My Experience with #4 Steel

 

When choosing ammunition, duck hunters appear to fall into various camps as they prioritize one shotshell characteristic over another.  For some, speed kills; for others, ounces of shot is the determining factor.  The two will argue round and round, while a third hunter shakes his head knowing shot size is of paramount importance.  But like the various sects of Christianity, though they may seem quite different—may even start a major European war—in the end, they’re all trying to achieve the same thing.  In the waterfowlers case, that end is the perfect shotshell; that is, one that blends the variables of pattern density, penetration, recoil, and cost just so to achieve maximum effectiveness under various hunting conditions.  Like many other truth seekers, I have shifted from camp to camp on my waterfowling spirit journey, trying out light and fast, heavy and slow, and things in between.  I feel I’m a lot closer to the goal now and have learned a lot about shotshells and myself along the way. 

Some of the lessons have come quickly, others have required more knocks on the head.  The hardest learned of these is that #4 steel sucks.  Unless your goal is to cripple birds and frustrate yourself, it is worthless.  I know other duck hunters will bitterly deny this fact, but like a good Catholic on the field of Lützen, I’ll grip my matchlock and face the oncoming Lutheran horde. 

My first volley is the numbers.  The great advantage of #4 shot is its high pellet count per ounce (~190), however, that’s only possible due to its small size (.13” and ~2.3 grains).  This diminutive stature is also the cause of its great disadvantage, viz. its substandard penetration on ducks past about 30 yards (at 1500 fps muzzle velocity).  Even at 1700 fps, you only get to about 35 yards.  Sure, you may get a lucky hit in the eyeball beyond that range, but not consistently.

All well and good, but field experience is king, and it often gives the lie to predictions.  Well, I have tried to make #4’s work over and over--never with YouTube-able results. 

My first go around was a box of Remington Hypersonic 3” 12 gauge 1.25 oz at 1700 fps.  Seasoned shooters will start chuckling at this point... which will give way to outright laughter when I say the only gun I owned at that point was an 870.  The guy I was hunting with laughed too when he saw my right middle finger after a few rounds and suggested (unhelpfully) I learn how to hold my gun.  The first shot I took knocked me on my butt (not literally--the literal hip-booted butt in the water had happened earlier that morning as we set decoys).  A flight of wigeon came in perfectly, I fired and the gun cycled and jammed itself, slammed the trigger guard into my finger, and left me a little confused about what was going on.  Oh, and I missed.  I tried a few more, but the recoil and cold, wet fundament ended my hunt early.  I should have just shelved the rest of the box, but being cheap, I used them in ones and twos over the course of the season mixed in with “normal” loads of #3’s.  I did end up bagging some birds with them; all were cripples except a mallard hen that flushed at maybe 15 yards as I walk the edge of a farm pond.  The impact broke her back.  The last shell took down a fast, passing drake mallard at a solid 40 yards—it was a surprisingly good shot—but didn’t kill him.  He had a lot of life left, and would have been long gone, but the pond was frozen just enough to tear the hell out of your shins, and his impact hole trapped him. 

The next year I chased the siren call all handloaders fall for at least once: duplexing steel shot.  Most seem to cross sizes two places apart (viz. #2x#4, #1x#3, etc.), but I, being clever, used sizes FOUR places apart, one ounce of #B under a quarter ounce of #4!  I thought it’d be awesome… but it wasn’t.  That same season, I tried one of the Lightning Steel loads (#19, I think) and an extended IM choke.  The patterns were impressive, the field results not so much.  I had half full boxes of both loads for years till I lost them in a move.

I tried #4’s in the 16 gauge for a bit.  Generally, the hunt would start with me letting loose with between three and seven shells before frustration drove me to switched to the handful of Hevi Shot #6’s I was hording, at which point I would cleanly kill a passing duck (it never was a decoying one for whatever reason).  One time, I shot a hen shoveler over a flooded field with #4’s.  She landed in a shallow spot—3 inches maybe—off to my right.  Thinking her dead, I ambled over with my gun at the trail and bent down to pick her up.  She flushed just as I was about to grab her, and my luchador reflexes snapped the gun to my shoulder and fired off a shell before I had time to think.  Which was a bummer, because if I had been thinking, I’d have let her get a bit further out before shooting.  As it was, my baseball sized pattern blew her ass off.  Literally.  As I picked her up by the neck, her entrails sort of oozed out past her remaining leg and a few token tail feathers hanging at odd angles.  This was on a fairly heavily managed bit of public land, and I didn’t want to risk a fine for just leaving her there (my first impulse).  Fortunately, I had a plastic shopping bag for picking up trash, so I was able to fulfill the letter of the law and throw her away at home.  I will say, it made for an easy evisceration.  Also, that was also some more damn fine shooting!

After that, I moved on to shot sizes that actually work and had great success (for me anyway) with #3’s, #2’s, and #1’s for several seasons.  And there it should have ended.  But just like a former smoker starts jonesing when he gets a whiff outside a bar, I’d see a spent #4 hull floating around and start second guessing my experience.  Maybe the problem was ME… bad shot choices, poor gun mount, laughable range estimation… And as a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to his #4’s. 

This time, I’d do it right.  Meaning, I’d pick one load and stick with it throughout the entire season, then I’d have enough data to make a more studied decision.  I loaded up a couple boxes of my standard 12 gauge load, patterned it, and went hunting.  First hunt, I sailed a mallard while making breakfast burritos.*  And he really sailed—easily a half mile.  Unfortunately, that was the opportunity of the day.  Second hunt, crippled a wigeon.  Third hunt, after yet another cripple, I switched to #1’s and crushed two ducks and a Steller’s jay.

One case of backsliding is enough for me.  Now I can say with John Henry Newman, “Firmly I believe and truly” that the only responsible use for #4 steel shot is chronographing new loads. 

* I was making the burritos, not the duck; he was just flying around.