16ga.com ~ View topic - 16ga Bismuth at Cabelas was marked down to $14

Joined: 13 Oct 2015 Posts: 348

Found 16ga Bismuth, box of 10, 1oz #5, at AZ Cabelas marked down to $13.99. Wish I could have found #4, but #5 is the biggest they make.

Not sure why I bought it except you rarely find it and $1.40 a shell seemed OK just to have a few around. Just looked at KPY ballistics, at 1200fps it's a 37yd load for 1.5" gel penetration (which I use to COMPARE shells as a rough large duck estimate). You can get better than that with #3 steel... But there it is, I grabbed two boxes.

Joined: 24 Jul 2016 Posts: 548 Location: Ohio

Seems to be some confusion over velocity on these shells.My box's say 1300 fps. I can confirm that they will kill geese to 35 yards and mallards to 40 from personal experience. I also wish you could get 4's. Folks at Kent say 1300 fps.

Joined: 13 Oct 2015 Posts: 348

Ahh, I forgot what the box said and it was in the garage, so I just looked it up on the Kent site, and THAT said 1200fps! My box says 1300 fps too.
http://kentgamebore.com/products/bismuth-premium-shotshells.html

There's also some confusion on the actual shot size. Some sources say 5's are actually English size and are 5.5, some say they are American size for real... I don't feel like prying a shell apart to see, tonight.

[edit insert: I tried rephrasing this a couple times to convey light humor but the muse just isn't there tonight so please accept this is meant in that vein ]
As to killing a duck at 40yds...I heard a guy killed a duck at 60 yards with one... but that's not a great way to COMPARE performance to other shells, in an internet post where lots of guys are looking to argue Wink

Thus why I compare them against a scientifically repeatable and testable performance, ballistic gel penetration of 1.5". Some guys may want 1.7" performance and limit themselves to 32 yds with these so as to reduce any cripples, some guys may be happy with 1.2" performance and are happy to take shots out to 42 yards with them and look for kills from lots of pellets against head/neck. No matter WHAT your personal standard is, for SURE you won't type enough caveats and descriptions to keep folks from arguing with you about your shot range choices... so it's better to just avoid interpreting the objective test result into the subjective "kills ducks" units! Unless you've actually gone out and "killed ducks" with them like Ohio has, and I haven't! Wink

With that in mind, at 1000'msl and 32F, and using the correct 1300fps, these shells give 1.5" penetration of ballistic gel to 40 yards. #3 steel at 1550 fps gives 40.9 yds. That solidly agrees with Ohio's field report of 40 yds good function on mallards, which is nice Wink

Glad someone with actual field data chimed in with real world results, now that I've bought some heh! These look like they'll do better than I initially thought, and will be fun to shoot.

Happy New Year, Here it comes:
1. I resolve for 2017 to get some ducks with my 1935 Mod12 16ga using bismuth; and also using steel #3!
2. I resolve to improve my steel load via pressure testing by either 27.5 gr (full oz) OR by 25 fps to 1501, while getting pressure into SAAMI-- thanks to some generous donation of Federal hulls for my testing use!

Happy New Year!

Member Joined: 30 Nov 2011 Posts: 1696 Location: Minnesota

No confusion on the Kent bismuth velocity--Dave Erickson kindly sacrificed one thru his chrony earlier this year and it came in at 1285. 16ga of course

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