smooth bore and steel shot

[petlis]

Can anyone tell me if you can use steel shot in a Jackie Brown made barrel without a shot cup? The steel he is using to make these barrels is it hard enough to take the steel shot.And if not would a shot cup made of file folder cardboard be good enough,and would you use a fiber wad between the powder and the shot cup?Thanks for any info...Pete

 

[Black Hand]

I would ask Jackie directly. Most ML barrels are NOT rated for steel shot, and you would end up destroying your barrel. Better a $1 phone call than a possible hospital stay (or worse).

 

[Russianblood]

Steel shot is a lot harder than the steel barrel of a muzzleloader and will eventually leave scrapes and gouges in the bore.

If you need to shoot non-toxic shot without a plastic wad, you can use bismuth shot. It's expensive but safe for your barrel.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Considering that it was not historically correct to use steel or any other non-toxic shot in shotguns to shoot ducks and geese, I don't see the resistance to using the excellent plastic shot cups made by Ballistics Products for this kind of hunting. There are other non-toxic shot types available that are not as hard as steel shot, and you would be better advised to look at them, even using the plastic shotcups. I am hearing mixed reviews about the shot based on soft iron, which is touted as weighing more than lead, and can be shot in older guns with fixed chokes without damaging them. If we don't have a non-toxic shot substitute that can be used with softer steels now, we are very close. There are still a lot of hunters who would like to shoot their family heirlooms just once again, before they die. With the high populations of Canada Geese, as well as the blue and white geese, there are longer seasons than we have seen in 30 years, and lots of opportunity to take geese with the old guns, and the old gunners.

 

[Russianblood]

That's a good point about steel shot not being historically correct so go ahead and use the plastic with it as well. I'm still going to be using an open choked flintlock. :hmm:

I think I may have just been pushed over the edge to try some steel on ducks this year.

 

[Rebel]

The barrels Jackie uses are hydraulic tubing from what i have been told, not actually made by him. But it doesn't matter you still should NOT shoot steel shot out of any gun without the special heavy plastic Steel shot cups. Either use the cups or shoot Hevi Shot or Bismuth.

 

[silverfox]

The Fed's down here this year said if you are bird hunting on our lands you will use steel or equivelant no lead. Makes my dove hunting go to private lands. I won't shoot steel in my guns.
Fox :thumbsup:

 

[paulvallandigham]

I don't know where ou live, but I know of no restrictions about using lead shot to shoot dove. It is regulated as a Migratory bird, but it is now waterfowl, and therefore not subject to non-toxic shot requirements. If you state has imposed some restriction, that is local, only. And, I suppose, that some Federal unit of land might have its own rules, but those would have to be published in the Federal Registry, with comment periods for the public, and a host of other checks before they could be enforced. Without congressional legislation authorizing the Fed. Fish & Game department to make such a regulation, it would be illegal. Where are you living, and what red. wildlife area are you talking about???

 

[Russianblood]

The barrels Jackie uses are hydraulic tubing from what i have been told, not actually made by him. But it doesn't matter you still should NOT shoot steel shot out of any gun without the special heavy plastic Steel shot cups. Either use the cups or shoot Hevi Shot or Bismuth.

Hevi-shot is even worse than steel on your barrel! Only Bismuth is rated as safe for black powder barrels without a special shot cup.

 

[Rebel]

Thanks, i didn't know that. I don't use it or Bismuth. I don't waterfowl hunt any more so don't have to worry about it. I used to use steel shot when i did in my double barrel .12 ga. caplock though.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Use the plastic shot cups with all the non-toxic shot varieties. With the limited shooting you are going to do hunting, there is no real worry about plastic building up on the bore. Any ammonia-based cleaner will remove the plastic quickly, when you are through for the day. Then clean the barrel with your normal cleaners, oil, and put it away for the next shoot, or hunt.

