bismuth patteren

[10 bore]

Pete lester and I did a load test with my NID super 10 Ithaca. I loaded 1 1/8th oz of bismuth 6's with 20 grs of 700-x 1/4 in. filler wad and star crimp. it shot a 89% pattern . than I did a 1 1/4 oz bismuth 4's with 35 grs of bluedot and star crimp and got 83%. I am going to shoot some 6's this year on ducks,

scott

[Southpaw]

#6 bismuth is probably close to same knockdown energy as 7.5 lead shot. I always really liked #6 lead for pattern effectiveness and carrying power, it was standard for years. Hard to find anything nontoxic that compares to it. Heavy shot was best but they were too proud of it.

BTW an old cajun I hunted a few times with, when lead shot was legal, all he used was 7.5 shot and 8 shot on ducks. He said it put more shot on target and it did not tear the meat up as bad and had plenty of knock down energy. Hard to argue since he killed an awful lot of ducks with that smaller shot. Plus disagreeing to vigorous with a cajun in the middle of his 10,000 acre marsh in middle of nowhere is never smart. Those mud boats churn the marsh into the consistency of pudding and some of those holes are well over 10 feet deep. Even if they knew about exactly where you went in that stuff and ultimately under, likelihood of making it out alive were slim. Finding you after the fact is almost non existent unless remorse came over the party that put you there. So, 7.5 equivalent should be just fine and you will get no arguments from me.

[Jim McKee]

The importance of patterning each different shotgun hunting load cannot be overstated.
Jim