I suspect your standard steel shot will be about what we had 40 years ago when steel shot first became a thing here. It was too slow. 1200 fps steel might be OK for targets. No wounded clay target ever suffered a needless, lingering death. But I have seen countless ducks hit with steel in close range, fly off and drop dead, in flight a hundred or more yards from where they were hit. And the chance of recovery, where I hunt at those ranges, is somewhere between no chance in Hell and never in a thousand years. Plus I am sure others died after being shot without me seeing them drop. I refuse to shoot standard velocity steel at any game. If you look at the energy retained for a pellet at range and you will understand. If you did not hit a vital organ or break a wing it just failed to do the job.
I use Bismuth instead. You do not use that many shell hunting that you can not afford a box or two. And the birds deserve it.
