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Member Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 57 Location: Newport.OR

I see that many of you shoot bismuth and reload it as well. Bismuth seems a bit rich to me. I've also never had trouble killing ducks with steel. So, what experience do we as a group have? Is the BP multi metal wad the only wad available for steel? I've seen some reference on our site to use standard loading tables for bismuth...I suspect you select the shot mass you want and then select a recipe. I'm hesitant to do this with steel unless someone out there is successfully doing it that way. At $20+/box in the store I want to find an alternative. Thanks

.....please, I'm all ears, too, speak, oh wise and experienced reloading sages, we need ye......

britgun

Guest

What type of gun were you thinking of shooting your steel loads? Since steel loads need a higher launch speed to be even a moderate killing tool around 35-40 yards max when compared to a 12 gauge. The optimum factory 12 gauage 3" load is a 1 1/8 oz @ 1500 fps with either #1-3 shot depending upon the birds and conditions. Since almost all 16 gauge guns are 2 3/4" chambers, you're going to have a problem with a limited shot payload along with slow speeds. Since steel shot is 80% the density of lead. you have to expell it at the chamber at a minimum of 1400 fps to be a good clean killer at shots past 35 yards. There will be someone on this post that claims they get clean kills at 25 yards with shooting steel @ 1260 fps. They probably shooting unpressured private land and when I used to have the same situation, I could make the same claim. So to give you the right answer, you may want to check your pressure marks on your gun (I would really question a pre 1960 gun even handling steel shoot. If you really want to want to shoot steel in a 16, get a Citori with Briley tubes that can handle steel shot or pick up a recently made 12 gauge for your duck gun.

Good luck,

Terry

Joined: 17 Jan 2007 Posts: 76 Location: north Texas

Terry made some very good points - particularly the one concerning the available payload space in the 16ga. hull. With steel, you need much larger shot and thus much larger payload space to provide a dense enough pattern to be effective. The factory-made 2 3/4" 20ga. steel loads out there can be terrible wounders, and I imagine that 16ga. steel wouldn't be much better.

Dave Fackler at Ballistic Products has been at the forefront of steel reloading - even before MEC and the others came out with their Steelmasters and such. I bought one of his steel reloading pamphlets in the early 1980s and began reloading 1 1/4 oz. steel shot in my Ithaca Mag-10. The powders were 4756, Blue Dot and W571 and nominal velocities were in the 1500fps range. The formula always included one of his proprietary shotcups with a nitro card below the cup as an additional gas seal, felt cushions in the cup, and tyvek or mylar wrap around the steel to guard against errant shot scoring of the choke area. Several steps required the shell to be removed from the loader and attended-to by hand. It was a real time-consuming pain-in-the-you-know-what to load up a single box, but I did it anyway because it was such an improvement over the pitiful stuff that the ammo factories were turning out for large waterfowl at the time.

I might never have had a problem with steel shot hunting geese if I had started out with it, but having used 2oz. of lead 3s and 2s on geese for many years and then suddenly experiencing such poor performance with factory steel, I was delighted when bismuth was OKd as non-toxic. I don't care what any of the new bismuth or other "heavy" non-tox shot or shotshells cost. I buy a couple boxes of various gauge bismuth ammo at a time or when I find it on sale or clearance throughout the year and I generally end up with enough for the next season.

Bismuth shot is a lot "friendlier" to reload than steel shot, and the loads are a lot "friendlier" on your older guns, too.

xtm

Member Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 57 Location: Newport.OR

Terry and xTimberman, I understand your points well. In 40 years of waterfowling I have learned much. In steel it means ...speed kills. Small payloads require short shooting distances. I hunt with a Citori and leave my Model 12 at home . These are both 16's. I hunt with a 12 as well but the 16 has done fine with 15/16 oz. #2s and occasionally I'll use #4s. The #2 are the better choice but I want to load #3s for a denser patterns. I select good shots, most 30 yds. or less. I could easily go through 6 boxes of ammo a season as we have a 108 day duck season. 85 cents a shell for shot alone in loading bismuth is stiff. I load with a Pacific/Hornady 366 and was curious about the comments on difficulty with the loading press. Perhaps you were referring to the need to put in extra wads,tyvek.etc.. Maybe I should start picking up deposit bottles to help defray the cost of bismuth. Does bismuth require special wads as steel does? Thanks again for all the expertise we share. Smile

.....and I thank you, as well, I am pursuing Bismuth as a reloading component over steel, probably in No. 2....for geese, I think it's the way to go, though a little spendy, thanks for the advice....

britgun

Joined: 17 Jan 2007 Posts: 76 Location: north Texas

spunky16,

I feel your pain!

