I recently purchased a 20 gauge for wing shooting and I prefer to not use lead in any of my hunting rounds. So far I bought some #4 1550 fps 7/8 oz rounds and those fast little partridges have been tough for me to hit. So I bought some #5 1300 fps 1 1/16oz hoping to get some better results.
I figured to go a bit bigger since I'm not using lead. What would be my best option for steel shot?
pattern your shotgun with a variety of shot sizes and open chokes
In my experience steel shot does not like tight chokes so I always use improved cylinder. My normal lead shot is 6 for both huns and early season pheasants but the standard rule for steel is one size larger so 5 should be good. If hit in head all shot sizes will kill them. Think you want to make sure there are no gapping holes in your pattern at 25 or 30 yards due to steel shot bridging.
You are throwing a lot more shot with steel in a given size than you are with Lead because the steel is lighter, so with that kind of speed and the shot payload you may be shooting behind your birds or lifting your head if you are not bringing them down.
In my case I tend to lift my head and shoot over them - this has been embarrassingly documented BTW!
As wwbirds indicated, generally speaking you want to use open chokes for the larger shot when shooting steel.
Cat
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Anytime I figure I've got this long range thing figured out, I just strap into the sling and irons and remind myself that I don't!
20 gauge steel shot for partridge / pheasant
a hunting we will go!!!!!!
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