Salt Creek Bismuth??

KEOutdoors said:
20 pellets isnt going to do any of those things just because they are there. The 1oz may pattern way better than the 1 1/8. I shoot a 20ga 1oz bismuth 4 that patterns night and day tighter than boss 1 1/8 4s in the same gun with the same choke. Increasing payload doesnt mean more range unless your gun likes that shell. Dont fall into the trap that you need more shot because you are hunting public birds, pattern your gun and see. Those 20 pellets may just fly out the edge of the pattern and at best break a wing tip on a bad shot, causing a crippled bird.


And yes bismuth is not round, cut one open and look. Not even boss is round. I reload with boss shot, its not even close to being perfectly round like lead shot, and does not deform on setback- if anything it shatters on setback because it is brittle.
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I get the basic point that more shot isn't necessarily better, but the inverse is true as well. Just because your gun patterns better with 1 ounce than 1 1/8 doesn't mean that joe blow's gun will do the same. Depending on choke, too light a shot charge can lead to thin patterns at long range. As long as a hunter is making an effort to take ethical shots I don't care what they shoot. Unless it's a .410, aka the idiot stick. When you speak in generalities saying bismuth is not as round as lead, I'll just say there's some lead shells I've cut open with shot the consistency of gravel.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
Most bismuth I've seen is round like lead, & without all the deformation at setback & through choke constriction, my experience has been that it patterns a hair tighter than unplated or even copper plated lead on average. Depends somewhat on the gun/load/choke combination. The exception would be Hevishot's bismuth. Some of it was sort of egg shaped, or even tear drop. One more reason it's inferior, in my view, & I make use of my opportunities to give it less than glowing reviews. Hevi really pissed me off.
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This was my experience too. I did some pattern tests 3 years or so ago, and bismuth patterned just a bit tighter than lead. That was Hevi-bismuth 4's and Kent bismuth 5's, in my new-style Sweet 16 through a Trulock light-mod choke tube.
Like you, I'm not a fan of Hevi.......weird-shaped shot of about 3 different sizes, and the 1 & 1/8 oz load is barely over an ounce. But I've shot a few wild SD roosters with it, and it's very effective. I also bought a bunch of 28ga Hevi-bismuth on sale, supposedly 7/8 oz of 6's. Opened one up, and as expected it was barely over 3/4 oz. I've used those for sharptails in ND quite a bit though, and they work well. But the deceptive labeling by Hevi is very annoying.
I haven't patterned or used Boss or Salt Creek. I bought a bunch of Rio bismuth 12ga shells on clearance a year or so ago, 4's and 6's. But I'm mostly using those to harvest the pellets and reload them into 16ga shells.
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
Nope. Kent, Boss, Bismuth Cartridge Co. (later Winchester), & a few Hevi. All non-buffered. The only buffered bismuth I've ever patterned were my own waterfowl handloads.
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Thats crazy, its contrary to the hundreds of bismuth patterns Ive shot. I went through 16lbs of bismuth last year just patterning hand loads. Suppose its just the game we play with patterning, sometimes it goes one way and sometimes it goes another
 
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One thing's for sure, there's a lot to shotgunning, different loads, chokes, etc. All anyone can do is put in the appropriate study and experience, and try and make a good choice. To take the title of Brister's classic book on the subject "Shotgunning, the Art and the Science." There is some you can learn from patterning on paper, academic study of density of materials, speed of shot etc. Then there's the art, that you learn from experience. And there's always a give and take based on the distance to target, speed of target, and angle. His book is about 300 pages and packed with a lot of great info. He shows examples of an open choke causing crippling, and also examples of the same with tight chokes. P 129, "Thus, full choke does not always "kill clean or miss clean" as is so often claimed."
 
KEOutdoors said:
Thats crazy, its contrary to the hundreds of bismuth patterns Ive shot. I went through 16lbs of bismuth last year just patterning hand loads. Suppose its just the game we play with patterning, sometimes it goes one way and sometimes it goes another
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I used to do a ton of loading & one particular friend would pattern & chrono with me. We each shot a Benelli Montefeltro with 26" barrel & factory chokes, made like 18 months apart. We'd frequently get different results shooting the same load. And those differences would be consistent. I feel like generalizations & rules of thumb regarding shotshell performance do exist. But they should be put to the test in every gun/load/choke combination, because exceptions exist too & are more common than we might expect.
 
KEOutdoors said:
And yes bismuth is not round, cut one open and look. Not even boss is round. I reload with boss shot, its not even close to being perfectly round like lead shot, and does not deform on setback- if anything it shatters on setback because it is brittle.
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I have and here are the photos so all can see what these three competitors Shotshell, Boss Unmuzzled Bismuth, 12ga 2.75-inch #4 Bi.JPGShotshell, Hevi Bismuth 12ga 2.75-inch #5.JPGShotshell, Kent Waterfowl Bismuth, 12ga 2.75-inch #4 Bi.JPGbismuth pellets look like.
 
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