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.