doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Solution to nontox for vintage sxs

Ed, I have been waterfowl hunting for over 34 years. I have hunted in 5 states and 3 countries. I don't know how many ducks and geese I have shot but I can safely say well over a 1000 ducks and hundreds of geese. I shot them with lead, steel and bismuth in 10, 12 and 20 gauge. I know what range estimation is and I seldom have pulled the trigger on bird over 35-40 yards. Steel is a crippler compared to lead and bismuth, even to the experienced hunter using the right size steel shot at high velocity in magnum loads. It is from a cost perspective the best alternative and it can be effective. However it is not an acceptable material for a projectile in a classic double gun and that is the topic of this forum! I don't mean this with any disrespect but at age 21 it is impossible for you to have enough experience to effectively weigh in on this issue. You have never shot waterfowl with lead so you don't know how it worked on waterfowl. You have also failed to comment on the economic issue it presents to sports such as crow shooting or clay pigeon shooting where flats of ammo are expended quickly. There are people and groups who recognize lead is an achilles heel of sorts. They can't take our guns away but then can render them useless or too expensive to shoot by banning lead. You seemingly come in here and shrug your shoulders at the the thought that many us with double gun collections could find them useless. You need to understand some those collections are worth far what what I suspect is your present net worth. It's serious money and this is a serious concern. Since you have given little concern to the economic loss a lead ban would impose because it doesn't affect you, marginilizes your argument significantly.

Ed,
I don't have a problem with any of your posts. You are right on the money.

Many folks will protest any and all change that affects them, but being a realist, it is going to happen. Meanwhile, my damascus and wood 19th century doubles are still working. Even with waterfowl.

Putting one's head in the sand while crying about the sky falling will not get the job done. Studying up and understanding the problem will. I think it's reasonable to fight for lead for a long time to come in many areas of hunting. But not all. From the scan I did this morning, I would question the use of lead for doves and need to read more. For other upland birds like quail, I can't see the need for change.

All of my guns are functionally if not actually 19th century or earlier. The use of lead is a really big deal to me, but I don't fool myself that it is always inconsequential to the be flining it out there.

Brent

Brent, do you work for a wildlife agency? I did for 3 years and left for better money elsewhere. I am aware that in the state I worked in they lost around 50% of the waterfowl hunters when lead was banned. 50%. In fact since I started waterfowling the state has lost 90% from it's high point in particpation a short 30 years ago. Wildlife agencies struggling to survive in the face of declining participation run the risk of killing the goose who laid the golden egg with ever increasing regulation.

Edward,

You are not just "relatively young", but actually embarassingly young to be going toe-to-toe with waterfowlers having three, four, and five decades of experience under their wader belts. But with that said, know that I do respect what they say about opinions and fundamental orifices. I just ask that when you do spout forth, you try to remember that some of these guys here have had the opportunity to shoot several types of shotgun pellets over many, many years and assess their relative performance .....from lead, to steel, to bismuth, to tungsten-matrix, to ad nauseum, and there is some substance to what they are 'negatively' saying about steel.

As for me, I switched from lead to steel two years before it became a requirement, thinking that I may as well embrace the stuff and learn to make it work for me. I shot it a lot of days each season here in Montana and Utah (like 40+), and as you say, it does knock down the ducks and geese. Problem was, that is all it was doing in a number of instances..... just 'knocking them down'.

I'm primarily a decoy shooter who used 1-1/8 oz. of #3 steel on mallard-sized ducks. That's surely adequate, don't you think? If the quarry was further out than my 40 yd. perimeter decoy that I always set, it was a safe duck for that day.

Did I actually kill some of the birds outright? Well, sure I did, but there would also be others at times with as many as 6-8 multiple body hits that the dog would bring in....their heads still swiveling around in bewilderment.... and in need of dispatching. And this occurred significantly more often than it ever did in all the years I gunned with lead. (and if you're about to repeat that nonsense of yours about just making head and neck shots vs. body shots on mallards at thirty yards, then I can leave you with a response lacking in patience - as you truly showed some naivete' with that one).

So, just as soon as another non-tox came out like bismuth, which was several years later if I'm remembering correctly, I switched to that and have never looked back. I was actually 'killing' more ducks outright again like I did in the days of lead shot. Why? Because their elemental properties are much the same.

