Here’s the info from KPY Ballistsics for folks to compare. I used 1450fps for all loads because that is decently achievable and is a published speed for all these, from BPI. 1000’MSL, 32F. I calculated for 1.5″ ballistic gel penetration which is commonly accepted yardstick for mallard ducks, and for 2.25″ gel penetration, again a common yardstick for geese–whether you think that is a correct penetration or not is immaterial to using a single standard calculated penetration to compare loads. I’ll give pellets in 1oz so you can calculate easily other payloads, but 1-1/8 recipes are avail for this speed for sure.
shot size pellets/1oz 1.5″gel 2.25″gel
Steel #4 190 pellets, 31.0yds —-
Steel #3 152 pellets, 38.8yds —
Steel #2 124 pellets, 46.2yds, 24.0yds
Steel #1 102 pellets, 54.4yds, 30.8yds
Steel #B 85 pellets, 62.8yds, 37.7yds
Steel #BB 71 pellets, 71.5yds, 45.0yds
Steel #BBB 61pellets, 80.7yds, 52.7yds
Steel #T 52 pellets, 89.8yds, 60.3yds
Steel #TT 45 pellets, 99.2yds, 68.6yds
Steel #F 39 pellets, 108.9yds, 76.9yds
ITX10 #4 150 pellets, 58.4yds, 34.2yds
ITX10 #2 97 pellets, 80.8yds, 52.8yds
HeviShot #6 206 pellets, 60.7yds, 35.9yds
HeviShot #4 125 pellets, 87.8yds, 58.7yds <<< Beats #BBB steel, over 2x more pellets
HW13 #6 190 pellets, 72.6yds, 46.0yds <<<Beats #BB steel, over 2.6x more pellets
HW13 #4 115 pellets, 103.5yds, 72.1yds <<<Beats #TT steel, over 2.5x more pellets
TSS #9 357 pellets, 73.6yds, 46.9yds <<<Beats #BB steel, over 5x more pellets
TSS #8 251 pellets, 95.0yds, 64.8yds <<<Beats #T steel, over 4.8x more pellets
TSS #7 183 pellets, 117.1yds, 83.7yds <<<Beats #F steel, over 4.6x more pellets, matches #FF steel
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It’s clear that HW13#6 is more than sufficient for ducks and geese also, beating #BB steel for penetration range on both; and HW13#4 certainly is enough for geese.
What folks just can’t conceive is that #9 TSS penetrates further than #BB steel and HW13#6 also! The difference in density and how that affects ballistics is so huge, that TSS is more than TWICE as much better than lead, as lead is better than steel! There just isn’t a cultural understanding of how far out tungsten will retain it’s speed and energy and penetration. What isn’t well understood is wound mechanics and lethality, how big a wound channel needs to be, whether bleeding/mortality is directly proportional to disk area of the wound channel or cylinder wall area, what role impact/energy-delivered/energy-density plays in downing a bird. However, what is absolutely known is that once a pellet’s wound channel is sufficient to kill, putting 5x that many pellets in a pattern allows you to maintain 5x better pattern density out at these extended ranges (if one is interested in or discussing long ranges). From guys who ARE shooting birds with TSS, some empirical and anecdotal reports are starting to flow in that perhaps despite the good penetration ranges, #9 TSS may not make a big enough wound channel for rapid kills, but #8 and #7 on geese certainly are doing so, as well as causing the bone/impact damage needed to fold birds.
TSS #9 beats #BB steel for penetration ranges, and TSS #7 beats #F steel. How that translates vs. large steel on geese, when all the various kill mechanics are considered together, is still unclear as there’s not a huge amount of well-measured reliable data yet. My feeling from reading results posted is that #7 TSS is performing on geese.
My takeaway though is this: HW13 #6 and #4 are the perfect sizes for normal reloading payloads, pellet counts, and ranges, for ducks and geese, and at $23/lb that’s $1.44/shell for an outstanding 1oz load that beats most if not all shells you can buy commercially in 12ga (on a pellet count w/ “sufficient” penetration basis), certainly with much less recoil due to smaller allowable loads. I shoot it in 1oz 28ga which fit perfectly.
Dave In AZ 