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Nontoxic shot help

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FlintlockHunter

32 Cal.
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I have been reading in another post of problems getting certain nontoxic shot. I need a solution to the situation. What is the answer now for waterfowlers using non-choked flintlock guns?
What kind of shot, wads or whatever is required? I have only used unprotected lead shot for my wing shooting. Thanks.













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The Bismuth company is out of business due to the owner's death. I know that Ballistic Products has some #2 and BB Bismuth shot still available. (I just bought 7 lbs. of BB a few weeks ago.) Be prepared to pay a premium price, though. I unloaded my gun with a CO2 discharger after goose hunting this morning and carefully saved all of those precious BB's! Good luck!
 
You can use steel shot, but it requires heavy plastic shot cups. Buy them from Ballistics Products. Get a link under member resources here. Hevishot is the other non-toxic shot that is getting losts of discussion, because it is an iron polymer matrix, is as heavy as lead, and softer than other non-toxic shot. Its very expensive if you can find it at all. some people raid commercial shotgun shells for the shot, to get a few rounds to hunt Geese. One way or another, its not going to be cheap to hunt waterfowl.

The limits of using Steel shot are two-fold. Without choke, the patterns thin at about 30-35 yards; and black powder cannot drive them at the velocities done with modern shotgun loads, so they do not kill very well past 35 yards. For a cylinder bore gun, probably restricting your shots to 25-30 yards is the smart thing to do. The Hevishot is a better killer, but without choke, you are limited to 30-35 yards with that shot, too. If you do use a choked gun( I realize that goes beyond your question) Hevishot can be given tighter patterns with a standard shotgun, without damaging the choke. That would add 5-10 yards to your effective killing range, depending on choke.

I got my best patterns using steel shot in a choked gun using skeet II and Modified chokes and Steel BB, and Steel #1 shot. I have not attempted to use steel shot in my cylinder bore fowler.
 
You know, I always wanted to and never did buy Bismuth for my Ml'ers and Damascus guns. I just checked and now all they have is BB. Not ever having been a waterfowler, I guess now is not the time to start. If a guy found some Bismuth, what would be a good size for ducks and geese?
 
Tungsten Polimer matrix and heavy shot are two different products.. There is also tungiron made by federal. The only tungsten ive found for sale in bulk is heavy shot.. Heavy shot will scratch your barrel seriously doing damage without a shotcup, matrix polymer will not.. Loaded matrix is sold by kent.. matrix has similar properties to lead, and can be quite expensive and is not taking off very well, as only the rich can afford. it.. Heavy shot is accepted ok, and then there is a third product going by differnet names that im not familiar with...... one name is super shot.. super shot come in size 5 to 8 and number five is used for geese, and is lethal at modern balistics in modern guns, and the densist of all the shotgun shot type products........... The problem your going to have is that all this stuff, bismuth, heavy shot and even steel will work fine for ducks..
When you get into the big geese such as greater canadas etc, steel wont come close, bb bismuth just wont do a good job, unless your close, and i mean quite close.. the best will be proven to be b heavy shot of all that is made at this time.. The upside is that with heavy shot b in modern gun i can get easily over 90 percent patterns at 40 yards, and 98 and 100 percent arnt uncommon.. It is very ugly stuff to look at..and just cost me 180 dollars for 10 pounds from bucks run................... a great Black powder velocity that are consistent loads run in the 1100 feet per second range with a decent load of shot.. As calibers get bigger its tougher getting a good seal due to the mechanics of a shotgun. Big loads work best in big bores in my opinion.. So velocities suffer, and remember the shot is not made for the lower velocities and big geese at lets say 40-45 yards.. you can get a pattern that will suffice at 45 yards with heavy shot and bp im guessing, but it may not have sufficent pennetration on big geese at 1050 fps.. It just might do it, i dont know at this time.. I would prefert to learn its pennetrations on a patern board and chrono, and phone books rather than trial runs at large geese.. If you use a shotcup your going to be at the pattern board quite abit, getting safe protection for your barrel, best velocity, and a good seal with repeatable shots and fouling problems in the field, dry weather etc........ Im not into shot cups but i feel you will need to incorporate a nitro card, lube and shot cup together for maximum results.. If you get a pellet outside the cup with heavy shot your going to probably get a scratch in the bore.. Felt wads are used under and over the shot in the plastic cup to contain it more safely and mylar is available from balistic products to further protect the bore.. some heavy shot has a big and tiny pellet affixed to each other making it possible for it to protrude thru the plastic.. Last night i used a nippers to cut off a tiny piece of shot on a big tungsten bb and no go. It would have ruined the nippers, as its much tougher than good steel.. .. I use 4 bismuth for ducks with great success out to 40 yards with 16 guage cylinder bore... I may start using heavy shot b for geese with flintlock if i want to risk fooling around with it with my favorite gun.. I dont think a full jug choke is a great idea with heavy shot.. The best thing to come along for bp and tungsten is going to be matrix, as it can be shot in any nitro proofed gun with any standard choke.. The final problem with that, is going to be that it will be made for the modern gunner in mind that shoots it at 1400 feet per second and greater.. This will limit the upper sizes of shot like bismuth was.. The bigest shot available for bismuth was bb and it was simply not big enough for big geese at 40 yards and consitent kills with bp... The biggust matix ive seen is number one, and you can probably get good deals on it in loaded kent shot..It is not selling well around here, and is on sale at this time. Ive bought 10 boxes of number one at 17,50 per box.. It would work great over decoys and up to 30 yards on big geese with a proper load in my way of thinking..Mtrix will not need shotcups. Its hardness tests seem to show its pretty soft, and i dont know if that is a problem or not. but i think from pliers test it is softer than lead.. We must take into acount of your own personal geese size in these conversations.. GREater canadas can get up to 20 pounds here but i dont weigh them.. Im gusssing alot of people have great luck with smaller geese, such as blues, snows,and the smaller canadas.. MOst arguments in this usually come up with game size differences, and some who will wound many geese for a kill......... Ive never liked shotcups and may need to get into using them........... Some tips ive learned here and elswear over the last 10 pluss years.. Fold the petals back before loading so they open properly, this may correct the biggest problem you will have with shotcups, is proper opening on a tough cup designed for 1300-1500 pluss fps.. You will need a nitro card to give seal and scrape the bore fouling on the way down, and solid lube to stop hard fouling problems that will rough up the edges of the shot cup and generally destroy a good seal.. wether you use felt with lube in it or put it under the cup(over thenitro card, or what ever will depend on your tests.. All this is my opinion only and all heavy shot loading data ive seen comes with barrel scratching and buldging warnings,.. One more thing, one of the main reasons for barrel scratching is the shot coming out of the cup at initial firing and then reentering the cup as it catches up down bore called bounce.. if it gets outside the cup it can cause the scratching.. I dont know if this will end up being a bp problem or not.. It will depend on your load and bp troubles that im not aware of with heavy shot.. The modern balistic book i have for heavy shot shows felt wads over and under the shot inside the shot cup to help eliminate bounce.. slower ignition rates of bp may not make this a problem.. Lots of guys have been using shot cups for years and they will eventually figure this thing out. I personally would choose a beater flintlock for this purpose which i dont have.. Ive talked to guys who have shot swans with steel so we will get lots of comments in the future on this,. Please dont belive it all, and do your own pennetration tests and pattern tests.. This is when a chrono will come in, telling you if you getting good consistent seals on your loads when ground breaking this science.. .. Good luck and post your succeses along with your troubles so we can all learn........ NOTE pennetration tests is done with phone book (books in some cases stacked) at distance you wish to shoot, and compared to modern proven loads for the game your after.. all this is my opinion only.. :) dave..
 
