- Tom Roster Shotshell Manual Pdf
- Tom Roster Shotshells
- Tom Roster Shotshell Manuals
- Tom Roster Shotshell Manual Download
Tom Roster is an independent ballistics consultant and author specializing in the design and testing of shotshell loads for U.S. Shotshell and reloading components manufacturers. He is a court-recognized shotshell/shotgun expert witness. Hodgdon has data for 12 Gauge 2 3/4' shells, but, as noted, it's expensive.Hevi Shot is going for $158.95 per 7 pound bag. Add in the special wads, powder, buffer and primer, it'll run around $1.85 per shell (1 ounce load). View and Download Hatz Diesel 2-4L41C operator's manual online. 2-4L41C Engine pdf manual download. Also for: 2-4m41, 2-4m41z, 4l42c, 4m42. Ford 6640 Operator Manual here. HATZ DIESEL 3L 4L 4M ENGINE WORKSHOP SERVICE REPAIR MANUAL This is the actual workshop manual, not the instruction book as other sellers are selling. To correspond with Tom Roster or to order his reloading manual on buffered lead and bismuth shotshells (updated for 2018), his HEVI-Shot reloading manual, his 75-page Shotgun Barrel Modification Manual or his instructional shooting DVDs, contact Tom Roster, 1190 Lynnewood Blvd., Klamath Falls, OR 97601, 541-884-2974. May 09, 2019.
The Questionable Record of Steel Shot
Above, Federal's 'Anatomy of a Shotshell.' The result of use of steel shot (99% iron) has reduced or elminated the usefulness of amaller gauges and compression-formed hulls due to case capacity considerations. The 12 gauge shells that were mostly full of air and stacks of wadding in times past are now at or near case capacity.
The debate over steel shot has been going on for years. Some of the information is conflicting. 'The average waterfowl hunter cannot break six of eight clay targets at 20 yards,' says Tom Roster. Yet, a CONSEP study showed the average first shot taken on a goose was 67 yards. In the same study, the average shot on a duck was 53 yards.
Tom Roster objected that the NILO farms study, that illuminated just how poor steel was, was unfair to steel, as the lead loads used were too good: high-antimony, buffered Winchester-Western loads that were the 'Cadillac of Lead loads,' and used by just five percent of waterfowl hunters back in the day. Later in the same paper, Mr. Roster claims buffered loads are used by 10% of hunters, however.
Ed Lowry agreed, in part, finding that steel shot retains a minimum of 12% higher form factor than steel, and redid all the SAAMI ballistic tables as well that were completed back on February 26, 1970, to the benefit of steel. Tom Roster complained, in 1978, about the poor 1100 fps early steel loads, though 1365 fps steel loads were already available. Mr. Roster goes on to suggest that steel loads, two shot sizes larger than lead, could be as capable at bagging waterfowl to 70 yards.
Mr. Roster also dramatically misrepresented the pattern efficiency of steel, claiming that while lead struggles to get to 70% pattern efficiency, steel 'typically patterns 82 – 90 percent at 40 yards' and 45 – 60% at 60 yards. This is a very long ways from fact, however, as even today (2013) with a factory 'modified choke' called 'full' when used with steel, 70 – 75 % patterns are typical. The 82% - 90% pattern is not typical at all. As evidence of something, hard to discern what, Roster talks of 1300 fps experimental 1-1/4 oz. #1 steel loads used for six consecutive one shot kills on geese, with nine shots. That would seem to quite be a math problem.
But, Ed Lowry and others loudly disagreed with Mr. Roster. Ed Lowry wrote, in 1989, 'There are some very able shotshell development engineers in the industry. But steel's density limitation is such that that no one of them will ever be able to to develop an effective long range steel waterfowl load.'
Ed Lowry's research showed Roster's notion of shot string to be well off the mark, with steel loads producing pattern thinning actually worse than lead. Few folks have agreed on much of anything, and the many of the 'studies' performed over the years aren't scientific studies at all, but just poor collections of interviews. A review of many of them shows pseudo-scientific babble terms like 'more effective' and less effective, better and worse patterns, more lethality and less lethality, without any definition of what better or worse means, much less how much better or worse.
Mr. Roster claimed that 'energy' was a factor, you need 3 fpe to kill a goose. The wrong-headed notions of energy and energy transfer have long ago been disproved by Dr. Martin Fackler and others. Yet, some still cling to kinetic energy as being a wounding mechanism, though it is transparently obvious that it is not. It is as if someone thinks that arrows don't work, yet they've taken everything on the planet including bull elephant despite their spectacular lack of kinetic energy.
A 1400 fps 3 ft. instrumental velocity load of #2 steel has 3.05 fpe per pellet at 50 yards, according to Winchester Research. A 1330 fps load of #5 lead has 2.39 fpe per pellet at 50 yards. Those that blindly buy into the energy myth would have to say that #2 steel is far superior to #5 lead. Of course, the opposite is more true, for at 50 yards #5 lead creates 1.65 inches of penetration into ballistic gelatin, while faster muzzle velocity, higher energy steel actually has less penetration, 1.5 inches.
Steel shot itself, is mostly iron. Daisy Manufacturing uses low carbon steel 1008 wire to make its shot. Steel wire of a selected diameter is protruded through a hole in a header machine plate. A blade cuts the wire to the desired size. Opposing dies catch the falling piece and press it into a ball. The collected balls are ground using cast iron grinding wheels to a specified diameter. The shot is then annealed to a maximum hardness of79 on the Rockwell 15T scale. The final step is the application an oil coating to prevent rust. There is no polishing. Daisy manufactures steel shot in whole number sizes from #8 to F (TIT) size (14,15). 1008 steel wire is 99% iron.
Though there are few areas of agreement, there is one: steel, while deficient in density by having only 70% of the density of lead, the clear advantage of steel is its ability to retain spherical form factor. However, due to marketing-driven misguidance, the one advantage universally accepted that steel has, the ability to retain its sphericity, is gone with Black Cloud and even worse, Winchester Blindside. As Winchester Blindside has no sphericity to start with, it isn't possible to retain it.
The standard performance designations of choke do not change regardless of shell or shot type. If you throw a 65% pattern into a 30 inch circle at 40 yards, that is full choke performance regardless. The obvious problem revealed with a comparison of #2 steel to #5 lead, aside from the weaker penetration of steel, is pellet count. One and a quarter ounce of #2 steel approximates 156 pellets. One and a quarter ounce of 3% antimony #5 lead approximates 212 pellets. The 65% #2 steel load is about 101 pellets, while a 65% lead #5 load is about 138 pellets. With a better than 36% pellet count deficit, steel 'full' choke loads have a lot of ground to make up.
As a practical matter, they don't get there. A 1-7/8 oz. buffered lead load of #5 shot is about 319 pellets. Not my idea of a comfortable load to use, but they have been readily available for a very long time. Now, a 65% pattern is 207 pellets or so, more than 32% more than the 1-1/4 oz. steel load has before it is even fired.
Ed Lowry later discussed (September, 1993) what was learned from the two extensive mortality studies at Patuxent and Nilo Farms: 'Both programs also disclosed that if two pellets deposited the same amount of lethal energy, the smaller one's energy is more lethally effective.' Lowry continues, explaining that 'the much touted theory of No. 2s 'compensating' for steel's low density, and thereby matching lead No. 4s, is rudely rejected by an elementary law of ballistic behavior.' Lowry also mentioned, 'Steel's density cannot be increased, its pellets cannot be made rounder, and its scouring hardness cannot be made much softer. This tells us that steel shot is now as good as it will ever be. Thus, the doctrine that steel is ballistically equivalent to lead is emphatically contradicted by the laws of physics and the measurements at Nilo.'
A further complication is what shotguns themselves are designed for presently. The CIP has three standards of steel shot proof. Standard 12-65 to 12-70, 740 400, (1310), High Performance 12-70 (1410), and High Performance 12-73 and longer.
The highest standard is 'High Performance Steel for 12 Bores, 12-73 and Longer.'
'Where the steel shot diameter exceeds 4 mm ('BB' or larger), only weapons having barrels with a choke less than 0.5 mm (equivalent to half choke) are to be used. The mean velocity measured at a point 2.50 m from the muzzle, for any 12/70 or longer cartridge, must be = 430 m/s (around 1,410 ft/s).'
A 1250 fps #2 (spherical)steel load has 588 fps strike velocity at 50 yards. A 1400 fps #2 steel load has 625 fps strike velocity at 50 yards. Go to 1500 fps, you have 649 fps strike velocity at 50 yards. Any deformed, non spherical version of steel shot sheds velocity even more rapidly, offering lower strike velocities. While it wouldn't be correct to suggest higher muzzle velocity does nothing, but it doesn't offer any significant return for the added recoil.
It offers even less in actuality, considering SAAMI muzzle velocities specifications are +/- 90 fps, the lab velocities are not recorded with your hunting atmosphere or temperature, and stated velocities are with 30 inch barrels in 12 gauge . . . which you may or may not be using.
WHY EVERYONE HAS IT WRONG
Overall crippling and lost bird rates were 42%, 46%, and 36% at Patuxent, designated as unbagged birds. This is despite using game farm mallards restricted to firing harnesses and perfectly centered electronically triggered shotgun live fire.This level of very poor results should give everyone pause, regardless if you are inclined to favor lead or steel. Neither shot type performed at a high level of effectiveness at long range.
Tom Roster Shotshell Manual Pdf
Most every study ever done conflicts violently with other studies. If they don't have it all wrong, they sure don't have it all completely right. There are clear reasons for this. Between the Patuxent and Nilo studies, some 4400 game farm mallards were killed in flying harnesses, with shotguns fired electronically to precisely center the pattern.
But that isn't how ducks (or anything else) are hunted. No one shoots at birds in flying harnesses and it isn't possible that the harnesses themselves perfectly simulate free-flight. Nor do human beings fire shotguns by remote electronic triggering, not all patterns are perfectly centered, and hunting isn't shooting at a bird at one exact, precisely known range. We also hunt wild animals, not pen-raised or game farm anything.
Mr. Roster's lament that buffered lead loads are too good is a silly one. Whether and individual patterns his gun with a wide variety of shells until he finds the most appropriate shell / choke combination for the application is totally the individual's choice. Certainly, those that take the time and effort to find the best-performing loads have a field advantage, just as those that practice more and are better wingshots do as opposed to those that are not. Who patterns and who does not, who is a better shot and who is not, all of these components are matters of sheer, baseless speculation. Who shoots only within their effect range and who skybusts? No one knows, it isn't worth the idle gossip, for we can only control what we do, not what someone in another state or country theoretically may or may not do.
Buffered high-antimony lead loads are substantially superior to softer, unbuffered loads. Whether five or ten percent of hunters use them or not is not relevant. What is relevant is that they are better-performing loads. Whether people want to use better performing loads or not is only their decision.
Tom Roster Shotshells
The same scenario is true of steel loads, where use of lead is not an option. Of course they work, within range. Higher density shot materials, from Tungsten-Matrix to Nice Shot to Winchester HD to Federal Heavyweight, along with other tungsten loads are vastly superior to steel beyond any doubt. No one I know claims to be a subsistence hunter; hunting is a recreational activity. The cost per pound of wild game meat makes no strict economic sense. It may make a bit more sense to some than shooting at things we never eat, like paper and clay, but it if it is just food we want, perhaps we should all raise chickens and buy a goat.
The important part is what tools we have available to use, currently, to allow us to become more effective hunters in the field. Shotshell and choke selection are two of the most significant tools that we have.
Copyright 2013 by Randy Wakeman. All Rights Reserved.
A nontoxic-shot ballistics expert helps bird hunters hit their targets.
This story is featured in Montana Outdoors September-October 2013 issue
You'd think it would be easy to kill a flying duck with a shotgun.
After all, many loads contain 150 to 175 pellets that, upon reaching the bird, are spread out in a swarm 3 to 5 feet in diameter and 6 to 8 feet long. How can anyone not hit the target with all that metal in the air?
Yet too often we do, either missing entirely or, even worse, wounding and then never recovering the duck.
Learn more:
Tom Roster has been working 30 years to change that.
A shotgun ballistics expert based in Oregon, Roster is a leading authority on shotgun ammunition efficiency and wounding loss in game bird hunting. He also was a longtime paid consultant with the recently discontinued CONSEP (Cooperative North American Shotgunning Education Program). The nonprofit organization was formed in 1982 and funded by several states' conservation agencies, including Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, to improve hunter proficiency with steel and other nontoxic shot. Nontoxic shot has been required for waterfowl hunting since the late 1980s, and is mandatory on federal waterfowl areas for all game bird hunting. The requirement grew out of concerns by waterfowl managers and hunters about lead poisoning in wildlife. Waterfowl ingest pellets when feeding on shallow lake bottoms containing spent shot, and bald eagles and other raptors are poisoned when feeding on birds wounded with lead but not retrieved.
As he has for the past three decades in states across the country, Roster recently conducted a two-day shooting-proficiency seminar in Helena for roughly two dozen outdoor education specialists, game bird conservation group members, and hunter education instructors. He turned many of our long-held beliefs about steel and other nontoxic shot completely upside down.
Why so few hits?
The primary reason bird hunters miss their mark is because the target is moving fast, and shooters misjudge its speed or angle of flight. They also misjudge distance. The optimum killing range for most ducks and geese is about 30 yards. If a hunter thinks a bird is that far away but it's really 50 yards off, the odds are that no pellets will strike the target's vital areas, though a few pellets may hit nonlethal body parts and wound the animal.
Another reason for crippling is that hunters accustomed to lead use the wrong load or the wrong choke when firing steel.
Finally, misconceptions exist among hunters as to what constitutes a normal daily waterfowl harvest. TV shows, DVDs, and magazine articles that show hunters regularly killing their limits of ducks and geese create the impression that high harvests are commonplace. That causes hunters to believe they should kill a limit just as 'everyone else' seems to be doing. In fact, hunters nationwide actually kill an average of two ducks per day afield each year.
Poor reflection
Wounding loss occurs when a hunter hits a duck or goose with pellets but does not retrieve the bird. According to CONSEP, a conservative average wounding rate for ducks and waterfowl nationwide by hunters is 25 percent, or one bird struck but unretrieved for every three hit and recovered. That translates into roughly 2.5 to 3 million lost ducks and another 1 million lost geese.
To lessen its effect on waterfowl populations, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service factors in this loss when making annual hunting regulations. Still, unretrieved ducks and geese don't end up on hunters' dinner plates. If one reason we hunt is to obtain food, wounding obviously makes that goal harder to achieve.
'Wounding also reflects poorly on hunters,' says Ken McDonald, head of the FWP Wildlife Division. 'Hunters and wildlife agencies have long been committed to hunting ethically and proficiently and taking all measures to reduce suffering of game animals. Out of respect for the resource, we have an obligation to understand and reduce wounding loss with birds and do what we can to improve our shooting.'
McDonald notes that FWP does that with big game by requiring hunter safety and bowhunter education emphasizing ethical shot placement. 'Improving shotgun shooting proficiency is along the same lines,' he says.
