At the range you fire the steel and lead cartridges you will not see a lot of difference. Try the same test at 40 years then you will see the difference between steel and lead. In my tests steel I got 20 less penetration than lead. I was using No6 lead and No4 steel. I would also recommend that you make a jig up to hold the target for penetration test. It will hold the paper in the same place for all tests. I make one out of metal but wood would do. We need to agree on a test for anyone to do in their club or on their own. In my tests I ended by saying steel for game shooting is of very little use. How are you going to shoot high birds with steel. that is why they had a campaign to ban high bird shooting so they could force us to use steel. One thing to remember the ballistics table for steel have been shown to be misleading and to get the same affect with steel you have to go up 4 shot sizes. So if you normally use No6 lead you should use No2 steel. BUT you can not use No2 steel in standard proofed guns or with gun chambered 2 1/2". For more information please go to "save our lead shot" on Facebook

I like "Take it away" Thomas's interpretation of a (not so) glamorous assistant with the twig indicating the gaps in the patterns. It cracks me up every time i watch it, priceless. Keep up the vids guys.

impressive!! Nico, all the way from South Africa. Keep it up!

I really prefer using lead. Steel shot seems to bounce or glance off the birds feathers sometimes, you’ll actually see the shot shave off a bunch of feathers an the bird will fly away (its really frustrating when it happens). Im no scientist but I assume lead is better at transferring its energy and punches through soft targets better.

This is a revisit to this video because I watch your videos over and over. I'm about to start shotgun hunting and clay shooting and I find your videos very informative. The effing hell from Tom makes me think I wont be searching for those cartridges!!

Very interesting! Thank you. Nice car also...

The problem with the lead shot is in shallow water areas that ducks feed in. They eat it and the gizzard will grind it along with the gravel and food. I have cut open ducks that were very skinny and could not fly and found lead shot in the gizzard. On the other hand steel shot will cripple more birds that will be lost because it is less efficient than lead. When you use steel go with much bigger shot than you think would be right. Remember what you are doing is delivering energy to a target. Energy and penetration is what makes everything work. BB to TT in steel makes steel come alive and it is much better to pick up a duck or goose rather than chase it all over the place.

Love your vids mate this and FIELDSPORTS is all I watch on KZfaq !!!!!

I have a o/u winchester 101 sporter xrt diamond grade, how do I know if my shotgun is good for steel?

Excellent video, very informative!

Hi what the difference between cartridge calibre 12 mm Lead shot vs steel shot ?

Hi guys , was great seeing you earlier at the rizzini qualifier , well shot tom ! Just to say i went back and got a higher score and qualified for the rizzini final with a 19 ! Do you reckon i could have a menton in the video ? thanks guys , keep up the good work !

interesting I think id choose steel and I hav that exact same knife u hav and r u near a motocross track by any chance ? I hear them

I really like your channel! Very informative and entertaining videos! There are a few states here in America that are trying to push for steel shot as well. It will never become federal law though. I was curious if there are any US youtube gun channels that you subscribe to and watch regularly? Keep up the good work!

Hey, love your videos. Liked and Subscribed as you asked :). I am glad there is no regulations about shot material in Turkey. I've tried steel shot once and did not like it. It penetrates the bird so birds can fly quite a bit untill they die (I hate to lose birds I killed). But lead shots transfers all the energy to the bird and shock them so they usually drop where they got shot.

Good video lads! Steel isn't all that bad by the looks of it. Good test!

what do you use for your pattern boards that gives all the yellow dots ? its fantastic

I know this is a stupid question but will shooting steal shot make any damage to the barrel? Will it effect the pattern when shooting lead shots? What damage can shooting steal shots make?

I've been using 32g 4 express steel and although it patterns well, after 30 yards fps of the shot is the problem. Lead would kill out to 50 yards if you hit them right but steel struggles to kill stone dead unless you start using 3" shells eg: 36g 3 or 1.

what choke did you use for the 40 yd shot and the 20 yd pattern ?

