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As long as there isnt a shortage of winchester experts 1550's I'll be ok. For 9 bucks a box, I can kill ducks STONE COLD DEAD further than I can hit them... what more does anyone need?

50 yards is plenty far to kill a duck. travis

forget it. i have been shooting hevi-shot
but if i can't get anymore i'm shooting lead.

what is anybody gonna do about it. come find me
if you want to i don't care.

I wonder how much effect is in the mind of the heavyshot shooter? Todays steel loads are as good as lead was when we had to quit shooting it.
If I hunted in an area where losing cripples was an issue, or hunted dogless, I might feel differently Im sure. But for the average person, I bet the money spent on alternative loads would be as well spent with a few afternoons of tune up work on a sporting clays course. If your on them with steel they die... if your only part way on them with heavy they die... the problem isnt as much the load, as the shooter.
Im a streak shooter. If Im on, Im incredible. If Im not on, Im incredibly bad. I can't imagine spending 4x as much on bullets is gonna help that. Again, losing cripples simply isnt an issue with me how I hunt, so that isnt factored into my desiscion. But I seriously wonder if the increased 'killing' is because the shooters are more confident in their loads. How many bitch about steel, but have never shot anything else?

Plenty of ducks where crippled with nitromags & super x chilly 5's. Dont belive for a minute they werent. travis

i just hate it when i am shooting steel and i have to follow
the bird all the way to the water and shoot it again
after it hits the water. And this is after I have FOLDED
the duck in midair. Looks dead, hits the water hard, but gets
up and swims around.

its rediculous...

Follow up shot? Heck, just say BACK and watch the show! hehe! Like I said, if I didnt have trained dogs and hunt rice fields, Id probably feel differently. travis

I can assure you Bruce, the advantage is NOT in your mind. If someone can't hit the broad side of thier booty, then HS won't help. If they are a "just nick 'em and lot the dog pick 'em" philosophy hunter, it will help some, since you have more pellets, but it won't make you Annie Oakley, and your dog will have even farther retrieves for cripples. But if you have half a lick of skill, and you want your ducks DEAD and not swimming or flopping, HS will put more ducks dead on the water, all day, every day. If you are good enough to "reach out" on wounded ducks getting out of the hole, HS will amaze you. Bottom line.

Steel is only close to lead in performance now because we learned to drive it at flinch inducing 1500 fps plus. You would much rather have a denser shot at that speed if you want performance. However, as a result of "superfast steel" most every guest I hunt with at my clubs has a "bird loosing" flinch from shooting the stuff. I will take a nice, slow, much more leathal than lead or steel HS load, with a maximum number of smaller HS pellets every time. Heck, I shoot a lot less shells with HS than I ever did with steel. What's not to like?

Sounds like the Remington boxes might become ( scarce ) collectors items?

flinch-inducing? i've never even noticed any soreness from my gas baikal with 3.5" 1550fps steel, maybe they should quit using those sorry mule-kicking 835's (i know, i have one, it's the backup gun i hope i never need) and novas or get a good pad

I have never shot Remington's loads of HS but I have been shooting environmetals for four year's now.

I have never had any trouble with the buffer, except in the first run of hevi-steel.

The reason I like the EM loads, as I have said in other posts, is that they have about the same FPS as my trap and skeet loads so there is little or no adjustment in and out of season for my shooting. While most guys at the gun club shoot 8s or 9s I stay with my 7 1/2 loads and it keeps my shooting on keel.

Two things about HS that a lot of folks do not take into consideration:

Hevi-Shot patters about 12-15% TIGHTER than steel, so you need to open up to Improved for most over the decoy shooting.

Also, being able to shoot 7 1/2s or even 6s gives you a very dense pattern, and for many people the extra shot is a very big advantage. If you have been shooting #6 steel and jump to the 6 or 7 1/2 Hevi shot you have effectivly doubled, and maybe a little more, the number of pellets.

I am in regular contact with the folks at EM and I do not think you will be dissapointed in their product. I for one hope they keep making the slower loads, and offer faster loads for folks who have grown accustom to shooting the 1500 fps loads.