'Crowshooter' told you right when stating that steel shot can, at close range, penetrate body parts clean through without expending much energy and thus knock a bird to the ground that has to be dealt with. And I know you know this to be true yourself, having shot more than a box or two of steel shells at them.

Maybe it's a matter of you understanding that many of us here care far less about the number of birds we bring home at night in contrast to 'how' they are brought to bag. I hope that makes some sense to you, especially when you are out there ringing a neck or two on a well-perforated duck. And as Larry Brown has pointed out, virtually all of us here consider the steel shot mandate for waterfowl to be a dead topic. So, how about we bury that one for now?

What is at issue, especially for those of us that like using our vintage guns not only on gamebirds, but particularly for clay target shooting, is this emerging sentiment for a nation-wide lead ban when there is so much more scientific work to be done to corroborate these early, often hysterical assumptions.

As Yogi Berra once said, "It's like 'deja vu' all over again" for those of us who've been at this for awhile.

BTW, Yogi Berra was a famous catcher for the New York Yankees -even before steel shot became a requirement!

All Best,

Rob Harris

You know what Mr. crowshooter your right i dont know what it was like to shoot lead, but i find it so hard to believe that it was so magical. Ive shot steel every season i've waterfowled and i have built my method of shotgunning around high velocity magnum 3.5 steel. I find it perfectly effective for the way i hunt and what i need it to do. Yes ive had to shoot cripples and sure ive seen them fly away with shot in them. To counter this ive tried to wait until i had them at a comfortable range for me and this in my experience has worked.

Im not shrugging anything at your oh so awesome collection of guns that could never be within my reach of owning. The reason im on this forum is because i picked up a sterlingworth that i fell in love with. I managed to save up money and make payments just to get the thing. When i bought it however i realized that with a gun of this age there were going to be inherent costs to shooting it for my main purpose of waterfowl. I blew 30 bucks in ten shots the first time i took it out on the lake and missed every duck i shot at with it.

Do you really think that any of those hunters lost because of the death of lead would be there to fight anti's if we still had lead. I dont think there was a one of them that was a dyed in the wool waterfowler. If all that it takes to discourage some one from hunting is a change in shot then why would they bother to stand up and fight for gun rights, or hunting rights.

Again im not saying im for a ban on lead as people seemingly think i am. This got itself into being an argument over whether or not steel is good for ducks. As for an alternative to lead in my fox i shoot hevi shot classic double. Im trying it i dont know what it will do in the long run but its supposed to be safe for old guns and i will see how it goes.

That's plain and simple nonsense.

Carefull there....lots of crow in your post.

I do know who Yogi Berra is, i may be young but i did go to school in the north.

Mr. crowshooter as to your post directly after mine on the other thread, i had not called you nor any gun collector an idiot. Had you read it the way i intended (my fault for not making it more clear) which is how i explained it in another post you would have seen to who i was commenting about.

Well Ed let's take a breather and make a summary. You weren't articulate enough to make it clear who you were calling idiots, you are not old enough to have used lead shot on waterfowl but can't believe it was far superior to steel from those who did, you reference watching a video of goose hunters killing geese dead by consistent close range head shots, you claim you can't kill big birds with body shots BUT you reference your own inability to hit a duck in 10 shots, you THINK Hevi-Shot Classic Doubles is safe in your Sterlingworth because they tell you so, you say you BLEW 30 bucks on 10 shots but have you ever had a day where you would use 100 to 300 shells (crow shooting and clay pigeons), some of us do and that means blowing way more than 30 bucks not to mention having 4 and 5 figure guns put out of service. No this is not argument about whether lead is good for ducks or not, it's a post about non-tox shot and classic doubles. Bismuth at present is not available, Classic Double Hevi-Shot may or may not be kind to barrels and it is not available for reloading. Nice shot is now sold out of 5 and had been sold out of 4 for a long time. I suspect many classic double gun duck hunters like myself are nursing stashes of bismuth pellets for reloading realizing when it is gone we are out of the duck hunting business with those guns. Now it seems there is move to expand the restrictions on lead shot when there are fewer alternatives and the alternatives we have left are even more cost prohibitive. Just because you think something is a good idea and does not impact you very much doesn't mean the idea is a good one for all. There are some very real negatives if lead shot bans are extended, for hunters, for wildlife agencies, and for the future of the sport as well.