Interesting video! I have a quesion that maybe some of the colegues watching could help me with: I own an old 12GA IŻ-58 shotgun (full and half choke) that I like a lot. Im preety sure they did not have steel cartidges in mind in the USSR at the time hence Im a bit worried what will happen if I start using steel insted of lead cartidges. I know you are not supposed to use them extensively but what if all I shoot is less than 80-100 shoots a year? I would appreciate all answers :)

hey thanks for doing this video for me :) really great, great info :)

Hi all how are you what is the difference between a cartridge lead shot and steel shot ? i say steel shot dead stronger

they should make the wads in steel shot shells extra long to prevent the steel shot from marring up the bore. i took a look at my maverick, it's got a stamp kinda like a crosshairs with a P in the middle, gotta look up what that means.

Thanks great video

I believe it was in the 1960's that lead shot was banned from hunting waterfowl here in the United States. There was a big uproar about it back then. You had to adjust from using #4 lead to #2 steel to help on the weight difference.

do you use the steel through your browning ??

Great videos chaps. Any chance we could loose the tortuous handing out of single cartridges? "Ready?", "Ready!" Two targets, 2 cartridges in the gun, left target lead? Right steel? Apologies if I'm sounding too picky but you could shave 2 minutes of each vid' if you stopped mincing around with single rounds during the testing performance. That said, most won't give a flying you know what. Great vids, keep em coming👍

May I ask you to do a video on reloading steel shot with fibre wad? Obviously there are problems with doing this as I am sure we are all to find in the next few years. But I have recently converted to shooting clays with steel shot and plastic wad( cheaper and the Y gun copes with steel) and have found it very effective with a 1/4 and 1/2 choke combo. The rabbits hate it, but the permission, like steel shot, not the plastic wad. What I can see coming is the double wammy of steel shot and fibre wad only. I know that you can now get Eley fibre wad, sorry! Eco wad shotshells. But at £345.00 per thousand shells and £0.90p per large rabbit if you bag fifty or more. It may be cheaper to shoot rabbits with reloaded 223! Best regards Paul.

can you shoot lead pellets thru a steelproof choke? or can you only shoot steel pellets thru the steelproof choke?

an idea for the future (if we truly want the lead shot mass) could be that we standardize a larger bore size or longer shell length to get the same amount of mass going out the barrel through either more pellets or larger pellets.

Here in New Zealand lead is banned within 200m of an open waterway. Steel isn't the end of the world as far as shooting goes. However, the quality of the pellets inside the cartridge makes a huge difference in my experience. The eley, falcon and kemen steel shells I have used all have pellets that aren't perfectly round, and as such they don't hold their pattern as long. Then if you switch to kent or mythos shells, the pellets are a bit smaller in the same shot number (#2 shot) but they are perfectly round, and they make for far better results in the field shooting ducks. Also the quality of the wad, if its a soft plastic that gets the odd pellet or 2 embedded in it as it leaves the chamber it will throw your entire shot pattern off.

older shot guns can only take lead shot in them. can you still use lead shot for target or skeet shooting?

Good info 👏👍

The laws on this are as stupid as hell. In scotland we can use lead on wildfowl but we can't use it over wet land. And in England it is the opposite way round, as you said the plastic wad should be more of an envoirmental problem than lead shot. It is also stupid in the way that they are worried about lead getting into the food chain threw wildfowl, but they are not worried about it getting into the food chain in any other type of game. Great video as always, keep up the good work!! :)

The way to have a steel shell perform resonably is to have higher velocity. So they will have some effect even at 40 yards. (which i would consider absolute maximum for birdshot.) Nice vid!

The fact they ban lead shot and not plastic wads is beyond me, typical of the eu.

steels ok cheaper then other non toxic but i have found when shooting ducks with steel that i have to finish them off more than i used ( pre ban ) to with lead shot

Steel shot seems to perform respectably. What's the price difference between packs of cartridges? Thanks

steel dosnt got a great penetration,guys check on ..for exeple plywood od 40-50 yards # 4 lead and #4 steel you will see what go deeper i test this by my self and steel is not as good as lead ,but if you shoot a duck on 30-35 yards they always drops.Cheers.

