Not Steel Shot
I know this is an old posting, but I wanted to put two cents in. I'm not a fan of steel shot and like most of us waterfowlers I think outlawing lead was a typical half-baked liberal idea that still makes zero sense. But, that being said I've been loading steel shot for a good 4 decades and I always try to collect my empties and fired wads if I can in the field. One thing I've learned over the years is that steel shot loading requires a special hard plastic shot cup wads that the shot sets in and shouldn't extend above the edge of the wad. When fired that wad carries the shot out of the barrel and generally a good 5 or 10 yards further before falling away as the shot disperses. In all these years of shooting and loading steel shot I have yet to find a expended wad that showed any sign of the steel shot penetrating the sides of the wad. Which clearly means that if loaded correctly steel shot loads should never damage a barrel by scoring it as it travels out of the barrel. That heavy steel shot wad is all that ever touches the barrel. I even have a friend that occasionally uses his Briley 20 gauge sub-gauge tubes during early duck season and he has no problems with steel shot damaging his tubes and they are made from aluminum. The evidence I've seen firsthand over the years tells me that a lot of the steel shot damage to gun barrel stories are just that, stories, without foundation or evidence. Now I would not suggest a heavy load of steel shot be fired out of a full choked barrel, because that is another matter altogether. Steel shot won't give like lead or even bismuth, so any constriction tighter than modified can risk damage to the choke.
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