doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Hard or soft shot kill the best??

High antimony shot clearly patterns better than lead shot with less antimony. But the harder shot won't 'mushroom' as well as softer shot. I'm wondering if soft shot might kill game better since it mushrooms more. Steel shot which is very hard seems to just poke a hole in game and does not seem to kill that well. Also copper and nickle plated shot is even harder than high antimony shot. But does it kill better given shells with the same velocity. What do you think?

I have had great success with Kent's diamond shot(polished and maybe rounded???). Not sure of the particulars as I do not have it written on the back of my hand. I believe steel shot does not have the same momentum.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

To argue the point the other direction, does soft shot tend get snagged in feathers more and penetrate less a a result? I believe the plated shot makers (and possibly Kent with their polished Diamond Shot) have claimed better penetration due to less feather fouling.

I would also think mushrooming matters more for single strikes (big game with one bullet) than multiple pellets striking small game.

I have bitten into many shot when eating game birds, everything from no. 9 up to no. 4. I've never seen a one that was misshapen enough to mention, much less mushroomed, or even flattened. And I used to load a lot of chilled (soft) shot years ago
for doves and quail. Not even pure soft buckshot flattens any at all unless it hits large bone.

IMO, the harder the shot is the better it kills, not because the individual shot are more potent, but because they will pattern better and put more of them in the bird.

SRH.

Small game is killed by damage to vital organs and body structures brought about by subsonic pellets. The idea of hydrostatic shock being involved as in a supersonic rifle bullet is false.

Any mushroomed pellets won't aid the killing effect; if they were deformed prior to striking the target then they will be travelling at reduced velocity and thus have less lethality, and if they deformed when striking bone within the animal, then their job has been done.

About three lifetimes ago I did a fair bit of work on nickel coating of lead shot with IMI Kynoch in Witton. Actually, they aren't. The coating is so thin that any crushing test will detect hardly any difference. The coatings work by resisting and preventing the lead pellets cold welding together under the pressure of their initial acceleration, and thus not allowing the pattern to degrade.

There is a suggestion that they penetrate better than plain lead, but I never got involved in measuring that side of things. A bit of anecdotal evidence for you however ...

When I was shooting wood pigeon big time I found that an Eley nickel plated trap No 7 (Brit) was about the best cartridge I could use, very markedly so for those birds that dropped into nearby trees or settled on the ground in the decoy pattern. With the birds wings folded an ordinary shell wasn't always very reliable, but the trap job seemed much superior.

Others may have seen something similar?

Eug

I think hard and heavy is the way to go. The newer non-tox stuff like the Remington HD, Hevi-Shot (goose), etc kill even better than the old nickel plated lead did. Kent Impact matrix is about as heavy as lead and about as soft and performs just like lead.
Plated lead really isn't any harder, I tested it too, it does pattern better, and it seemed to pattern better too, but that's more of an opinion than scientific data.

Most correct as it was feather drag that brought us to the Diamond Shot. I have had success with the Fiocchi Nickle plated shot, but in the end I cut it out of their cartridges and reloaded it, maybe in a round with Winchester's Grex buffer, which is all but a must on large shot.

Also a friend swears by the Hevi-Shot on water fowl as a result of his own empirical data and it is true as I was there.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Plating does produce better patterns, IF it's done right. Brister pretty well established that in the tests he describes in his book. Problem is, most plating these days is mostly cosmetic: just washed on.

Agree with Eugene on the hard vs soft shot issue. The less deformed shot, the more stays in the pattern. Retains velocity better, penetrates better. And penetration is the key with shot. Steel is hard but it's also light, and it also sheds velocity very quickly. The fact that it's less dense than lead is what makes it inferior ballistically. You make shot both hard and heavy, like HS, then you've got good stuff. But where lead is legal for upland game, there aren't that many guys who are capable of killing birds farther away than the effective range of good lead loads.

In the old days the Italian live pigeon loads were the best thing going. REALLY hard shot with a thick nickel or copper coating to act as a solid lubricant to prevent sticktion upon initial acceleration and thru the forcing/choke cones. Most of the plated shot today is soft and deforms inspite of the plating. For your own information take a set of pliers and flatten a few pellets from different loads. The harder ie. less easy to flatten will pattern better and kill better.

