Bismuth Shot - It's not all created equal
 

I noticed that Ballistic Products has some loose bismuth shot on sale. The price on 7 pounds is the best I have seen in many years. However their advertised shot counts made me pause.

The original loose bismuth shot was sold by No-Tox in 7 pound bottles. Their #4 shot was originally a pretty big pellet with 170 in a 1 1/4 ounce loading. It is and was a very effective load on ducks and geese. I believe it is no accident the pellet count is almost identical to lead, I think they made the pellet bigger to get the same pellet count as it's lead counterpart. Essentially these shoot with the same performance as lead 4's.

Some years later I bought some more of their #4 bismuth and noticed the pellets were visibly smaller. A 1 1/4 ounce load had 210 pellets. These pellets weigh 80% of a lead 4. These will perform about the same as lead #5 in both pellet count and pellet weight.

Now the new Ballistic Products offering says there are 264 pellets in a 1 1/4 ounce load. That is 95 more pellets than the original #4 bismuth sold by No-Tox, a big difference, each pellet weighs 64% of a lead number 4.

So keep in mind a 1 1/4 ounce loading of the new Ballistic Products #4 will perform in similar fashion to a loading of 1 1/4 ounce of lead #6 in both pellet count and pellet weight. It will not perform the same on waterfowl as the original No-Tox Bismuth #4, not even close.

Know what you are buying and know what you are shooting.

Raises the question- why not sell it as it is sized. Calling it a #4 does not make it so, and will only lead to unsatisfied customers. Thank you for the heads up.

i have been getting my Bismuth from Precision

now I will have to go measure that

Could you tell me the pellet count to an ounce or just the weight of 5 pellets and we can do the math and see where that bismuth 4 falls in line with the others.

...and more crippled and lost birds.





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wow - homework :rotf:

glad to help Pete

5 random pellets weighed ( on my RCBS beam scale) 14.6 grains

one ounce of these #4's (437.5 grains on the RCBS- and checked at 1 oz on my postal scale) contains 150/152 pellets (did it twice)

the bottle says they are .130 diameter
i measured two - they both came out at .133 on my digital caliper


I see lead 4's listed as 132 to 137 pellets per once depending on the chart

so only 13 to 18 extras- I think this is pretty close - so far the ducks have not complained about being shorted

So you should have 187 pellets in a 1 1/4 ounce load. That is in between the two different sizes of No-Tox 4's I have on hand. They would perform similar to a lead 4 1/2 if there was such a thing.

These bismuth 4's sold by Precision reloading are a significantly larger pellet than the bismuth 4's being sold by Ballistic Products .130 vs. .0815 in diameter. I am glad to see another source of loose bismuth but the bargain priced bismuth 4's from Ballistic Products is not going to perform the same. I'll stick with the stuff from Precision reloading.

BTW Pete

just looked at the front label on the Precision #4s

says down in the corner - Manufactured by Eley

That may explain part of it, I believe European shot sizes differ from American shot sizes. I know their lead 5's are about the same as our lead 6. One would think BP would be savvy enough to know this. I still think they are two sizes smaller but would need to have some in hand to know for sure.

this Eley product is the Precision stuff I measured yesterday - not the Ballistic Products ----- It is .133 - real 4 sized