A5 Sweet 16
Well-known member
I call it the truth, but it's really just my opinion, based on something like 30 years of having to shoot non-toxic shot at pheasants on public land. For starters, I still do, & will continue to shoot lead whenever possible. It's the best bang for the buck. When first confronted with the need to shoot non-tox at pheasants, I was hand loading ALL my shells, & I went with steel because I had some fantastic duck loads. Should make good pheasant killers, right?? Well....I had no dog at the time. And although my duck loads put roosters on the ground just fine, a 1-1/8 oz load of steel 3s didn't anchor a rooster anything like a 1-1/4 oz load of lead 5s, & I lost an unacceptable number of birds. So I started loading bismuth, found a couple good loads, & it dramatically reduced the number of birds I lost. It really drove home what I'd known for years. That you can splash a duck & chase him around in the water, swat him if you have to, & if he doesn't dive to an eternity in Davy Jones's locker, you're bound to recover him. A rooster is a different story, regardless of what type of cover he falls in. Without a dog, if you don't break wings, legs, beaks, necks, & as much other anatomy as possible, you stand a good chance of losing him. Deader is better. And dead is SO MUCH easier to accomplish with bismuth than with steel, even out to just 40 yards. At reasonable muzzle velocities out to 40 yards, a steel pellet really needs to be a #2, & 1-1/4 oz (a relatively large load) only contains 154 of them. Whereas 1-1/4 oz of bismuth #5 contains 245 pellets. Big difference.
Anyway, I eventually got a dog, & the need to absolutely murderize a rooster became less important for obvious reasons. And I'd fallen in love with 16 gauges for pheasants, so my loads became correspondingly lighter. By now I've tried quite a bit of the available non-tox. Maybe not quite ALL the various tungsten alloys, but several of them. And after having shot a few pheasants with non-tox, I can honestly say, it ALL works. IF....it patterns OK in your particular gun/choke combination, you put it in the right place, & the load is of sufficient snot to put a rooster on the ground hard enough for an experienced dog to recover. I've also come to the conclusion that most non-tox isn't terribly expensive for pheasant hunting. I commonly shoot non-tox maybe 2/3 of the time because I hunt a lot of true public land, where it's required. I'm a bismuth fan & generally pay about $1.30 a shell. My favorite lead loads are about $0.70 a shell. On a year where I shoot poorly (so this is purely theoretical) at lots of pheasants, I might burn through 5 boxes of shells. So even if I shot bismuth all the time & zero lead, it would only increase the cost of my season by $87.50. Yes, it's $87.50, & $30 or $40 or $50 a box SOUNDS outlandish, but it's virtually nothing when I consider the total cost of my hunting. I'm not travelling long distances, paying for lodging, & that sort of thing, & still, I'd consider $87.50 negligible.
To cap off my dissertation, and as a public service, I'll provide my opinion on bare minimum load requirements for hunting wild pheasants. I've determined that for my hunting, I need to put at least 150 pellets in the air. Again, this assumes a decent pattern, a decent shot, & a decent dog.
Steel: Minimum 1 oz of #3s at 1400 fps. 1-1/8 or 1-1/4 oz of #2s would be better if you like taking shots over 40 yds.
Bismuth: Minimum 3/4 oz of #5s at 1250 fps. (I prefer 1 oz in 16 ga.) 1-1/8 oz of #4s would be better if you like taking shots over 40 yds.
Lead: Minimum 3/4 oz of #6s at 1250 fps. (I prefer 1-1/8 oz in 16 ga.) 1 oz of #5s would be better if you like taking shots over 40 yds.
Increasing velocities much above those listed results in surprisingly little increase in effective range, significant increase in recoil, & potential for poor patterns.
Anyway, I eventually got a dog, & the need to absolutely murderize a rooster became less important for obvious reasons. And I'd fallen in love with 16 gauges for pheasants, so my loads became correspondingly lighter. By now I've tried quite a bit of the available non-tox. Maybe not quite ALL the various tungsten alloys, but several of them. And after having shot a few pheasants with non-tox, I can honestly say, it ALL works. IF....it patterns OK in your particular gun/choke combination, you put it in the right place, & the load is of sufficient snot to put a rooster on the ground hard enough for an experienced dog to recover. I've also come to the conclusion that most non-tox isn't terribly expensive for pheasant hunting. I commonly shoot non-tox maybe 2/3 of the time because I hunt a lot of true public land, where it's required. I'm a bismuth fan & generally pay about $1.30 a shell. My favorite lead loads are about $0.70 a shell. On a year where I shoot poorly (so this is purely theoretical) at lots of pheasants, I might burn through 5 boxes of shells. So even if I shot bismuth all the time & zero lead, it would only increase the cost of my season by $87.50. Yes, it's $87.50, & $30 or $40 or $50 a box SOUNDS outlandish, but it's virtually nothing when I consider the total cost of my hunting. I'm not travelling long distances, paying for lodging, & that sort of thing, & still, I'd consider $87.50 negligible.
To cap off my dissertation, and as a public service, I'll provide my opinion on bare minimum load requirements for hunting wild pheasants. I've determined that for my hunting, I need to put at least 150 pellets in the air. Again, this assumes a decent pattern, a decent shot, & a decent dog.
Steel: Minimum 1 oz of #3s at 1400 fps. 1-1/8 or 1-1/4 oz of #2s would be better if you like taking shots over 40 yds.
Bismuth: Minimum 3/4 oz of #5s at 1250 fps. (I prefer 1 oz in 16 ga.) 1-1/8 oz of #4s would be better if you like taking shots over 40 yds.
Lead: Minimum 3/4 oz of #6s at 1250 fps. (I prefer 1-1/8 oz in 16 ga.) 1 oz of #5s would be better if you like taking shots over 40 yds.
Increasing velocities much above those listed results in surprisingly little increase in effective range, significant increase in recoil, & potential for poor patterns.
