Trying to get ready for a goose...

[Britsmoothy]

Some Bis shot can have the tendancy to shatter. I have even recovered shattered shot from birds.I am not belittling it but your concerns about shot cup being used for it is more than likely an effort to protect the shot it self more than to protect the barrel. Over here we can buy fibre bismuth loads with no shot cup and no warning about barrel damage etc.
I have witnessed a friend shoot numerous geese with steel 5s (cartridge), my opinion is that within a respectable range as we do with our MLs steel will be fine.
My recent tests with paper shot cups revealed how no shot penertrated the paper and touched the barrel walls, ok it was small lead shot but it was only 3-4 wraps of copier paper. A couple more wraps and I would feel very confident should the need ever arise.By the way the paper shot cups were lubed.

Interesting topic :grin:

I wish you luck and I too hope I get my first smoked this fall too :hatsoff:

Britsmoothy.

 

[The Baron]

The very early production Bismuth shot was pressure formed from powdered metal (or something like that) and I also read about the incidents of pellets "shattering" on bones, etc. I think that problem was corrected very early on. I have shot both loose Bismuth in my ML and loaded Bismuth, and have never had any incidents of pellet shatter. :v

 

[roundball]

Saw this on my "shotgun world" forum:

"...talked to Will Bilozir at a gun show in Edmonton, Alberta...he is the Canadian rep for Ballistic Products. His intent is to begin production of bismuth shot near Dewinton, Alberta in 2008.
Initially, Number 4 will be the largest size produced. Production of larger sizes requires a different industrial set-up and a much greater initial investment. Still, up to Number 4 should do for small game non-tox areas, ducks and your standard six-pound snow goose..."

 

[roundball]

I just capacity checked the Ballistics Products .20ga steel shot cup and it holds 1+1/8oz steel #4s (160 pellets) so that may well be good enough for a head/neck shot at 25yds...I'll know next Saturday

 

[BrownBear]

Based on lots of experience with steel shot in 20 gauge cartridge guns, I think you're right on the money. The places we prefer to hunt are small with shots inside 30 yards, so 20 gauge has become more or less standard for several of us that hunt together. Lots of experience, and both Remington and Federal 3" mag loads work just fine for ducks. Gotta say though, that all of us have come to favor #3 shot rather than #4, whatever that means for your efforts.

Good luck, and keep us posted. Hopefully you'll be on here a week from now asking for goose recipes. I've got some good ones!!!!

 

[roundball]

Hopefully you'll be on here a week from now asking for goose recipes. I've got some good ones!!!!

:grin:
My Wife of 41 years "made an agreement with us" long, long ago when she said:
"If you promise never to being a dead animal into our house, I'll promise never to cook it for you".
I said: Honey, I understand completely.


The good news is there are a number of really needy families out in the area I hunt so I give them all the deer I take and they're delighted with that...if I manage to get any geese they'll get them too

 

[Joel/Calgary]

Hopefully you'll be on here a week from now asking for goose recipes. I've got some good ones!!!!

How about posting them in the Recipe section for all of us?

Joel

 

[roundball]

Got my Duck Stamp yesterday, and last night I slit 50 of the .20ga steel shot cups so they have 4 equal petals.

Thinking of experimenting tonight making some prefilled shot cups...test them Saturday when I'm pattern testing and see how they do.

 

[biliff]

Got my Duck Stamp yesterday, and last night I slit 50 of the .20ga steel shot cups so they have 4 equal petals.

You might want to try some loads with just two petals. I've found that tightens up patterns.

 

[roundball]

Got my Duck Stamp yesterday, and last night I slit 50 of the .20ga steel shot cups so they have 4 equal petals.

You might want to try some loads with just two petals. I've found that tightens up patterns.

Thanks...will cut some like that for testing this coming weekend.
Although these .20ga steel shot cups are pretty stiff...not sure they'll even flare if there are only two petals...have you tried that with .20's, or are you referring to larger wads like .12 and .10ga?

 

[Joel/Calgary]

Although these .20ga steel shot cups are pretty stiff...not sure they'll even flare if there are only two petals...have you tried that with .20's, or are you referring to larger wads like .12 and .10ga?

FWIW, the 16ga B-P MultiMetal wads are very stiff, and I found them to be sensitive to how uniformly they are cut. My patterns were not always perfectly symmetrical, and I recovered some wads (did not find all of them that time) with one petal (of four) ripped off. This was with them cut free-hand down ~7/8 of the cup depth - no special slitting tool used.

Joel

 

[biliff]

Although these .20ga steel shot cups are pretty stiff...not sure they'll even flare if there are only two petals...have you tried that with .20's, or are you referring to larger wads like .12 and .10ga?

I've done it with both 12 and 20 and haven't had any issues. I cut the slit clear to the bottom of the wad.

 

[roundball]

I wondered about precision last night myself...I first started using a single edge razor blade but you know how the slightest change in direction/pressure will make a razor blade veer off to the side through plastic. So I switched to a very sharp pair of Fiscar scissors and cut the rest that way...they weren't as precise as manufacturering machines would produce them but they're as consistently cut and spaced as humanly possible due to the length of the scissor blades allowing for a single cut each time.

NOTE:
The bottom of the B.P. .20ga cups have 4 little evenly spaced horizontal slots just above the base wad...each slot is about the size of a medium size common flat point screwdriver tip. I lined up so the tip of the scissor blades were pointed between each of the 4 evenly spaced slots and cut down but stopped just short of them.
This results in 4 petals, each with its bottom attached at a left & right point, with the horizontal open slot across the middle bottom of each petal. In essence, with 75% of a petal's material missing from right where it would hinge back open, it seems to make it easier for a petal to hinge back and flare only being attached at the left & right corners of the petal's base...as opposed to having to overcome the resistance of a full wide petal's bottom that is also curved a little.

Of course this could work against me and I might get a 10 foot wide pattern at 3 feet...like a poor man's spreader wad. :grin:

I'm also going to cut a few 1/2 way down...if they don't work, have the scissors with me at the range and cut them further down to 3/4, etc. Planning on doing all the initial testing with lead 8s which I have a lot of...then when I get the most obvious different wad-cut behaviors figured out, try some of the steel #4's.

 

[BrownBear]

A bud that cuts all his own turned a dowel to just fit the inside of the wad, then glued replaceable blades from broadheads in slots he cut in the dowel. He's a good woodsmith and said it only took a few minutes to make, but now he's getting really precise cuts with a single pass of the dowel into the wad. He also reported that he's getting better patterns from a new rig he just made with six blades rather than four. All for 12 gauge and modern shotshells, but food for thought.