 

[Trapper]

Here in New York State, they are telling us that if you shoot birds anywhere near a standing body of water or wetlands, you had better be using non toxic shot! The Conservation Officer told me, " How do I know if your hunting Phesants or Ducks and Geese." I'm of the mind set that steel is not PC so use the plastic shot cups.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I guess I don't understand that kind of attitude by Conservation officers. Their job is not to harrass the law abiding, but to enforce the game codes and laws against violators. Here in Central Illinois, we find pheasants living in both corn field stubble, soy bean fields, and in edge cover, next to barrow pits, ponds, and lakes. Its pretty obvious to any observer by the way we are hunting that we are hunting upland game rather than jumping ducks, or geese. I am a lawyer, and a hunter safety instructor, and I have had more than one stern conversation with a few officers over my past 24 years teaching about what they say to my students. I also have talked to State's Attorneys about COs filing bogus charges and harrassing hunters. Generally, poop still runs down hill. You can be arrested for anything but are a long way from being convicted of an offense. When a prosecutor or Judge finds out a CO is making bogus arrests, he gets taken to the woodshed personally. If it continues, his boss is given a phone call, and warnings are made by a prosecutor that if the guy doesn't clean up his act, the prosecutor will dismiss all his tickets, good or bad. Then his boss takes him to HIS woodshed.

As an attorney, I can tell you it is a safisfying experience to begin that process for an officer so deserving! No one wins when Police act so poorly that they generate a general disrespect of the law. And, other law enforcement officers, from all departments, treat the guy like a pariah. Some of these guys last an amazingly long time, and others leave the job to find something else to do. We had a local cop issuing tickets for drunk driving, and lying about how the drivers were operating their cars. The review of the camera from his own car proved he was lying. He had 4 cases dismissed in one day, by a judge. He stayed on the job, but no one knows how. He was not given much respect by prosecutors after that. He was finally removed from traffic enforcement, and that seemed to take the wind out of his sails.

If you are hunting upland game, you are wearing blaze orange, usually hunting with others, have a breed of dog that is either a pointer, or retriever, or both, and are carrying shells loaded with smaller birdshot intended for killing rabbits and pheasants. As in #7 1/2, $6, #5, and maybe #4.

While #4 lead shot used to be used for hunting ducks in some situations, it was more common to see hunters use #2, or #1 shot. Waterfowl hunters do not wear blaze orange. They don't usually walk fields, or edge cover with a dog, trying to flush something. They usually hunt from a blind, and call the ducks or geese to them. If I were a Conseravtion Police officers, I would be far more interested in finding a duck or goose call in the pocket or around the neck of my hunters, than the fact that they are hunting next to a ditch, stream, river, or body of water. In Illinois, you have to wear at least a blaze orange hat when hunting upland game. No such requirement is made of waterfowl hunters. If you are hunting pheasants and you don't have a blaze orange hat on, that is the ticket I would write for you, not hunting waterfowl! ( I have taught officers how to investigate crime scenes, and what constitutes probable cause as a lecturer in the past. I am not opposed to good police work, or good officers. In fact, it was my acquaintance with so many such men and women that has really soured me on the few bad actors out there. The good officers don't know how to either get the bad ones to change, or get rid of them. More than anything else, bad cops make their jobs hard to do.)

 

[Rusty Old Gunns]

I guess I don't understand that kind of attitude by Conservation officers. Their job is not to harrass the law abiding, but to enforce the game codes and laws against violators.

Paul,

Re Trapper's post:
I think what the Conservation Officers here un NY are saying is... "I don't care if you're hunting Geese, ducks, or elephants. If the shot is going out over the water... It can't be lead."

Though between you and me, I think lead is the best for elephants... So I'll lure them out onto the desert then "Have at em."