Without reservation I believe Hard Shot is more effective in killing birds than is soft shot.

I believe this because research has shown it as demonstrated in Bob Brister's Art and Science of Shotgunning, Oberfel and Thompson's Shotgun Patterns, to name a few.

As earlier posters have pointed out Hard Shot which holds it shape and flies truer than softer shot which does not yeilds better patterns, velocity, and hence effects on target.

Plating if it is linked to actually harder shot does provide better performance to include less "feather draw" which is what I call the downy feather pulled into the wound by rough soft shot which disappears with quality plated shot in my experience.

I do not know if it is still true, but a bit of trivia from a decade ago when I first started as an independent dealer of B&P from Kaltron.

Both Kent and Fiocchi loaded shot bought from B&P in Italy. Or at least so I was told by John Palazzo, Kaltron's National Sales Rep.

B&P's shot is truly nickel plate shot.

I'd agree here with Larry. Assuming the gun is ok with steel though, it drops waterfowl just fine for me at reasonable distances. I haven't found much help from HS type loads unless it's for pass shooting bigger birds. I do notice a few more swimmers with steel and if the head is up I try to finish it off quick.

With lead, I tend to use lighter loads at standard to light target velocities. On the pattern board or in the field, I can't see any difference with premium plated shot over good high antimony unplated shot.

Looks like everyone overwhelmingly favors hard shot in terms of killing efficiency as compared to soft. I suspected this would be the case. OK, I'm convinced.

In My 65+ years of waterfowl and large bird hunting I have found that shot size and powder charge was most important. At close range it makes little difference However at extreme range you need heavy and hard shoot . JMO Pilgrim

As I, and others, mentioned today's plated shot is not nearly as thick a coating as the old days. I am not saying true plated shot is unavailable, just that most of it that is called plated is not a bit harder than unplated, because the copper wash is so thin.

That said, does anybody know how good the quality is, of the coppered shot, in RST's 3 1/2 - 1 1/4 pigeon loads? They are put up in blue paper cases, and are fast becoming the choice of many top live pigeon shooters. There was a preponderance of those empties lying around at the last flyer shoot I attended, about a month ago. Rick Mein was shooting them, as were several other top competitors.

SRH

Stan: Borrow a few and do the pliers test comparing them to a very cheap low cost load. My guess is they are HARD. The copper/nickel coating is not a hardner on the shot no matter how thick. It is a solid lubricant like graphite except it is plated on the surface not just smeared on.

Remington and Winchester used to import nickel plated shot from Italy, where BP also got theirs, and load it for the US Olympic teams. Don't know if they still do that or not.

For those of you who don't know, Dr. A. C. Jones covered the hard vs soft shot issue in his learn'ed work, "Sporting Shotgun Performance," chapter 17. Soft shot through a full choke will produce near a 20" pattern diameter at about 28 yards and hard will produce the near identical pattern at about 32 yards.

Now, for the fly in the ointment. Do you want a more open choke or a tighter choke? This is the question because the patterns are statistically the same at a few yards difference in range. So, you can have the same pattern with soft as with hard by adding a few points more choke. Or, you can open your choke a few points by shooting soft shot. Shotgun patterns are Rayleigh distributed - so far, nuttin' has changed that.

So, howzibout a few more of you buckos belly up to the pattern plate, download Insights, and give us some statistically backed data - - - like Stan is doing for the .410 vs 12 bore effective pattern diameter question.

"ARRrrr, matey, there are monsters out there!!"

DDA

That's why in those high and far off days I used a double gun, like wot most of us have did.

Improved cylinder for the ones over the deeks at 25-30 yards and full for anything more further outer.

I did once step out the distance from my hide to the fall (out of a tree, shot sitting) of a wood pigeon ... 57 paces. Dead as a stone, never opened it's wings. Eley Nickel trap, number 7 Brit, full choke.

Eug

Agree. And it's a big fly. I don't even know how we, as individuals, can control this variable to answer the question. Insofar as shot sizes #6 and up are concerned, I think there is no difference in killing effectiveness whatsoever between hard, soft, plated, eieio Pb shot on upland birds.