I can't hit anything with a shotgun when I'm worrying about how much it costs every time I pull the trigger!

Most of us (I'm deep into this category, too.) manage to come up with plenty of justification for acquiring that next must-have-because-I-can't-live-without-it shotgun. I've just successfully done this with Bismuth and the other heavy alternatives to steel. I hate what it costs, but it's so superior to steel I don't care anymore and I'm not goin' back. I may spend an extra amount of money on waterfowl ammo and shot, but I don't have cable TV, or lawn service, and I change my own motor oil. Since they are my favorite outdoor activities, I'm always trying to come up with more time and money for hunting and shooting.

xtm

well, a lot of guys do golf, tennis, etc etc....guns, shooting, and hunting are what I truly love, I used to flyfish like crazy, tie my own, spend 100 plus days a year on the river, etc, but the 16ga thing has been it for awhile now, only fish maybe a half dozen days a year now..... so I splurge a little on shooting.... just ordered the No. 2 Bismuth and the Bismuth reloading book from Ballistic products, sure hope they have some 16ga recipes in there....

take care,

b'gun

XT,
You've kinda tapped into why I am getting into reloading the 16 - it's not necessarily for economy; it's more to be able to have a supply of what I need/want on hand.

That is, I hunt ducks and shoot clay - neither very often compared to some - and I want to be able to have a supply of shells for either. It's probably gonna be 3 years or more before I get a "payback" on my investment of the press, etc. so it's not purely economics driving my decision.

Having said that, I don't care if I use the "cheapest" or least expensive components, rather I use a recommended set of components and be consistent in my process - much like my home brewing mindset

The cost of bismuth shot is part of that equation - sure it costs way more than steel but so is its performance - fair trade, IMO, especially when I can use my vintage sxs to do the job.

I've stopped thinking "How many?" and started thinking "How?" - it's why I'm here talking about a 16 ga., a red-headed middle step child of a gauge to some, instead of somewhere else extolling the virtues of 3.5" 12 ga. depleted uranium #6 loads.

I'm glad for this forum and it's members for sharing info, knowledge, wisdom and experiences - it's helped me tremendously in ways to lengthy to detail here.

OK - back to the regularly scheduled topic: Spunky has some good questions and I'm curious to see answers too!

Joined: 17 Jan 2007 Posts: 76 Location: north Texas

Spunky,

Sorry your thread got off-topic!

For 16 gauge steel reloading, you might want to call or email the guys at BPI - info@ballisticproducts.com - and have them help get you started off in the right direction with components and such. They've always been very helpful to me and have always given good advice - because of their own experiences and the vast amount of field testing feedback they get from customers using their products.

http://shop2.mailordercentral.com/bpicart/prodinfo.asp?number=2221680

To answer your question about difficulty with the press. That was never the case. I was using a trouble-free MEC Sizemaster - my whining was really about how long it took me to load a box of steel loads after incorporating all of the extra steps necessary in the early days of reloading steel: slicing the BP shotcup petals to proper depth, dusting the inside of the case and the outside of the shotcup with motor mica, weighing each individual powder charge to avoid pressure spikes, inserting the nitro card below the shotcup, weighing the steel pellets or counting the large pellets (This was before steel shotbars!), hand loading the large steel pellets into the shotcup through a large funnel so they wouldn't bridge-up in the drop tube, measuring the proper amount of shot buffer so as not to create a pressure spike, inserting an overshot card and applying a firm roll crimp to hold everything in place. ( The roll crimp was necessary because the folded crimp reduced case volume too much.)

xtm

Member Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 57 Location: Newport.OR

xtimberman,
You do as i do (change oil, do the lawn) to spend on our $$$ on our pastimes and passions. I'm not cheap but incredibly frugal. The more I read these threads the more I see that bismuth is the way to go if I'm insistent on reloading. I've never shot it and since steel has done well for me....it's hard to try something new when the old works. I can always just suck it up and buy factory steel and buy and try some factory bismuth to gain another insight into what you and others are saying. I just want to do the 16 so much more than the 12 that I carried and shot for years. Hunting is more and more the chase and watching the birds work versus going home with a full game bag. I spent the day searching the internet for info and found that Hogdon listed bismuth loads for 16s on line. Common wads as well. It would be the easiest. Thank you for the assistance. I love this site.

same here, thanks guys,

britgun

Joined: 17 Jan 2007 Posts: 76 Location: north Texas

Spunky,

You just increased my knowledge, too! I'd never seen that Hodgdon/bismuth loading data before.

Thanks,

xtm