Tupe

From what I have seen with my own eyes,70% of duck hunters flinch. Any pro shooting coach will tell you most shotgun shooters of any sort have a flinch. Soreness has nothing to do with it. Go to a skeet range, shoot about 10 duck loads and have someone hand you each shell without you looking at it. Have him mix in one reload with a dead primer towards the end. When the shooter pulls the trigger on the dead load, watch what happens. FLINCH. Don't believe me? Go try it. Don't SAY you tried it, actually go do it. I have watched world champion Dan Carlisle do this numerous times in his clinics to prove to shooters that shooting heavy and/or fast loads was killing thier scores. Flinching has nothing to do with how tough you are or who you can whip in a fight. It is a reaction of your nervous system to a repeated jolt it does not like. I cannot tell you how many guys that I have hunted with that have a profound flinch. Most shoot really fast loads, or 1 9/16 ounce loads.

My name is John and I am a "flincher"

I would have to say I am a flincher. My firing pin on my 835 started to mess up and I saw quick like I was a flincher.

goosebruce wrote:Follow up shot? Heck, just say BACK and watch the show! hehe! Like I said, if I didnt have trained dogs and hunt rice fields, Id probably feel differently. travis

Where we hunt, if you cripple a duck Lean Mac could come back from the dead and not find it most of the time. I'm not sure there is anything tougher on a dog than buck brush. But seeing your Boy (or Gal) mark that bird down deep into buck brush, taking as straight a line as possible, climbing over and through that crap and hearing him turn around making that "swimming with a duck in his mouth sound" is about as good as it gets with a dog. But the duck better be where it fell or you are screwed most of the time.

Hevishot shoots so much farther and harder than steel it's no comparison. And like Gulfcoast or somebody said earlier, it's the cheapest part of duck hunting. With a 6 duck limit if the cost is a problem shooting lessons are most probably in order. I know of nothing worse in duck hunting than crippling a duck. We had a youngster shoot before the "Take em" call this morning and the duck was clearly crippled (with steel) and will die a slow miserable death. For me it's worth the additional cost from a humane stand point alone.

I agree with most everything written... them 835's are murder on your shoulder, as are those 1 9/16 oz loads. One of the reasons I like the fast 3 inch cheapos is much less recoil than the roman candles, and they certainly are more dependable cyclying in and out of the guns. Im guessing a heavy shot load since it is heavier would kick as much or more than the steel Im shooting, since the load weighs more, even if it being pushed slower.

Buckbrush is a totally different situation. Thats why I prefaced WHERE I hunt and WHOM I hunt with. If all the ducks fell dead in the deeks, itd be a pretty boring hunt and I certainly wouldnt need the dogs I got. hehe. A busted wing sailer is the fetch of the day, and the duck that bleeds out and falls 250 yards away stone cold dead is a prize. Big water or buckbrush, neither of those ducks are retrieved, if you even saw the fall. In his 5th season, the first duck has finally gotten away from rowdy once he got on the case. Thats a lot of $#!+ shooting and crippled birds, for only one in the lost column, certainly not enough for me to change bullets. We sailed one bird out this year (350 yards +), and had a cripple in the rice straw give the slip to a young dog I was hunting, and thats the only 2 birds we've lost this year. Several we had to make a sweep on the 4 wheelers when we where thru to find, but they got found and collected.

Im not arguing it aint good stuff. Im only saying it aint the end of duck hunting if it gets hard to find, and I still havent seen the need to spend $2 plus a shot and doubt I will anytime soon. travis

jar0023 wrote:Remington no longer has contract to produce HEVI-SHOT. Environmetal, (same folks who make HEVI-Steel) the manufacturer of the shot itself is bringing all production in house. They have made(or marketed) their own line of shells along side Remington all along. You'll still be able to get HEVI just not from Remington. I can't verify web address at work because of filter but try http://www.hevishot.com or google environ-metal.

JAR

Aint but one thing major wrong with them shells, they will hang up in a gun. Wont load in my Benelli. They are about 1/8 to 3/16 longer than a standard 3" shell. Wonder who the design engineer was and what he was thinking about when he made them too long.