Deformation reducing penetration seems more plausible with the smaller shot sizes......especially when we push them to maximum distances/bird sizes. But pattern density is the elephant in this room.

Sam

Brister established that buffering tightens patterns. The best loads he tested were the old Winchester XX Mags, buffered and plated, carrying the "Luballoy" name.

I don't know if hard shot kills better other than it maintains shape and therefore patterns better. But shot size increase within reason, kills more efficiently, assuming adequate pattern density.

I doubt any of us alive and posting on this forum ever had a "soft" shot shell. Going through my old ammo catalogues I find both Western and Remington offering a few "soft" shot loadings up to 1942, but by 1949-50 they are gone. Chilled shot was the first upgrade from original soft shot. They are not the same thing. Loads with "chilled" shot were about $2.50 more per thousand than "soft" shot --

1915-16

Likely true. However, so does increasing choke constriction up to the fullest possible. I'd expect buffering to add a tad bit more choke effect to "fullest possible. If a buffered load was shot in a modified choke, a unbuffered load would shoot a matching pattern with about IM to full.

People keep saying "--- hard shot improves the pattern ---." It improves the pattern ONLY if you want a tighter choke effect pattern. It does not change the pattern distribution from a Rayleigh!!

DDA

You are correct, Dave, and I was unclear. My apology. I knew that chilled is harder than dead soft, but was referring to the softest commonly available in the '80s. Thanks for pointing that out so well.

SRH

Don, there's something I'm not getting out of your last sentence. Do you mean the load without buffering would shoot the same pattern if you shot it through an IM or F choke, versus buffered through a modified? If so, I agree you could make up for the more expensive buffered load in a more open choke by shooting a less expensive unbuffered load in a tighter choke. The one place where you could no longer make up the difference, of course, would be a buffered load in a full choke, which will pattern extra full.

So, is the soft shot staying true and just flowing different through a given barrel. I'd wonder if softer shot got deformed by some manner or another, it may hold a certain distribution at shorter ranges, but that may not translate to the same distribution only larger pattern at long distance. Maybe time in flight would allow air resistance to act differently on spheres and randomly distorted spheres.

I recall an article written several yeas back written by Wallace Labinsky (not sure of the spelling) in which he tested a variety of different (Lead) shot all from the same gun & in identical loads. For some shot which was not available to reloaders he opened factory shells & used the shot only. His highest percentages were obtained using unplated premium hardened shot, Diamond as I recall. This shot produced higher percentages than any of the plated shot, either Nickel or Copper.

I don't completely understand the Rayleigh distribution thing. I understand the concept, I think. But consider that, years ago, I took a Remington barrel, with fixed choke, and shot numerous patterns with it using several different loads. All exhibited the same type pattern that we are used to seeing-- a hot, dense core with decreasing density as the you approached the edge of the pattern. Then, I had the barrel threaded for screw-ins and tested a particular maker's choke tubes in it. The distribution changed markedly, with all constrictions I tried of that brand's tubes, .005", .010" and .015", as I recall. The patterns were all significantly less dense at the core, with those pellets being distributed more toward the edge, i.e., while the fringe of the patterns were still less dense than the core, the difference was not nearly so marked as with the fixed choke, previously. The overall pattern size was consistent with the fixed choke pattern, choke for choke, just different distribution.

Does this contradict the Rayleigh distribution, or no?

SRH

"So, is the soft shot staying true and just flowing different through a given barrel."

I think the difference is, more likely, in flight characteristics.

"I'd wonder if softer shot got deformed by some manner or another,---"

The most likely time/place for shot deformation is at peak pressure/maximum acceleration. Soft-er shot would be expected to suffer more deformation than hard-er shot.

"---it may hold a certain distribution at shorter ranges, but that may not translate to the same distribution only larger pattern at long distance."

I don't think so. An accurate rifle and a much less accurate rifle will each make groups that conform to the Rayleig distribution. Obviously, the inaccurate rifle will make larger groups than will the accurate rifle. So it is with a shotgun; more choke effect makes smaller patterns than less choke effect. Wider or narrower spread does not change the distribution --- I suspect that some are confusing the size of the pattern with the distribution. It is not so. If you compare a cyl pattern at about 15 yards to a full at about 30 yards, you will find the same pattern. The 15 yard full would not look like the 15 yd cyl nor would the 30 yd cyl look like the 30 yd full. Yet, all will have a Rayleigh distribution if the individual shot pieces are grouped according to radius from the center of impact. Please, post back if anyone doesn't see this yet.

