doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Kent Bismuth

Sounds like the ones marketed by Winchester. I'm not a big fan of bismuth, but I grab them when I see them because of the lead ban in California. Last ones I found were 16ga #5, got a case.

Found an old box of the bismuth stuff. Is marked Bismuth Cartridge Company, Van Nys, CA. No mention of Winchester anywhere but state "Made in England". Loads I was shooting were 1 1/4 of sixes. Actually gave away over a dozen boxes, 6 of which were 3"ers, some of which were buffered. These I know were size 4. The rest were 2 3/4" mags in size 4 and 5. Stan, I really don't think you would want that stuff...it kinda acted like the pellets fractured upon firing thus my remark about very small shot. I have since moved but I guess I need to call my friend and ask him if he ever used them and the results.

I used/use their factory loads in my SuperFox. Not brutal at all, except on the ducks.

SRH

Maybe they changed the way they made the pellets before I bought my stash of #4s in the 7# jugs. But the company is the same as you mentioned, in the old dark green boxes ......... "Bismuth Cartridge Company".

I've got two gadwalls that are probably going on the grill this afternoon. There is no evidence of fractured pellet wounds on them, only #4 sized holes. Might have been a quality control issue back then. I have squeezed the pellets in a pair of pliers, and you can see a crack come in them as they flatten, sometimes, but it never has seemed to cause them to fracture in use.

SRH

Hey Stan you are correct, they did change some things up with the pellets, I still have a few boxes of the old stuff, the pellets split , they dont hit hard on impact they are really brittle.

I have a couple boxes of the green-box Bismuth Cartridge Co. 16 ga. 1 1/8 oz. 4's and they have done well for me on wood ducks in my Rem 11. I bought them on a closeout at Gander Mountain and they were probably the latest run. No complaints.

Mine were purchased in 2003 for whats that worth.

Bill--Your proof pressure figure for 850 bar, converted to psi, is correct. And 650 bar is the service pressure. But those are both figures derived from lead crushers. They need to be converted to transducer pressures, at which point you can multiply x 14.5 to get the results. 850 bar proof and 650 bar service are actually 960 bar and 740 bar, respectively. Which work out to 13,920 psi proof pressure. and 10,730 psi service pressure. The math is a couple dozen psi off, I think--because a bar is not exactly 14.5 psi. But close enough for our purposes.

I had it wrong for a long time on service pressure, just as you did. Then I wrote an article on proof and service pressure etc for Shooting Sportsman. They ran it past the Birmingham Proofmaster. His email is the source of my figures above. The Brits have now switched to marking standard proof guns STD with a single crown and magnum (superior) proof with SUP and 2 crowns. No longer using the bar numbers, which are now past history just as are the old tons proofmarks.

Larry, how did you find out the transducer pressure, my Mckay 16ga is marked 900 bar so how would I convert to transducer pressure, times by 1.13? and then multiply by 14.5 to get service pressure? Reason I'm asking is I have some Kent TM and have been told that they can run over 9000 psi

The factory loaded Kent Matrix shells??? OK.

Your SuperFox, a real beauty, was built for it though. My Nitro wasn't.