If the shot is jumping forward out of the shot cup, its because of the primers, and not the smokeless powder in the cartridge. Paul Matthews has demonstrated that phenomena pretty conclusively in his vast work with the .45-70 rifle cartridge. He has recently change to using only small pistol primers to touch off compressed BP loads, to avoid bullet movement from ignition. In a ML shotgun, this could be a problem for those who insist on using Magnum primers to ignite their powder charges. I believe standard primers will solve the problem in percussion guns, and I don't see this problem occurring in flintlocks. All these remarks relate to the use of Black Powder only, and has nothing to do with the substitutes, which require higher flashpoints to ignite, and hence the use of magnum caps. At $1.75 a shotgun shell, buying a box or two to get some Tungsten Matrix shot is much too expensive. That is sad, because this appears to be the first product that can be used with Pre-steel shot barrels and chokes, making it ideal for ML hunters, and cylinder bore shotguns.
 
So I guess I need to find a source for Matrix if I don't want to use shot cups or have a scratched barrel. Any ideas? I have been using Wonder Wads for doves with very good results. Will this not work with Matrix?
 
I would use the shot cups, regardless of whether I can find matrix, or not. The only source I have heard of is to buy the shotgun shells and open them up and remove the shot. Its very expensive. Call the company and let them know your interest. If they are having sales problems, maybe they will be willing to sell the shot for reloaders, and MLs.
 
I remember following a discussion on another forum about a company that sold bismuth/tin both in ingots and pellets. I think they were very careful how they did business to avoid patent problems, but they might still sell some of this stuff on the side. If you had a shot maker you could easily make your own pellets from the ingots that they sold. I might be looking into this in the near future. I know people who own littleton shot makers that make their own lead pellets, how much harder could it be to make the bismuth stuff?
 
You can't get the discontinued Federal "tungsten polymer" or Kent's "tungsten matrix" in bulk, but there's a new type of of shot with the tungsten & iron in a tin matrix called "Nice Shot" . It is claimed to be as dense as lead with a hardness of wheel-weight or Lyman #2 alloy, or slightly greater than magnum shot. It's being produced & marketed by Ecotungsten . The information I've seen so far concerning barrel safety is in the context of conventional cartridge loadings with plastic shotcups (normal lead-shot ones, not the super-tough steel or tungsten ones). It looks like it'd likely be safe in traditional loadings, but I haven't seen anything directly addressing this yet. Like anything with tungsten, it's expensive.

Joel

p.s. one buddy had good results last year using #4 bismuth on geese at moderate range in his flint 12ga.
 

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