. Unlike my New England ducking where occasional longer shots were required, our shots in FL are closer. That’s because we don’t use dogs to retrieve ducks on inland waters in the Sunshine State. Alligators just love dogs, and every open body of fresh water in FL must be assumed to harbor gators. So our group takes only shorter shots where we have a better chance of clean kills and can make retrieves by boat. Therefore we don’t need long-distance shotshells.

So what does all this prove? I don’t have a clue, but it’s fun to think about if you can’t actually go out and do it. When doing the shooting, where you put the shot is far more important than what you use. But you knew that.

That’s it for now. Boots off. Beer open.