 

[ffffg]

becouse of its low density and black powders lower velocity, steel shot is the worst choice for bp shotgun.. i have had very little posotive results with the heavy plastic shot cups made for steel in bp shotguns... ive argued with others that insist it works well but they have been usually from the south in warmer climats.. if you pattern them shot number 1,5,10 20 and 30 on paper i think you will see what i mean aobut thier reliability.. sooner or later the cup wont open, then it turns and youll have a slug hole thru the pattern board.. ive talked to guys who have shot swans with steel shot, and that have had good success with it, but please proove to your self that its working on the patterning board, and the tin can pennetration test at the yardage your shooting.... one shot at one single temperature will never tell you what is going on with a bp gun.. dave..

 

[Russianblood]

becouse of its low density and black powders lower velocity, steel shot is the worst choice for bp shotgun.. i have had very little posotive results with the heavy plastic shot cups made for steel in bp shotguns... ive argued with others that insist it works well but they have been usually from the south in warmer climats.. if you pattern them shot number 1,5,10 20 and 30 on paper i think you will see what i mean aobut thier reliability.. sooner or later the cup wont open, then it turns and youll have a slug hole thru the pattern board.. ive talked to guys who have shot swans with steel shot, and that have had good success with it, but please proove to your self that its working on the patterning board, and the tin can pennetration test at the yardage your shooting.... one shot at one single temperature will never tell you what is going on with a bp gun.. dave..

That's just good advice for any smoothbore before going hunting with it. Steel, lead or otherwise.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If you are going to use a shot cup made of anything, you have to put slits in them to aid in relaseing the shot in the air, by opening the "petals" you create. My one concern with the Ballistics products shot cups, is that little bridge between the petals that can survive the passage up the barrel and fail to open. I little work with a pen knife can solve that problem.

Years ago, someone came out with a new, " spreader " shotcup for modern trap loads. Instead of 4 petals, there were 8 or 12 petals, and I believe a small post in the base of the cup to help spread the load. In theory this was to help hit short range skeet targets. I tried some, and they patterned horribly in my gun. However, they did pattern okay in a friend's and he used up the rest of the cups I had. I suppose if i spent the time working with it, and adjusting my loading proecdures, and components, I might have found a load that would work right. I had a good load that broke targets fine using the 4 petal cups, so I just went back to it.

Paul

 

[ffffg]

" one shot at one single temperature will never tell you what is going on with a bp gun.. "
i guess i should correct that,, one shot at a single temperature /humitidy will tell you only what one shot at that temperature/humidity with that same bore condition (clean or fouledlightly or fouled heavily etc.) will do.. :hmm: dave

 

[Deadeye]

Are we talking about "old original guns" or guns made of modern steel? Has anyone done any actual tests of steel shot on modern steel barrels, published any data on those tests or is all this just conjecture. I haven't seen any data to say
it's OK or not. My thinking, however, is that steel shot from a modern steel barrel with cylinder bore would not hurt the barrel. If anyone knows of tests done by anyone that ruined
any modern steel barrels would you provide a link to that sourse, thanks.

 

[ffffg]

smooth bore shotgun barrels are a very precise size and polish.. if they have a bulge or large circumference area beyond a certain point you will loose your seal and can blow patches, loose velocity etc..if you get a bad scratch or two your gun will problably be fine, with some minor loss of velocity or maybe a slitely blown patch here and there that would problably not effect accuracy . that can be fixed mostly with fiber wads, but this area will tend to build up with lead, and be a bugger to clean the scratch out. once it is leaded in it will gaul other lead to it immediatly... but to go out and "try" hard steel shot bare on thier smoothbore barrel with velocities over 1000 feet per second to do tests probably hasnt appealed to many people.. after shooting at live game for a short while in black powder 10 guage with chrome lined barrels made especially for steel, i have proven to my self steel starting out at 1l00 fps is pretty much worthless especially considering its velocity loss at the impact point due to low density.. but far be it from me to keep you from buying several sizes of steel shot, spend a season working up the loads, patterning, testing, and hunting with it and find out for yourself.. you may find a way to make it work.. dave..