Hevi shot?

[WDFW-SUX]

Just picked up my first box of hevi shot 12ga #6's in 2 3/4in was wondering what your guys thoughts are about its performance also I have Briley extended chokes in my O/U and was wondering how patterning is in light mod and improved mod?


I love lead and am not crazy about steel is hevi really better than lead as claimed??

[GoldTip]

I have only used the Hevi-shot on turkeys and it is heads and shoulders above any other turkey load I have tried.  The turkeys I have shot with Hevi shot have fallen stone dead, period.  I would say as far as the Hevi shot for turkeys with a turkey choke it extends my efective range probably 7-8 yards.  I find it pretty damn impressive.

[WDFW-SUX]

I really like my full choke does anyone have experience with hevi shot through a full choke for pheasants?

[cb109]

  hey there, been using hevi-shot 2's for geese, expensive but 1 shot-1 kill over decoys. haven't used for pheasant,still can use lead for field hunting,hevi-shot is a real killer, been using for 4 yrs. now. good luck on your hunting  cb.

[addicted]

hey cb109. are you using that hevi shot in a 3.5 inch shell or just a 3

[Mortgage Hunter]

I used hevi-shot for 1/2 of the season last year.  I had a young dog, and for training purposes wanted a shell that would reduce cripples a little better.  Hevi shot definitely reduced the number of cripple's, but after a while it became really costly.  Rather than continuing to pay $25 to $30 per box....I invested in a Briley long range choke tube,  and went back to shooting 3 1/2" #4's out of my Benelli Super Black Eagle.  In my opinion this it's the perfect match between shell and choke tube.  And, over the course of a season that choke tube will pay for itself several times!

[scottr]

I think hevi-shot is crap. A few years ago I was chatting with a guy at my local shop where I bought my Beneli and mentioned using hevi shot. He cut open a shell and it was appalling. The shot varied from size 4 to 9 (in a size 6 shell) and some of the pellets looked like retarded snowmen. Very few were round and many had burrs or bumps on them. Ge said he had seena couple scratched barrels from the stuff. I went home and cut open a couple of my own shells and it was the same so I stopped using it. I have heard Remington has improved the production but I hzve never gone back. I use Bismuth from time to time and want to check out Federals new Black Cloud but mostly use steel as it is most cost effective and doesn't seem to reduce my kill ratio.

[sisu]

I just got off the telephone with, Keith, the owner of Precision Reloading. I talked to him about using a steel Mec reloader and shot shell information from Alliant for starters. He was very positive about using Alliant steel powder and their reloading information. From what I have been reading I see velocities of high 1400s to 1500 feet per second using Alliant recipes. Like I said before if you experiment with the loads, hulls, specific loads, and your different chokes you can find some great loads for specific birds  and distances. For instance there is a 1 oz load using a Federal Gold Medal hull and Alliant steel powder you can get 1500 feet a second. This would be a good pheasant, grouse load.
There is another load that uses the same hull,1 1/8 oz steel, same powder and you get 1425 feet per second. Both of these loads have low pressures in comparison to others in the chart. Here is a web site for Alliant reloading.
http://www.alliantpowder.com/reloaders/RecipeList.aspx?gauge=12&gtypeid=10&shotype=1&title=Non-Toxic%20Shotshell

All this takes time but you can get some great results for your hunting.

[jackelope]

I think hevi-shot is crap. A few years ago I was chatting with a guy at my local shop where I bought my Beneli and mentioned using hevi shot. He cut open a shell and it was appalling. The shot varied from size 4 to 9 (in a size 6 shell) and some of the pellets looked like retarded snowmen. Very few were round and many had burrs or bumps on them. Ge said he had seena couple scratched barrels from the stuff. I went home and cut open a couple of my own shells and it was the same so I stopped using it. I have heard Remington has improved the production but I hzve never gone back. I use Bismuth from time to time and want to check out Federals new Black Cloud but mostly use steel as it is most cost effective and doesn't seem to reduce my kill ratio.

was it sportees in redmond by chance?

[scottr]

I think hevi-shot is crap. A few years ago I was chatting with a guy at my local shop where I bought my Beneli and mentioned using hevi shot. He cut open a shell and it was appalling. The shot varied from size 4 to 9 (in a size 6 shell) and some of the pellets looked like retarded snowmen. Very few were round and many had burrs or bumps on them. Ge said he had seena couple scratched barrels from the stuff. I went home and cut open a couple of my own shells and it was the same so I stopped using it. I have heard Remington has improved the production but I hzve never gone back. I use Bismuth from time to time and want to check out Federals new Black Cloud but mostly use steel as it is most cost effective and doesn't seem to reduce my kill ratio.

was it sportees in redmond by chance?

I will leave the shop name out of it as I don't want to cause them any grief.

[jackelope]

well i'll just assume it wasn't then, because they haven't been in business in a year or 3. they did that demo back in the day though, trying to push kent's version or something like that if i remember correctly.

[scottr]

Here are some photos of a hevi shot shell I opened today. It was a size 4 20 ga magnum shell. I still have a couple of boxes of this stuff. This is pretty typical of the 5 or so I have cut open to show to friends etc.



Full of pits, burrs, out of round and snowman pellets



More of the same



This was the biggest and smallest pellet in a size 4 shell



these are the worst offenders in the shell. One was three pellets stuck together and many had burrs or what I like to call the snowman effect.

Now I have never seen a shell that had a "burr" that was outside the wad where a barrel could be scratched and have not had that experience myself (only told stories of it from a shop guy) but at a minimum with the inconsistency in the shot size an lack of round pellets I can't imagine it would make for good patterns.

[jackelope]

what does it look like on a pattern board??

[scottr]

what does it look like on a pattern board??

At over 2 bucks a shell I never patterned them so I can't say how it looked.

The few times I shot the stuff I did ok at dropping birds. I recall taking a mallard and pheasant one day with hevi shot out at Cherry Valley and some teal another time.

A question to the guys who re-load. Looking at the inconsistency of the shot in my pictures would you put this into your shells?

[Guy]

I understand all "heavy shot" shot looks that way - it's apparently just part of the manufacturing process and we haven't figured out how to do better than that. There were a couple of articles in the gun magazines, showing those oddball looking shot when the stuff was first introduced.

Weird stuff, but I just might have to try it someday.

Regards, Guy