Thread: Speed kills?

All other things being equal, do you want your steel shot travelling as fast as possible?

I been using 32g 3inch no3 at a advertised velocity of 1500 fps it seems to do the trick at the ranges i am capable of shooting.

agree 100% that load is just primo.....speed for me is best between 1450-1550fps the hypersonic loads work but a heap of extra everything for bugger all gain..... for ME below 1400fps is simply pityful with lots more woundies....

I've been using some Eley cartridges with a published speed over 1600 FPS. Seem to be pretty good.

if you can hold a pattern with them and are happy....all is good.

All things are not equal when you are dealing with a sphere - starting them off faster means they slow down faster as well. Have a look at the attached calculator, and see what happens at 45 yards with various starting speeds and the shot you are using - it may surprise you.

Shotgun Ballistics

The biggest change is recoil - which make sit harder to get the bird in the centre of your pattern where the good stuff really happens.

Originally Posted by Ross Nolan

All things are not equal when you are dealing with a sphere - starting them off faster means they slow down faster as well. Have a look at the attached calculator, and see what happens at 45 yards with various starting speeds and the shot you are using - it may surprise you.

Shotgun Ballistics

The biggest change is recoil - which make sit harder to get the bird in the centre of your pattern where the good stuff really happens.

Which just proves how hopeless steel is. Density always wins.

Pattern density is what i go for

what Got-ya, Love_ducks and my old skeet coach said, pattern wins everytime.

That's where the trade off is.
Steel looses velocity faster because it's approx 30 % lighter than lead but on the plus side as shot charges are measured by weight not pellet count you get about 30% more pellets in the pattern which sort of balances out the poorer ballistics of the lighter steel pellets.
Although its a bit off to one side I've had to use steel trap loads at a couple of shoots and my skepticism was pretty quickly put to bed, there was no change in my limited ability with either ammo type. The ammo in question was falcon club(lead) and falcon sport steel both 7s at 1250 fps.

Just to clarify I have no issue with steel. Pattern your gun and ammo at the distances you want to shoot and learn it’s capabilities. If you don’t like the pattern try another ammo. For reference i use b&p 2 3/4 inch #4s for everything. B&p sizing also means when compared to some of the other brands it’s technically a shot size 5. Nice dense pattern equals nice dead ducks

I will also expand on what I said.

I'm not saying steel can not be an effective and adequate killer, it is. However if you compare apples with apples, and look at some of the fast buffered lead loads that are of a similar price point to steel they will perform better (where you can use them).

If you can stand the price pain then tungten is even better, able to be driven fast with very few flyers due to deformation and depending on chemistry even denser than lead.

To answer the OPs question?

Speed is good but not at the expence of density.

Speed is good. Unfortunately, all things aren't equal (despite what Labour says) and we live in a world of compromise.

Thanks for the replies. In all honesty, don't think I would hit much beyond 45 yards anyway. Discussion of density is interesting, but crazy priced alternatives aside, it's something of a moot point as we are stuck with steel. I do need to do some patterning on cardboard, but ducks have been falling out the sky, so something is working.

Depleted uranium shot would be the go I reckon. "Federal atomic cloud duck ammo fry them in flight" would be a great advertising slogan (-: