Lead vs. Steel Shot

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The Missouri Department of Conservation has done a similar study, with duck hunting as the subject. During the 1979 waterfowl season at the Schell-Osage Wildlife Management Area, researchers had hunters shoot a mix of buffered and unbuffered No. 4 lead, No. 4 steel, and No. 2 steel shot. During that season, hunters bagged 20.6 ducks per 100 shots with unbuffered lead, 19.1 with buffered lead, 18.0 with No. 4 steel, and 17.4 with No. 2 steel. There was no recorded difference in the crippling rate. The results also showed that hunters were most likely to take a shot in the 30- to 40-yard range, and that their bag rate dropped considerably beyond that distance.

Other studies have provided similar results, with little or no difference in the bagging rate (in fact, steel has seemed to be more effective in some cases) and no significant difference in crippling. Thus one of the concerns about steel shot — that more birds may be wounded by the less energetic pellets — doesn't seem to be borne out in fact.

GUN WEAR

Another concern is that steel shot may speed barrel wear. It was first thought that the hard metal pellets might scratch gun bores, but thicker and more effective shell wadding has all but eliminated that fear.

Choke expansion, however, may actually be caused by steel shot under some circumstances. Older guns with soft, thin barrels (double-barreled firearms, in particular) may suffer some deformation at the choke when firing steel shot. Companies such as Winchester and Remington have fired hundreds of thousands of shells through their modern guns and have declared all of them fit for steel shell use. But in older shotguns, a swelling of up to about 0.005" has been recorded ... though the change didn't adversely affect the weapons' patterning performance. Still, if you have an old and valuable firearm, by all means check with its manufacturer before shooting steel shot.

COST

Making steel pellets is reported to cost about 30¢ more per pound than does the comparatively simple process of agglomerating lead shot. For that reason — and because of the thicker wadding used with the harder pellet — you might expect a higher price tag on steel shells. Buying locally, though, we paid $10.80 for a box of 3"-magnum No. 2 lead shells, and only $11.75 for a box of 3"-magnum No. 2 steel shells. At that rate, we wouldn't consider the cost difference significant . . . particularly if substituting steel will slow the distribution of lead in our environment, help save some birds, and perhaps eventually allow for increased bag limits.

If you're a reloader, however, you may not readily find the materials for refilling steel shells, and it's extremely important that you not substitute lead shell components (such as wadding) for the ones made to handle steel shot. For the time being, at least, the moneysaving option of reloading isn't generally available to folks who shoot steel.

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