Kent Bismuth & Pheasants?

Oops hit the button before I added more info....
We've been shooting game farm pheasants and chukar with great results, my daughter is rather small framed so she's been shooting the 1 1/16 oz #6's and they are doing great on pheasants, I'm saving all my boxes of 1 3/8 oz #5's for my wpa pheasant hunting.

I've shot about 150 birds so far this preseason and I'd say the bismuth 5's are right on par with the 1 3/8oz OR 1.5 oz #6 lead Kent upland (the 1.5 oz 6's are by far my favorite upland shell)

The bismuth 1 1/16 oz kick less than AA super sporting clays and toasts strong flyers with the skeet choke at 25-35 yards, so for younger/smaller shooters or those that are smarter, these are a great Light recoil option.
 
Dewey, I really don't care but why the expensive stuff for pen raised birds?

I must admit that hevi shot is making a killing off me since I insist on shooting my 28ga mostly and the Rio isn't available right now except in 7s. As for my 20ga guns I've found that steel works fine.
 
quail hound said:
Dewey, I really don't care but why the expensive stuff for pen raised birds?

I must admit that hevi shot is making a killing off me since I insist on shooting my 28ga mostly and the Rio isn't available right now except in 7s. As for my 20ga guns I've found that steel works fine.
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Mostly testing for tournaments and we hunt a lot of public land that requires nontoxic loads, we probably shoot box for box 10/25
We also get cases of ammo free so we test trying to get the best combos possible, patterns and harvest in real hunting situations....possibly a little OCD!
 
This may be useful...

"With a gravimetric density of 7.86 grams per cubic centimeter (gms/cc), steel is the lightest of the bunch, followed by bismuth, at 9.60 gms/cc; Tungsten-Iron, at 10.30; Tungsten Matrix, at 10.60; lead, at 11.10; and, the real heavyweight in the ring, Hevi-Shot, at 12 gms/cc."

When in SD I use a Kent Fast Lead 3" 5 shot 12 ga round. It has 1-3/4 oz of shot! Very good on pheasants. I am also trying a higher velocity 3" 4 shot 12 ga steel round at my hunt club which requires only steel. So far it works great. You will need to use steel shot in SD for pheasants if you in a state owned Game Production Area (GPA) or Waterfowl Management Area (WMA).

My son has used a Kent 2-3/4" #5 12 ga Bismuth round on pheasants and it works great too.
 
peashooter said:
Hello, first post to the forum. I'll be taking my first trip to South Dakota for Pheasants this year. Will probably take some #2 or #3 steel along as cheaper backup, but want to try some of the "Like Lead" alternatives too.

I like the price of the Kent Bismuth loads as well as a couple of the loads they load it in. I've read some mixed reviews of it being great and killing like lead, and a few that weren't so excited about it. Also read that by itself, Bismuth is brittle but Kent has improved it (guessing by adding something to it?).

Long story, has anybody hunted with the new Kent Bismuth? How well did it kill birds? Thinking I'd go with one of the #5 loads somewhere around 1350 fps.

Thank you,

Tucker
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I am not a fan of any steel....it simply is not as effective as the
more expensive non-toxic offerings...I use the Hevishot shells
and love them
 
Now that the season is underway, any more reports on bismuth? I've still got a box + of tungsten-matrix that I might as well shoot up, but had a case of 1 oz. bismuth 5's delivered a couple weeks ago. I've been in love w/ the tungsten-matrix for my 16 gauge. Hope these new bismuth are what I want them to be. Way back when Winchester made them, they sure worked well on pheasants, but it seems to me those were 4's I was shooting, and not terribly fast - maybe 1250 at the most?
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
Now that the season is underway, any more reports on bismuth? I've still got a box + of tungsten-matrix that I might as well shoot up, but had a case of 1 oz. bismuth 5's delivered a couple weeks ago. I've been in love w/ the tungsten-matrix for my 16 gauge. Hope these new bismuth are what I want them to be. Way back when Winchester made them, they sure worked well on pheasants, but it seems to me those were 4's I was shooting, and not terribly fast - maybe 1250 at the most?
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Between myself, kids and brother in law we've shot about 25 roosters so far in Wisconsin and I can't tell the difference in kills between the 12ga bismuth
1 3/8oz #5's and the 1 1/2oz of #6 lead, I've been really happy with them, but that's a bit more shot than your 1oz. Is that for a 16ga I'm guessing? I'm taking them with for sure when we get out to SD or ND later this year where there are some numbers!

Good Luck!
 
OK....I've been out of my old stand-by tungsten matrix for a couple weeks now. So I've had 3 outings with the bismuth & shot 8 public-land roosters with it. Had a pretty good sampling of shots & ranges - a couple "gimmes", a few average shots, & a couple longer pokes. I'd say it performs real nicely, at least out of my A5 w/ a modified tube. Although I don't guarantee it'll perform well out of YOUR gun, I'd recommend you at least give it a try.

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I've been shooting them out of my 20ga A5 too. So far so good but a very small sample size, two shots two roosters down.
 
Any thoughts on whether 12ga 2 3/4 #4 shot would perform on geese and what choke you'd recommend? I bought a few boxes awhile back and was planning on using them this Thursday. I believe the velocity is 1,350.
 
George said:
Any thoughts on whether 12ga 2 3/4 #4 shot would perform on geese and what choke you'd recommend? I bought a few boxes awhile back and was planning on using them this Thursday. I believe the velocity is 1,350.
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If they are landing in your spread 4's might work, head and neck shots. I normally use 2's or BB in steel.
As far as the choke goes if they pattern like the 5's you'd probably get by with an IC and if they are out a little maybe go mod but best to shoot one on paper.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!
 
I have no experience with geese but i used the #4s in the 1.25 oz 1350 fps load in South Dakota this year for pheasants. Only shot a couple, but they did a good job on them. No real far shots but birds went down no problem. I shot one with an IC choke going away at about 20 yards. Didn't hurt the meat terribly bad but seemed like i broke every bone in that bird. Shot seemed to hold together pretty well too, though i think i did have one bb split and lodge just behind the skin on that bird. 5s probably would have been enough but didn't know what to expect on my first trip out there. For the price i was happy with them.
 
George said:
Any thoughts on whether 12ga 2 3/4 #4 shot would perform on geese and what choke you'd recommend? I bought a few boxes awhile back and was planning on using them this Thursday. I believe the velocity is 1,350.
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They'll work, but I'd recommend limiting your shots to maybe 35 yards. Modified choke, in my opinion. The 4's may have a tough time penetrating the body, so you'll need head/neck hits & broken wings. Would want to put as much shot in the kill zone as possible. My buddies and I used to shoot a lot of bismuth at ducks, typically 5's. Ended up smacking quite a few geese with them, but they had to be close.

On another note, but actually per this thread, I've shot quite a few roosters now with my 16 ga. bismuth, 1 oz. of 5's @ 1,300 fps. These have all been public land birds in SD...about as wild as they come. The bismuth works real well, although I think I've shot enough of them now to determine they don't kill QUITE as hard as tungsten-matrix did. Once I learned that I loved the tungsten-matrix, I never did pattern it from my A5 (it worked great; why bring my brain any further into it?). And I haven't patterned the new bismuth either. So I can't say whether the SLIGHT advantage the T-M seems to have held over the new Kent bismuth was due to pellet energy, pattern, or something else. That said, there's no doubt in my mind the bismuth performs better than steel, at least in 16 ga, on the pheasants I hunt. So I'd recommend it fairly highly.
 
Well its safe to same Kent did a hell of a job. Got my first 2 geese today, everyone wanted to know what I was shooting.
 
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