Good comparison test chaps, to be honest i cant see the big deal with shooting steel, I know pigeon shooters who use steel shot all the time and shoot just as many as they would have with lead shot.steel will in time rust away but lead is there in the ground for a long long time . ATB VF

Bismuth... is considered NON-TOXIC ...and is actually denser than lead for better penetration... BISMUTH is a bit more expensive, complies with regulations in USA... and is less likely to harm your barrel. Is it simply another way for legislators and rules makers to add to the cost of wildfowling. However, Bismuth works very well.

that you can't use lead shot for wildfowl

***** i dont shoot duck etc so havent looked it up, what is the rule re steel shot on ducks over inland fields. there was a big group of duck flew over a field i was decoying pigeon on and i wasnt sure if i could shoot them or not so left them b but they were easily within range

What does srs mean?

Nays good

In scotland you can still shoot wildfowl with lead

The reason people are not happy about using steel shot is that the killing capability of steel shot is not as good as lead because steel is a harder metal so it would pass straight through your target and lead is a softer metal so it would warp on impact and create maximum internal damage to your target thus killing it more affectively obviously if you hit your target with steel shot in the head it would kill it and if you hit your target in the torso it would probable die eventually but lead shot is a more affective killer.

The reason why they banned lead is that the lead levels in the wetlands were very high in many places and that meant that the animals had a lot of lead in them making the eggs thinner. The more we look into lead the worse it seem to be. We humans usually spit out any lead shot that is left in the animal, but most animals can't do that. Infact a lot of birds eat them on purpouse because they need rocks to ground up the food. I support the ban on lead in wetlands. But I don't support a ban onlead in bullets of for shotguns that are used in non-sensetive enviroments. And yes, I am a hunter too. Taking care of the animals we hunt is in our best interest.

Hi there I am planning to get my sgc I am 16 does my dad have to buy the gun for me as a gift? He doesn't have a license

I would picture these guys having thick southern US accents lmao

lead deforms in ignition. heard that once,maybe the cause of your long distance.

good vid, very informative, although you say you would be more worried about the plastic wads. lead is far more toxic and lead poisoning over a prolonged time will cause all sorts of horrific bith defects, infertility, brain damage and cancers. i used to work in a battery faxtory using lead plates and we had to have blood tests every month to monitor how much lead was entering our bodies, when it reached a certain point we had to be moved from there until it worked its way out of our system. there is a fair bit about the effects of lead on the hse webaite. that said i still shoot with lead and eat what i kill regardless lol

I hope this drive for lead free doesn't extend to rifles because most of the cheap lead free rifle ammo is considered "armour piercing"

New to shooting, I'm looking into using only non toxic ammo and I find it strange among shooters there seems to be a pro lead culture that don't give a fuck about health and environmental risk of shooting lead everywhere and cleaning lead residue ... Lead has been and is used so much for ammunition probably only because it is cheap and most people didn't know or cared about health or environmental issue related with it... There are better alternatives. Namely steel which seem to be performing very good here but of course, it is best not to shoot anything solid at close range with a firearm to avoid ricochet...

can't draw conclusion --- means I ended up more confused.

The notion of comparing Lead and Steel is like comparing a Ferarri with a Ford. They are only comparing shot patterns in this video. Nothing is mentioned about density and energy transferance onto game.I would like to see the data that lead causes toxicity in waterfowl because I believe loss of habitat and disease causes higher morbidity of waterfowl than lead.I believe when lead enters the water it is converted to lead oxide which renders it non toxic. Also the amount of lead emission by petrol fumes of cars heavily outways lead emitted in shot....the media have blown this issue out of proportion as hunters have been using lead for hundreds of years..........

و الله من الفسقه الرصاص رخيص

when I whent pheasant and duck shooting last week they was all using lead and I was

Since I have been forced to use steel shot I have had nearly half of my ducks leave wounded. Lead shot has never and will never hurt the environment.

NO THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why does almost every sentence begin with "Ahhhhhhh" ??? VERY distracting !

its stupid