Bismuth? Tungsten? Man, You Guys Are Rich!

Yeah, steel is so awesome that I want to fill up a bathtub with it , add salt water and make my 62 year old flabby body connect with it and rust together with it....man. Awesome is steel, I love it so much.

 

Hell , I do better than that with short steel shot loads but I do know how to setup a spread of decoy's for the conditions and I know how to call !
I also know where I hunt , could be different than yours . I do shoot heavier than steel shot at times when the birds size and distance requires it
but , make no mistake about it , shooting steel will perform beyond most hunters abilities with the right size pellet and even better with faster
loads . There's a time and place for HW shot and it's easy to load , buying it on sale can save you a few bucks but shooting it is just like any payload
material , you gotta hit'em to know/see the difference !

 

When I was in high school in the 80's (lead days) I read somewhere that the national average was 6 shots per duck. A recent search says 6 shots per duck and 5-7 per dove. Seems to me that steel shot hasn't changed peoples shooting abilities and/or success one bit.

It's easy for people to remember facts to suit their current needs for an excuse. Steel shot is the scapegoat for poor shooting.

 

Just looking at the last weeks results for our state run duck hunts shows the following:

117 hunters fired 1548 cartridges and harvested 289 ducks. That comes to just over 5 shells per duck. And each hunter is restricted to 25 shells to curb the amount of skybusting that is the norm.

That's a combination of poor shooting and estimating distance. With all the gun clubs across the state as well as shooting instructors available, duck hunters should be spending less money on fancy chokes and high dollar shells. And more money on getting their wing shooting skills up to par.

 

There was a study somewhere that showed the shot per bird ration is actually lower with steel than lead. You might of posted it or sent it to me.

 

How do they track exactly how many shots? That’s a state run duck hunt area? 289 birds for a week is pretty awful. It seems the one I frequent the most averages around a 1,000 a week. Opening weekend this year brought in 1200 Birds alone in 2 days.