I still believe there is some confusion on what Hevi-shot actually is. This is what Remington posted some time ago when they were loading their own shells using hevishot:
"Just what is Hevi-Shot? It is an iron-based projectile but gets its good press from the fact that it is alloyed with enough tungsten and a smidgen of nickel to weigh, pellet size for pellet size, slightly more than lead shot. Lead shot has a density of about 10.9 g/cc, while Hevi-Shot has a density of 12.0 g/cc. That makes Hevi-Shot about 10 percent more dense than lead shot across the board. That may not seem like a whole lot, but as a result, you know when you buy Hevi-Shot that you're getting a projectile at least as dense as lead and actually a bit more. This justifies the Environ-Metal registered statement, "Heavier Than Lead" when referring to Hevi-Shot.
Steel shot has a density of 7.8 g/cc, which means that Hevi-Shot is fully half again as dense as steel. This theoretically allows the hunter to use a Hevi-Shot pellet two and sometimes three sizes smaller to achieve the same lethality. This means a very significant increase in payload pellet count for Hevi-Shot over steel. This in turn translates into significantly higher available pellet counts downrange for taking game since Hevi-Shot also patterns as well or better than steel.
So Hevi-Shot offers the shotgunner the best of two very important factors in lethality and downrange terminal ballistics. First, Hevi-Shot boasts the highest per-pellet density of any shotshell projectile currently available. Second, Hevi-Shot offers superb patterns. These two in combination offer performance superiority that any ballistician or shotgunner would search for in a perfect world"
What the above means in the real world is Hevi-shot hits harder then anything else on the market using size against size. The biggest problem with it is its expense. It's damn expensive. That said, if you can find some of the old Remington loaded hevi-shot on closeout somewhere, buy them. They are that good and they are much cheaper then whats on the market now.
PS. Eightbore you are correct, they are overkill for most applications. However, if you only want to shoot a 20 gauge at everything you can absolutely kill any turkey out there with Hevi-shot in size 7 at 40 yards. That's virtually impossible with any other lead shell out there. Also, Hevi-shot can turn a 20 gauge into a very effective duck/geese slayer for sure.
