Hello from Scotland~

I believe my American cousins have had to use "non-toxic" shot for wildfowling (ducks/geese) for many years, England faced such laws in 1999 (i think) Scotland only changed March 2005 :rolleyes:

Any way i have no idea as to "NON-Toxic" shot be it steel , Bismuth , Hevi-shot, etc??

With Lead i used Beretta AL390 and No.6/No.5 shot for flighting ducks on the foreshore :) and stepped up to 3" No.3 for geese........................

Steel is cheapest, ive heard bad things of steel :confused: yet i know many guys take shots "TOO" far out even when they used lead shot. So perhaps this is to blame ??

Ive also read steel kills well as it penatrates well through vital organs :confused:


So basically any advice on chokes/non-toxic shot and ducks would be most welcome :)

Englander

ENGLANDER,

I use a 3.5" 12ga with steel for waterfowl hunting here in the U.S.

I use federal speed shok ammo with 1 3/8oz of BBS at 1450 f.p.s. Kills Geese out to 55 yards like a sledgehammer! Very cost effective too as opposed to other non tox alternatives. Costs about $13.00 US for 25 rounds as opposed to $2.00 per round for the Hevi Shot that I used last season.

If you are going to stay with a 3" chambered gun, I would definately reccomend the Hevi Shot, despite it's price. I used it in a 3" gun last season before I bought my 3.5" and found it much better than any 3" steel load. I just don't think a 3" hull can push enough steel fast enough to be really effective.

Just my opinion

SSB

Stick to Bismuth or Hevi-shot and just pretend you're shooting lead. They aren't cheap but I think well worth the extra $$.

if you don't have a steel shot choke tube I would suggest getting one. i use improved cylinder choke and have a great shot pattern with either bb's or heavy shot for geese.

Englander, not to take anything away from this board, but if you surf over to shotgunworld.com, you'll find all sorts of feedback on the various non-toxic loads.

And to top it off, Remington will be coming out with their own brand of non-toxic shot later this year (Remington HD) that they claim is better than hevi-shot because the pellets are consistently round.

In case you didn't know, Remington licensed the hevi-shot brand from another company. That license expired back in Sept 2005 and the company - Environmetal, Inc. - is launching it's own ammo company under the hevi-shot brand.

I haven't found it to be widely available here yet (at least in my local market), but the hevi-shot makers also make a product called hevi-steel, which I've read performs better than regular steel, but only costs a few dollars more than the premium steel loads.

Around here, the prices are something like this:

3", 25 cartridges a box....

cheap steel loads - $9-10/box (Rem Sportsman or Win X-pert)

premium steel loads - $12-14/box (Rem Nitro Steel Mag)

hevi-steel - $20/box

hevi-shot/tungsten-matrix - $37-40 per 25 round box equivalent (these products are sold in 10 round boxes, so I converted it to an equivalent 25 round box)