What to do
According to Roster, duck and goose hunters can reduce crippling by taking some simple yet essential steps, including:
- Learn to judge distances to prevent shooting at birds beyond the effective killing range ('sky busting'). An easy way to practice is by drawing a silhouette of a mallard or Canada goose (depending on which you shoot most) on a sheet of plywood and then posting it at various distances. Look down your shotgun barrel to see how much of the muzzle obscures the silhouette, which you'll need to remember when you're in your blind while hunting. Freezout Lake Wildlife Management Area has silhouettes available for public use.
- Employ decoys and proficient calling to bring ducks and geese closer.
- Use a trained hunting dog to find and retrieve cripples.
- When you wound a bird, stop shooting immediately and make every effort to retrieve it (as state and federal waterfowl regulations require), no matter how far off it lands and even if doing so flares incoming birds.
- Use the right load and appropriate choke. Roster has developed a copyrighted nontoxic-shot lethality table showing the most effective loads and barrel chokes for different sizes of waterfowl at various distances. The comprehensive chart, found in Montana's waterfowl regulations, shows which nontoxic-shot sizes do the best job of penetrating the bird's vital areas with enough pellets to kill it.
The most important step hunters can take to reduce wounding loss is to learn to shoot more effectively. Over the past three decades, Roster has personally taught roughly 18,000 bird hunters worldwide to do just that. His three tips that registered most with me, someone who has been hunting ducks for 35 years:
- Envision the shot string. Just as I once did, many hunters picture pellets flying through the air at a uniform speed, arriving at their target at the same time, like a flyswatter slapping a window. But pellets move in a somewhat cylindrical 'string,' with the rounder ones out in front and those that deform lagging behind and spreading out. Due to wind resistance, lead has a longer shot string because the soft metal deforms more when projected. Because steel and other nontoxic pellets are rounder and less likely to alter shape, the shot has a shorter string and tighter pattern. 'So the string with hard nontoxic shot is only about half as long as the sloppy lead string, making it less forgiving,' says Roster. Even so, at 30 or 40 yards nontoxic shot has a shot string that's about 7 feet long and 4 feet in diameter, about the size of a sofa. So now when I shoot I conceptualize my shotgun sending a sofa-sized volume of shot toward the target.
- Get way out in front. 'The worst thing you can do is to shoot behind the target, because you aren't making use of all those pellets in the shot string. It's unforgivable,' says Roster. 'I tell every shooter to get way ahead of the target, much farther than you think you should be.' That way, he explains, even if shooters are too far ahead with the beginning of their shot string, they'll still hit the target with the middle or end of it. 'You have a lot more margin of error if you shoot too far ahead, but no margin if you shoot behind,' Roster says. I found that last sentence to be the single most important thing Roster said during a two-day seminar of telling us a lot of important things.
- Follow through. Roster says too often shooters don't swing through the target and end up stopping as they fire, causing them to shoot behind. 'Start off with the muzzle behind the target, catch up to the target, pass the target and fire, then follow through after firing—all in one fluid motion,' he says.
During the field workshop on day two of the seminar, I was there as Roster worked with a middle-aged shooter who has been hunting ducks since he was a teenager. Using a remote control, Roster ejected clay pigeons from a launcher left to right 30 yards out from the firing line. As he had repeatedly done for the previous hour with a dozen other students, Roster instructed the shooter, 'Start behind, get ahead, shoot, and keep swinging.'
Tom Roster Shotshell Manuals
The first clay pigeon was cleanly missed.
'You were behind. Get out more ahead,' said Roster, who watched over the shooter's shoulder to view the shot string. 'You want to start the barrel behind the target and a tad below, then move through the target and slam the trigger when you get past it.'
Tom Roster Shotshell Manual Download
The shooter missed a second time, and then insisted he was leading more than ever. A patient man, Roster looked frustrated nonetheless.
'This time get out twice as far ahead of the target as you think you should be.' Kotor 1 mods reddit.
Suddenly a lightbulb went off in the shooter's brain. He envisioned sending an entire sofa-shaped mass of shot far out in front of the next target. 'Pull!' he said.
Roster launched the target. The shooter powdered it. Said Roster, 'Now that's what I'm talking about.'
Roster sells DVDs of his shotgun shooting methods. Order 'Shotgun Handling for Hunting,' 'Perfecting the Overhead and Side Shot,' or 'Pass Shooting Demonstrations and Techniques' by contacting him at tomroster@charter.net
Tom Dickson is editor of Montana Outdoors.
What kills the bird
Roster has examined thousands of X-rays of dead ducks and geese. He says it's not the trauma of being hit by many pellets that kills a bird but the number of pellets (one or two minimum) that penetrate the brain, heart, lungs, or spinal column. A shooter's goal is to find the right choke that gives him or her enough pellets inside a 30-inch circle at 30 yards to ensure that at least one or two pellets hit those vital spots. Consult Rosters's lethality table, found in Montana's waterfowl regulations, for details.
Penetration
Roster says hunters can't kill a bird unless a few pellets penetrate a vital area. Because steel is lighter than lead, you need a bigger pellet to get the same penetration. So if you want a steel pellet to have the same penetration as a No. 4 lead pellet, it needs to be two shot sizes larger, or a No. 2 steel. For Roster's recommended steel shot sizes and chokes for various sizes of waterfowl, see his lethality table.
Steel versus lead
Steel appears to be saddled with several disadvantages when compared with lead:
(1) Because the harder pellets deform less in the air and don't stray off to the sides, steel has a tighter pattern and therefore is less forgiving on misjudged shots; (2) also due to the fact that fewer pellets deform and slow down, it has a shorter shot string, making it less forgiving in this way, too; and (3) because steel is less dense than lead, shooters need larger pellets to get the same pellet weight and, thus, penetration into the bird. So using steel means fewer pellets in the air to hit the bird.
Ed Lowry agreed, in part, finding that steel shot retains a minimum of 12% higher form factor than steel, and redid all the SAAMI ballistic tables as well that were completed back on February 26, 1970, to the benefit of steel. Tom Roster complained, in 1978, about the poor 1100 fps early steel loads, though 1365 fps steel loads were already available. Mr. Roster goes on to suggest that steel loads, two shot sizes larger than lead, could be as capable at bagging waterfowl to 70 yards.
Mr. Roster also dramatically misrepresented the pattern efficiency of steel, claiming that while lead struggles to get to 70% pattern efficiency, steel 'typically patterns 82 – 90 percent at 40 yards' and 45 – 60% at 60 yards. This is a very long ways from fact, however, as even today (2013) with a factory 'modified choke' called 'full' when used with steel, 70 – 75 % patterns are typical. The 82% - 90% pattern is not typical at all. As evidence of something, hard to discern what, Roster talks of 1300 fps experimental 1-1/4 oz. #1 steel loads used for six consecutive one shot kills on geese, with nine shots. That would seem to quite be a math problem.
But, Ed Lowry and others loudly disagreed with Mr. Roster. Ed Lowry wrote, in 1989, 'There are some very able shotshell development engineers in the industry. But steel's density limitation is such that that no one of them will ever be able to to develop an effective long range steel waterfowl load.'
Ed Lowry's research showed Roster's notion of shot string to be well off the mark, with steel loads producing pattern thinning actually worse than lead. Few folks have agreed on much of anything, and the many of the 'studies' performed over the years aren't scientific studies at all, but just poor collections of interviews. A review of many of them shows pseudo-scientific babble terms like 'more effective' and less effective, better and worse patterns, more lethality and less lethality, without any definition of what better or worse means, much less how much better or worse.
Mr. Roster claimed that 'energy' was a factor, you need 3 fpe to kill a goose. The wrong-headed notions of energy and energy transfer have long ago been disproved by Dr. Martin Fackler and others. Yet, some still cling to kinetic energy as being a wounding mechanism, though it is transparently obvious that it is not. It is as if someone thinks that arrows don't work, yet they've taken everything on the planet including bull elephant despite their spectacular lack of kinetic energy.
A 1400 fps 3 ft. instrumental velocity load of #2 steel has 3.05 fpe per pellet at 50 yards, according to Winchester Research. A 1330 fps load of #5 lead has 2.39 fpe per pellet at 50 yards. Those that blindly buy into the energy myth would have to say that #2 steel is far superior to #5 lead. Of course, the opposite is more true, for at 50 yards #5 lead creates 1.65 inches of penetration into ballistic gelatin, while faster muzzle velocity, higher energy steel actually has less penetration, 1.5 inches.
Steel shot itself, is mostly iron. Daisy Manufacturing uses low carbon steel 1008 wire to make its shot. Steel wire of a selected diameter is protruded through a hole in a header machine plate. A blade cuts the wire to the desired size. Opposing dies catch the falling piece and press it into a ball. The collected balls are ground using cast iron grinding wheels to a specified diameter. The shot is then annealed to a maximum hardness of79 on the Rockwell 15T scale. The final step is the application an oil coating to prevent rust. There is no polishing. Daisy manufactures steel shot in whole number sizes from #8 to F (TIT) size (14,15). 1008 steel wire is 99% iron.
Though there are few areas of agreement, there is one: steel, while deficient in density by having only 70% of the density of lead, the clear advantage of steel is its ability to retain spherical form factor. However, due to marketing-driven misguidance, the one advantage universally accepted that steel has, the ability to retain its sphericity, is gone with Black Cloud and even worse, Winchester Blindside. As Winchester Blindside has no sphericity to start with, it isn't possible to retain it.
The standard performance designations of choke do not change regardless of shell or shot type. If you throw a 65% pattern into a 30 inch circle at 40 yards, that is full choke performance regardless. The obvious problem revealed with a comparison of #2 steel to #5 lead, aside from the weaker penetration of steel, is pellet count. One and a quarter ounce of #2 steel approximates 156 pellets. One and a quarter ounce of 3% antimony #5 lead approximates 212 pellets. The 65% #2 steel load is about 101 pellets, while a 65% lead #5 load is about 138 pellets. With a better than 36% pellet count deficit, steel 'full' choke loads have a lot of ground to make up.
As a practical matter, they don't get there. A 1-7/8 oz. buffered lead load of #5 shot is about 319 pellets. Not my idea of a comfortable load to use, but they have been readily available for a very long time. Now, a 65% pattern is 207 pellets or so, more than 32% more than the 1-1/4 oz. steel load has before it is even fired.
Ed Lowry later discussed (September, 1993) what was learned from the two extensive mortality studies at Patuxent and Nilo Farms: 'Both programs also disclosed that if two pellets deposited the same amount of lethal energy, the smaller one's energy is more lethally effective.' Lowry continues, explaining that 'the much touted theory of No. 2s 'compensating' for steel's low density, and thereby matching lead No. 4s, is rudely rejected by an elementary law of ballistic behavior.' Lowry also mentioned, 'Steel's density cannot be increased, its pellets cannot be made rounder, and its scouring hardness cannot be made much softer. This tells us that steel shot is now as good as it will ever be. Thus, the doctrine that steel is ballistically equivalent to lead is emphatically contradicted by the laws of physics and the measurements at Nilo.'
A further complication is what shotguns themselves are designed for presently. The CIP has three standards of steel shot proof. Standard 12-65 to 12-70, 740 400, (1310), High Performance 12-70 (1410), and High Performance 12-73 and longer.
The highest standard is 'High Performance Steel for 12 Bores, 12-73 and Longer.'
'Where the steel shot diameter exceeds 4 mm ('BB' or larger), only weapons having barrels with a choke less than 0.5 mm (equivalent to half choke) are to be used. The mean velocity measured at a point 2.50 m from the muzzle, for any 12/70 or longer cartridge, must be = 430 m/s (around 1,410 ft/s).'
A 1250 fps #2 (spherical)steel load has 588 fps strike velocity at 50 yards. A 1400 fps #2 steel load has 625 fps strike velocity at 50 yards. Go to 1500 fps, you have 649 fps strike velocity at 50 yards. Any deformed, non spherical version of steel shot sheds velocity even more rapidly, offering lower strike velocities. While it wouldn't be correct to suggest higher muzzle velocity does nothing, but it doesn't offer any significant return for the added recoil.
It offers even less in actuality, considering SAAMI muzzle velocities specifications are +/- 90 fps, the lab velocities are not recorded with your hunting atmosphere or temperature, and stated velocities are with 30 inch barrels in 12 gauge . . . which you may or may not be using.
WHY EVERYONE HAS IT WRONG
Overall crippling and lost bird rates were 42%, 46%, and 36% at Patuxent, designated as unbagged birds. This is despite using game farm mallards restricted to firing harnesses and perfectly centered electronically triggered shotgun live fire.This level of very poor results should give everyone pause, regardless if you are inclined to favor lead or steel. Neither shot type performed at a high level of effectiveness at long range.
Tom Roster Shotshell Manual Pdf
Most every study ever done conflicts violently with other studies. If they don't have it all wrong, they sure don't have it all completely right. There are clear reasons for this. Between the Patuxent and Nilo studies, some 4400 game farm mallards were killed in flying harnesses, with shotguns fired electronically to precisely center the pattern.
But that isn't how ducks (or anything else) are hunted. No one shoots at birds in flying harnesses and it isn't possible that the harnesses themselves perfectly simulate free-flight. Nor do human beings fire shotguns by remote electronic triggering, not all patterns are perfectly centered, and hunting isn't shooting at a bird at one exact, precisely known range. We also hunt wild animals, not pen-raised or game farm anything.
Mr. Roster's lament that buffered lead loads are too good is a silly one. Whether and individual patterns his gun with a wide variety of shells until he finds the most appropriate shell / choke combination for the application is totally the individual's choice. Certainly, those that take the time and effort to find the best-performing loads have a field advantage, just as those that practice more and are better wingshots do as opposed to those that are not. Who patterns and who does not, who is a better shot and who is not, all of these components are matters of sheer, baseless speculation. Who shoots only within their effect range and who skybusts? No one knows, it isn't worth the idle gossip, for we can only control what we do, not what someone in another state or country theoretically may or may not do.
Buffered high-antimony lead loads are substantially superior to softer, unbuffered loads. Whether five or ten percent of hunters use them or not is not relevant. What is relevant is that they are better-performing loads. Whether people want to use better performing loads or not is only their decision.
Tom Roster Shotshells
The same scenario is true of steel loads, where use of lead is not an option. Of course they work, within range. Higher density shot materials, from Tungsten-Matrix to Nice Shot to Winchester HD to Federal Heavyweight, along with other tungsten loads are vastly superior to steel beyond any doubt. No one I know claims to be a subsistence hunter; hunting is a recreational activity. The cost per pound of wild game meat makes no strict economic sense. It may make a bit more sense to some than shooting at things we never eat, like paper and clay, but it if it is just food we want, perhaps we should all raise chickens and buy a goat.
The important part is what tools we have available to use, currently, to allow us to become more effective hunters in the field. Shotshell and choke selection are two of the most significant tools that we have.
Copyright 2013 by Randy Wakeman. All Rights Reserved.
A nontoxic-shot ballistics expert helps bird hunters hit their targets.
This story is featured in Montana Outdoors September-October 2013 issue
You'd think it would be easy to kill a flying duck with a shotgun.
After all, many loads contain 150 to 175 pellets that, upon reaching the bird, are spread out in a swarm 3 to 5 feet in diameter and 6 to 8 feet long. How can anyone not hit the target with all that metal in the air?
Yet too often we do, either missing entirely or, even worse, wounding and then never recovering the duck.
Learn more:
Tom Roster has been working 30 years to change that.
A shotgun ballistics expert based in Oregon, Roster is a leading authority on shotgun ammunition efficiency and wounding loss in game bird hunting. He also was a longtime paid consultant with the recently discontinued CONSEP (Cooperative North American Shotgunning Education Program). The nonprofit organization was formed in 1982 and funded by several states' conservation agencies, including Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, to improve hunter proficiency with steel and other nontoxic shot. Nontoxic shot has been required for waterfowl hunting since the late 1980s, and is mandatory on federal waterfowl areas for all game bird hunting. The requirement grew out of concerns by waterfowl managers and hunters about lead poisoning in wildlife. Waterfowl ingest pellets when feeding on shallow lake bottoms containing spent shot, and bald eagles and other raptors are poisoned when feeding on birds wounded with lead but not retrieved.
As he has for the past three decades in states across the country, Roster recently conducted a two-day shooting-proficiency seminar in Helena for roughly two dozen outdoor education specialists, game bird conservation group members, and hunter education instructors. He turned many of our long-held beliefs about steel and other nontoxic shot completely upside down.
Why so few hits?
The primary reason bird hunters miss their mark is because the target is moving fast, and shooters misjudge its speed or angle of flight. They also misjudge distance. The optimum killing range for most ducks and geese is about 30 yards. If a hunter thinks a bird is that far away but it's really 50 yards off, the odds are that no pellets will strike the target's vital areas, though a few pellets may hit nonlethal body parts and wound the animal.
Another reason for crippling is that hunters accustomed to lead use the wrong load or the wrong choke when firing steel.
Finally, misconceptions exist among hunters as to what constitutes a normal daily waterfowl harvest. TV shows, DVDs, and magazine articles that show hunters regularly killing their limits of ducks and geese create the impression that high harvests are commonplace. That causes hunters to believe they should kill a limit just as 'everyone else' seems to be doing. In fact, hunters nationwide actually kill an average of two ducks per day afield each year.
Poor reflection
Wounding loss occurs when a hunter hits a duck or goose with pellets but does not retrieve the bird. According to CONSEP, a conservative average wounding rate for ducks and waterfowl nationwide by hunters is 25 percent, or one bird struck but unretrieved for every three hit and recovered. That translates into roughly 2.5 to 3 million lost ducks and another 1 million lost geese.
To lessen its effect on waterfowl populations, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service factors in this loss when making annual hunting regulations. Still, unretrieved ducks and geese don't end up on hunters' dinner plates. If one reason we hunt is to obtain food, wounding obviously makes that goal harder to achieve.
'Wounding also reflects poorly on hunters,' says Ken McDonald, head of the FWP Wildlife Division. 'Hunters and wildlife agencies have long been committed to hunting ethically and proficiently and taking all measures to reduce suffering of game animals. Out of respect for the resource, we have an obligation to understand and reduce wounding loss with birds and do what we can to improve our shooting.'
McDonald notes that FWP does that with big game by requiring hunter safety and bowhunter education emphasizing ethical shot placement. 'Improving shotgun shooting proficiency is along the same lines,' he says.
What to do
According to Roster, duck and goose hunters can reduce crippling by taking some simple yet essential steps, including:
- Learn to judge distances to prevent shooting at birds beyond the effective killing range ('sky busting'). An easy way to practice is by drawing a silhouette of a mallard or Canada goose (depending on which you shoot most) on a sheet of plywood and then posting it at various distances. Look down your shotgun barrel to see how much of the muzzle obscures the silhouette, which you'll need to remember when you're in your blind while hunting. Freezout Lake Wildlife Management Area has silhouettes available for public use.
- Employ decoys and proficient calling to bring ducks and geese closer.
- Use a trained hunting dog to find and retrieve cripples.
- When you wound a bird, stop shooting immediately and make every effort to retrieve it (as state and federal waterfowl regulations require), no matter how far off it lands and even if doing so flares incoming birds.
- Use the right load and appropriate choke. Roster has developed a copyrighted nontoxic-shot lethality table showing the most effective loads and barrel chokes for different sizes of waterfowl at various distances. The comprehensive chart, found in Montana's waterfowl regulations, shows which nontoxic-shot sizes do the best job of penetrating the bird's vital areas with enough pellets to kill it.
The most important step hunters can take to reduce wounding loss is to learn to shoot more effectively. Over the past three decades, Roster has personally taught roughly 18,000 bird hunters worldwide to do just that. His three tips that registered most with me, someone who has been hunting ducks for 35 years:
- Envision the shot string. Just as I once did, many hunters picture pellets flying through the air at a uniform speed, arriving at their target at the same time, like a flyswatter slapping a window. But pellets move in a somewhat cylindrical 'string,' with the rounder ones out in front and those that deform lagging behind and spreading out. Due to wind resistance, lead has a longer shot string because the soft metal deforms more when projected. Because steel and other nontoxic pellets are rounder and less likely to alter shape, the shot has a shorter string and tighter pattern. 'So the string with hard nontoxic shot is only about half as long as the sloppy lead string, making it less forgiving,' says Roster. Even so, at 30 or 40 yards nontoxic shot has a shot string that's about 7 feet long and 4 feet in diameter, about the size of a sofa. So now when I shoot I conceptualize my shotgun sending a sofa-sized volume of shot toward the target.
- Get way out in front. 'The worst thing you can do is to shoot behind the target, because you aren't making use of all those pellets in the shot string. It's unforgivable,' says Roster. 'I tell every shooter to get way ahead of the target, much farther than you think you should be.' That way, he explains, even if shooters are too far ahead with the beginning of their shot string, they'll still hit the target with the middle or end of it. 'You have a lot more margin of error if you shoot too far ahead, but no margin if you shoot behind,' Roster says. I found that last sentence to be the single most important thing Roster said during a two-day seminar of telling us a lot of important things.
- Follow through. Roster says too often shooters don't swing through the target and end up stopping as they fire, causing them to shoot behind. 'Start off with the muzzle behind the target, catch up to the target, pass the target and fire, then follow through after firing—all in one fluid motion,' he says.
During the field workshop on day two of the seminar, I was there as Roster worked with a middle-aged shooter who has been hunting ducks since he was a teenager. Using a remote control, Roster ejected clay pigeons from a launcher left to right 30 yards out from the firing line. As he had repeatedly done for the previous hour with a dozen other students, Roster instructed the shooter, 'Start behind, get ahead, shoot, and keep swinging.'
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The first clay pigeon was cleanly missed.
'You were behind. Get out more ahead,' said Roster, who watched over the shooter's shoulder to view the shot string. 'You want to start the barrel behind the target and a tad below, then move through the target and slam the trigger when you get past it.'
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The shooter missed a second time, and then insisted he was leading more than ever. A patient man, Roster looked frustrated nonetheless.
'This time get out twice as far ahead of the target as you think you should be.' Kotor 1 mods reddit.
Suddenly a lightbulb went off in the shooter's brain. He envisioned sending an entire sofa-shaped mass of shot far out in front of the next target. 'Pull!' he said.
Roster launched the target. The shooter powdered it. Said Roster, 'Now that's what I'm talking about.'
Roster sells DVDs of his shotgun shooting methods. Order 'Shotgun Handling for Hunting,' 'Perfecting the Overhead and Side Shot,' or 'Pass Shooting Demonstrations and Techniques' by contacting him at tomroster@charter.net
Tom Dickson is editor of Montana Outdoors.
What kills the bird
Roster has examined thousands of X-rays of dead ducks and geese. He says it's not the trauma of being hit by many pellets that kills a bird but the number of pellets (one or two minimum) that penetrate the brain, heart, lungs, or spinal column. A shooter's goal is to find the right choke that gives him or her enough pellets inside a 30-inch circle at 30 yards to ensure that at least one or two pellets hit those vital spots. Consult Rosters's lethality table, found in Montana's waterfowl regulations, for details.
Penetration
Roster says hunters can't kill a bird unless a few pellets penetrate a vital area. Because steel is lighter than lead, you need a bigger pellet to get the same penetration. So if you want a steel pellet to have the same penetration as a No. 4 lead pellet, it needs to be two shot sizes larger, or a No. 2 steel. For Roster's recommended steel shot sizes and chokes for various sizes of waterfowl, see his lethality table.
Steel versus lead
Steel appears to be saddled with several disadvantages when compared with lead:
(1) Because the harder pellets deform less in the air and don't stray off to the sides, steel has a tighter pattern and therefore is less forgiving on misjudged shots; (2) also due to the fact that fewer pellets deform and slow down, it has a shorter shot string, making it less forgiving in this way, too; and (3) because steel is less dense than lead, shooters need larger pellets to get the same pellet weight and, thus, penetration into the bird. So using steel means fewer pellets in the air to hit the bird.
But Roster notes that disadvantage
- can be overcome by opening the choke (say, from modified to improved cylinder). Shooters can overcome disadvantage
- by improving shooting proficiency as explained on pages 30-31. And disadvantage
- isn't in fact a problem. Roughly the same amount of No. 4 lead pellets end up hitting the bird as do No. 2 steel pellets. Though the lead load contains more pellets, so many deform in flight they end up wobbling off to the sides and don't come anywhere near the target. It's not that steel shoots 'too tight,' as many shooters complain, Roster says. It's that lead shoots 'too loose.'
Barrel erosion and damage from steel
Early steel loads damaged barrels, says Roster, but all that changed starting in the 1980s. That's when manufacturers began using a shotcup system Roster designed and patented to encase the shot so it could move down the barrel without touching the interior surface. As for bulging, Roster says there is a small chance that steel could slightly bulge the muzzle of old European side-by-side shotguns—which have thinner, softer barrels—in full or modified choke. 'But that happens very rarely,' he says. Bulging may also occur on early model guns that have screw-in chokes not made for steel. 'Always check the owner's manual,' Roster advises.
Choke
You want your choke to be as open as possible while still getting the necessary minimum number of pellets into a 30-inch circle at 30 yards. To determine this, pattern your gun with various loads to determine how open a choke you can get away with. Consult Roster's lethality table for his choke recommendations for various loads.
Other nontoxic loads
Despite two decades of tinkering with composites of bismuth, tungsten, nickel, and other metals, shell manufacturer have not found
a way to equal the density of lead without doubling or tripling the price. 'Most bird hunters are sticking with steel, which makes up nearly 90 percent of all nontoxic sales,' says Roster. 'It will remain king long into the future.'
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