Anyone have any experience to share with these loads? Pattern tight? Effective?

What's the weight/specific gravity of those pellets? Hevi-Shot is now a company and not just a shot maker. When they started out with only the very dense (and hard) material, it was extremely effective. Patterned well out of everything I tried. In my opinion now they are trading on that reputation, as a lot of their loads are not all that dense, and they make it a real chore to figure out exactly what shot material is in the cartridges. Hevi-Shot Goose was the only one as dense as the original, at least last time I checked. None of the loads, except their steel loads, are lighter than lead - also last time I checked - but I can't see where they are worth a premium either. And most of their pellets I would not send down the barrel of a good double. Their Classic Doubles is okay for that duty, but I'm not much of a Bismuth fan. I shoot a lot of Hevi-Shot (Goose) and Kent Impact at waterfowl and both work well. I love the Kent stuff, but it is hard to find and darned expensive. Remington HD was also great, and I was sad to see it go.

I don't know and that's why I'm asking for actual user experience here.

Virginaian, thanks for the info. I've read your thoughts on HS loads on other boards and others that are similar to yours (perhaps they are copying your notes). I've also read mixed reviews on the "Hevi-Shot Classic Doubles", but I can't seem to find any user comments on this HS Pheasant load.

On the ones I've dissected there is a lot of buffer and some odd barbell/hour glass type shot. I for sure pattern it before I headed out with it but a few of my hunting party swear by it(not the pheasant type as per the thread).

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

I'm going to pattern one later today and see what they look like. (after the Packer game!)

The original Hevi-Shot looked atrocious, but patterned phenomenally. Sort of flies in the face of "roundness is good". They have won the turkey patterning contest (I forget the details) like 13 years running. I have patterned Hevi-Shot Duck, Classic Doubles, and Turkey 13 in addition to the Goose and it all performed very well on paper. You're smart to pattern it out of your gun.

Still looks atrocious! I did some of the pre-patterning preliminaries and the shot charge weighed 492 grains and the reloading chart I have says 1 1/8 oz. should weigh 492.2 grains. They counted out to 250 pellets and the chart says there should be 253 in 1 1/8 oz. of 6 shot. I was surprised that those numbers were so close. They also had 37.5 grains of buffer material.

The shiny shot is nickel plated 6 shot from Precision Reloading.

I weighed 10 groups of 10 Hevi-Shot pellets and they averaged 20.4 grains per 10. (High 22.0, low 18.3)

The nickel 6's were about identical at 20.1 per 10.

Next I'll go shoot a couple patterns through my .005 SK choke in my 686 at 25 yards and compare them to some recent patterns with the NP 6's. Should be interesting.

What are those, pumpkin seeds? Yep, same type shot & odd that many are concerned with the spherical nature of the shot & these are like tossing barbells down range.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

What say you?

These first two are with the SK .005 tube at 25 yards. The shotgun bore is .733 FWIW.



These next two are at 35 and 40 yards with the Mod .020 choke.



These loads do kick! More than I thought they would for 1 1/8 oz @ 1200 fps, but then all that buffers adds in there, too.

Based on what I see I might have Briley make up another tube with .000 constriction. My Skeet tube seems tight for pointed pheasants. I have a feeling straight cylinder will be more than tight enough.

Next time out I'll bring the Chrony and double-check the velocity. I've been patterning for 4 weekends and these kicked at least as much or more than the 1 1/4 oz loads I've been testing.

I do have a LM tube, so Cyl/LM might also be a good combo with these loads.

Lovely effort and those patterning excursion do take up some time don't they. So is the Sk a full choke with those cartridges? Did you ever count any holes inside the circle?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

What is in with the buffer, pumpkin seeds?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Looks pretty tight, doesn't it? I didn't count them, but based on 250 pellets I suppose we could just subtract what didn't get in the circle and go from there.

They look like mini pumpkin seeds. Not sure what they are!

Well are they animal, mineral or vegetable? I might just pick up a box to have a gander myself.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

They seem to be some sort of seed. I cut one with a razor blade and can see a thin shell covering through a magnifying glass. As I was doing it a gnat flew past and I thought, "Oh oh", but just a rogue gnat.

So was it a dog peter gnat or fruit fly? That might narrow the composition.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

With patterns like that, I might be fillin' my cases with pumpkin seeds. Any idea how many per load? And is the buffer akin to the Grex?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Never used Grex, so I can't compare, but it's a fine, gritty material. Hopefully in a month or two I'll have some field reports to add!

For phez, unless you are in a non-tox area, why would you bother? Lots of great lead loads out there that are much less expensive, and may be easier on your gun

tudurgs, in my case it's strictly for non-tox areas. I'd rather shoot my 2-triggered OU than steel through an auto which is what I have been doing in the non-tox zones. Thankfully, most of my pheasant hunting is on land where I can shoot lead. Not sure where you got the idea that this was for all pheasant hunting.

"Not sure where you got the idea that this was for all pheasant hunting."

Uh, from the title of the post

OK, sorry to inconvenience you. I'll try to do better next time. Thanks for straightening me out.

Good Morning Dave.
I've shot a fair amount of the various HeviShot products.
In fact, I just picked up 30 rounds of their densest in 2oz loads at $1.50 each!

I see no need to go too far in depth on this, but rather will just contribute to clarify your question a bit.

Heavy shot pellets are harder than barrel steel.

They have pellets that are denser than lead, and come in several product densities within the HeviShot brand.

They obviously group very tightly, and carry devastating energy far further than a similar lead pellet.

Look at the energy charts to see just how far out the pellets will fully perforate a bird. For the density you have.


Why?

Miss or shred up close, dia way out into the cattails as to be unrecoverable. Scratches in barrels after use.

My point was that regular Hevi Shot probably isn't the product you want it for.


Note: I cut up the 2oz turkey loads to get the shot.

All this is explained on the Environmetal site. they are Flax seeds. they are just a filler. The D&G 16ga #4 is a killer on big Canadas. at 50 yds the load just drops em.

Interesting that while in the blind nibblin' on breakfast bread with flax seed that you too are feeding the ducks a regiment of flax seed filler. Wonder who had the excess of flax seed and decided to use it as filler?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

The stuff is about $4 per shot. Pretty soon it's going to cost as much as ready to eat chicken from Costco or Walmart. I suggest Costco as it seems to be far less salty. I would say modern shotgun and upland or target steel 6s should be seriously considered instead of soft non-tox shot.

It sure is pricy stuff. I picked some up a couple years ago when there was a good rebate thinking I only need it for nontox areas on trips when I want to use my light (modern) OU. I didn't realize this stuff patterned like a rifle.

What would be a good load for a model 31 16 ga