Shooting Steel

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MAXLISTER1987

MAXLISTER1987

Well-Known Member
Evening gents, slightly off topic I know, I was wondering who amongst us is currently shooting steel and what their go to cartridge and load is? The is a group of us that attend various driven game days throughout the season where we can and it seems to be going from, "oh just carry a box of steel in your cartridge bag" to "sorry gents this year we HAVE to use it"

So having put it off long enough, nows the time to perhaps explore it and look at what options there really are,
 
MAXLISTER1987 said:
How do you find them
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I'm not much of a shotgun shot but personally no noticable difference to the lead cartridges I used to use which would have been Lyalvale Express 5's.

I've shot rabbits, hares, pigeons, duck, the odd pheasant etc etc. I guess out to 40yds, normal sorts of shotgun ranges. I'm not sure I pay that much attention.

I should think I have been using them for maybe four years, possibly five.

The guys that shoot pigeons for me seem happy with them... But I suppose they are getting them for free. Although they are rude enough to tell me.
 
hope you can find them (Jocker) as they have been i think you will find unavailable for sometime now, but work well within normal game, pigeon decoying shooting distances and competitively priced, just wish i had brought a few more slabs when i did.

assuming you don't want to litter the countryside with non biodegradable plastic for the next few hundred years then the Eley water soluble wads with steel shot are a good option also but at a higher price.
 
Liveonce said:
hope you can find them (Jocker) as they have been i think you will find unavailable for sometime now, but work well within normal game, pigeon decoying shooting distances and competitively priced, just wish i had brought a few more slabs when i did.

assuming you don't want to litter the countryside with non biodegradable plastic for the next few hundred years then the Eley water soluble wads with steel shot are a good option also but at a higher price.
Click to expand...
Anything considered at the moment, get what you pay for like everything I guess
 
MAXLISTER1987 said:
Evening gents, slightly off topic I know, I was wondering who amongst us is currently shooting steel and what their go to cartridge and load is? The is a group of us that attend various driven game days throughout the season where we can and it seems to be going from, "oh just carry a box of steel in your cartridge bag" to "sorry gents this year we HAVE to use it"

So having put it off long enough, nows the time to perhaps explore it and look at what options there really are,
Click to expand...
I use for ducks 30" 1/4 1/2 32 3-4s also 34gm the same so depending what height they are something around that.
Watch the Dave Carrie vids on YT and he will show you what is what on the high stuff
 
MAXLISTER1987 said:
Evening gents, slightly off topic I know, I was wondering who amongst us is currently shooting steel and what their go to cartridge and load is? The is a group of us that attend various driven game days throughout the season where we can and it seems to be going from, "oh just carry a box of steel in your cartridge bag" to "sorry gents this year we HAVE to use it"

So having put it off long enough, nows the time to perhaps explore it and look at what options there really are,
Click to expand...
I beat two seasons ago, and before that beat there pre-covid and my son last season at a shoot where they've all used steel for a very long time. The guns shoot mainly over and under guns save one who shoots an AYA No2 and another who shoots a new made for him Chapuis boxlock. I'll ask them via our WhatsApp group but I think it is mainly Gamebore that they use? FWIW the bag is usually heavy on duck (the shoot boundary to the north is the River Trent) so at the end of a day maybe 65% duck and 35% pheasant so that's why steel is used. Give them a day or so to respond and I'll post the answers. OK?
 
I use the Eley Grand prix steel or Gamebore Regal Steel in my old 2 1/2” chambered guns and have done so since they became available. I see no difference to the original lead versions in terms of killing ability and missing ability.

Provided your gun is in good order, has a post 1954 proof and chocked with less than half choke you can use such cartridges in any shotgun.

Some prefer the High Speed steel that can only be used in a steel proofed gun. I do use these on the foreshore out of a modern semi auto on ducks and geese, but they are substantially more expensive. And as others have said they kick and are noisy.

But I see little need to use such cartridges on every day shooting, in the same way you did not use Alphamax or Magnum cartridges for everyday game shooting in the pre lead era.

Going back to the normal steel, I really have need to change anything other than the cartridge. I still shoot the same way. Perhaps timing is slightly different - in the same that a different brand of cartridge is often a little different and it might a few shots at the beginning of the day to warm up. But then don’t really know whether its the cartridge or me.
 
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Tim.243 said:
We have shot steel for a long time on ducks over the marsh, the new kids on the block are the game shooters. 🥲
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Yes. I had to use bismuth on my pond in the final years I owned it when the lead ban came in for wildfowl and anyway it was also an SSSI and me in Leicestershire too and eighty miles from the sea and even that was but Skegness! I do wonder what these two lads at my great-grandmother's hotel (there she is stood on the bridge to it from the sea near its fence looking on) would have made of it all this lead, tin, bismuth, steel, tungsten matrix and all the rest of it?

MarineGUNS.jpg
 
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The Marine as it is today...from 8:00 onwards. I can just remember it (as a child aged ten or so in 1967) back then it was also still intact but nevertheless abandoned (I last saw it in maybe 1969 or so) and for me then the many many pillboxes held more interest. Too much "War Picture Monthly" "Commando" comic book and Airfix models no doubt. But I do remember the family stories told to me of it in its pomp. I wish I'd not searched and found this video now but I suppose it gives a footnote to long ago time in my life now a half century since gone by.

 
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Liveonce said:
hope you can find them (Jocker) as they have been i think you will find unavailable for sometime now, but work well within normal game, pigeon decoying shooting distances and competitively priced, just wish i had brought a few more slabs when i did.

assuming you don't want to litter the countryside with non biodegradable plastic for the next few hundred years then the Eley water soluble wads with steel shot are a good option also but at a higher price.
Click to expand...
Asked about the then at just cartridges a few months back, no more coming in if I recall correctly.
 
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