Maybe time in flight would allow air resistance to act differently on spheres and randomly distorted spheres."

Very likely. Good thinking. Do you see that the distribution remains constant as the pattern blooms?

DDA

Another factor that matters alot is the size of the shot - the larger the shot size, the softer it can be and be effective, in both external and terminal senses.

Maybe not related, but I can recall a shotshell reloading article probably in Gun Digest from maybe the mid seventies. It was about spreader load experimenting, I guess before spreader type wads and inserts were available. Anyway, the author used cut square and flattened disc shaped shot. Very foggy now, but I believe he was getting usable short range patterns that quickly fell apart well out of typical distribution.

When I did a bunch of patterning, I believe my reject loads at long range probably lost pattern density due to some shot steering well out of the hoped for pattern. The steel plate was five by five feet and I'd give the whole thing a quick roller. I'd shoot at that arbitrary 30" circle and count. With decent high antimony shot, I could account for high nineties percent of the shot. Soft bargain shot, sometimes a little over 10 percent didn't even stay on the five by five, so I couldn't have even estimated if it resembled a pattern.

I believe soft and hard shot can kill exactly the same, but I believe it's easier to come up with effective patterns with hard shot, all else being equal. I played with it a little, but couldn't see a worthwhile help from buffers or plated shot. Probably because I use low pressure 7/8 or 1 oz. loads for every thing, just switching shot size. I still suspect, don't know, that distorted flyers skew way out of extrapolated patterns.

Cube shot and disc shot both used to be available. I got some disc shot from, I believe, Orvis and shot some patterns. Did what it was supposed to: really opened the pattern. But beyond about 20 yards, as noted above, there wasn't much of a pattern left. And even if there had been, I might have been skeptical of the remaining energy in flattened shot at longer ranges.

Deformed hard pellets are not necessarily equivalent to soft pellets in flight characteristics. A good example is the 3" RP .410. Shot hardness (#7.5) is really excellent, but shot scrubbing causes early attrition of at least 25% of the payload. I suspect an 11/16 oz soft shot 12 ga load would throw a very different pattern.

Again, I would bet on pattern density insofar as lethality is concerned.

Sam

First, I would say the type of shot is just one component in the overall scheme of things and that the takeaway from this thread is that an astute shooter will pattern his firestick with the cartridges he intends to use in the pursuit of game. The theory on the Gaussian distribution of shot(I prefer Gauss over Lord Rayleigh) is a good start or rule of thumb, but empirical data is the best bet. Hunting trips to Kansas chasing the ever elusive ditch parrot was what began my quest on cartridge selection. We've tried most and went to a 3" Fiocchi on one trip but settled back on Kent. So it was an effort for more than 1 gun and different types of scatterguns. And it was the "in the field" performance that was reviewed. Much of the performance is dependent on where the tube(s) is aimed and the spread is measured from the center of the density; hence, the Gaussian distribution. Typical situation is that you are in a duck blind, make-shift or not, you are trying to get down a kashi bar to fend away the hunger pangs in what you think to be a down time. Ducks are coming in and in an effort to keep concealment you are watching your dogs eyes as they go round & round as birds circle. When you pull up and shoot, is your mount the best it can be and are you pointing at the duck or where the duck will be? Just some rough numbers off the top of my head say at 30 yards(don't know if the numbers will stand up to pure mathematics or not but it gives the point) you have 170 pellets & an 80% density on a diameter of 24". Say you are off 1 foot in relation to the center of the bird. The best overlap of the Gaussian distribution(2D) and the bird will be say 3 pellets. These patterns are at a time of plus infinity, so all pellets have passed. And the big ole white elephant in the room is that there is a shot string and of the 3 pellets, will they all arrive on the target at the same instance? In most conversations it appears that it is assumed that the distribution is in the same plane when in fact it is not.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse