Just read about this in the new Turkey and Turkey Hunting, and also looked it up on EM's website. I was curious if anyone had tried these yet and wanted to hear some opinions. I think 1 and 1/4 oz seems a little light for a 12 guage turkey load, but Im sure it will kill a bird. Chime in, Id love to read some reviews or viewpoints.
It's light because half or more of the payload is steel pellets, the other half hevi shot. I can't see it being very big of a hit. I would expect it to fade into obscurity soon. I also think that it's a way for them to try and get around the price increase in the HTL offerings. Half steel and half HTL will be about half as expensive as 100% HTL.
I would go back to shooting 100% lead loads before I would consider shooting a shell that is half steel shot at a turkey.
Quote from: jtg88 on February 22, 2012, 06:34:50 PM
I would go back to shooting 100% lead loads before I would consider shooting a shell that is half steel shot at a turkey.
X2
Quote from: jtg88 on February 22, 2012, 06:34:50 PM
I would go back to shooting 100% lead loads before I would consider shooting a shell that is half steel shot at a turkey.
The nail has been hit squarely on the head! I see no reason for this shell to even exist.
Quote from: jtg88 on February 22, 2012, 06:34:50 PM
I would go back to shooting 100% lead loads before I would consider shooting a shell that is half steel shot at a turkey.
Me too.
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EM struck out on this one!
That stuff is straight up junk! I shot hevi metal during duck season and after shooting almost an entire box and only cleanly killing 3 ducks and crippling several others i tossed it all and went back to the cheap ole Federal blue box number 2's and went right back to smackin ducks cleanly. So in other words, i'd never touch their turkey loads with a 10 foot pole.
Thanks for the insight and your honest opinions. I didnt have it in my mind to go run out and buy some, but I just wanted to know some thoughts. I persoanally do not like the idea of any kind of steel shot be it turkey or grouse, or rabbit or waterfowl.
As a duck hunter I've shot alot of steel shot. It is absolutely pitiful. Why anyone would shoot it at a turkey is beyond me.
One of my hunting partners used the duplex load from HM last year on Canadians and ducks all 3 inch from a Mossy 835 no cripples and he shot his limit each time out. At the pattern board they were not bad and on the clays for a warm up he shot better than with lead, just saying. I would give it a try at the club long before I hunted with it but in this state lead is going away fast now so alternatives are going to happen or we can stop hunting (I will not). Is this the best load for the money not sure yet but I will test a couple of boxes and see before I make any decision?
I do like the #2 Hevi-Metal on geese but on ducks it doesn't seem to do all that well. I went back to the cheap Winchester XPerts #3s and drilled ducks no problem. It would be nice to pay $25 for 25 shells to go turkey hunting but who honestly needs that many shells to get through the season? Spend the extra cash and get shells that are proven to work.
I do think that these could be a good option if you hunted some WMA's that did not allow lead ammunition. A lot of folks refuse to pay that much for a box of shotgun shells, so this could be a cheaper alternative and still be effective.
Quote from: MOStrutter on February 23, 2012, 11:10:43 AM
I do think that these could be a good option if you hunted some WMA's that did not allow lead ammunition. A lot of folks refuse to pay that much for a box of shotgun shells, so this could be a cheaper alternative and still be effective.
Or at least to pattern and shoot for sight in for those with a budget.
Quote from: westtennhunter on February 22, 2012, 11:15:21 PM
As a duck hunter I've shot alot of steel shot. It is absolutely pitiful. Why anyone would shoot it at a turkey is beyond me.
Before my old man passed away he would take lead shot duck hunting when we were all shooting steel. Yes, it was illegal but he was old and quite frankly didn't care. I loved hearing my buddies say "I got that one!" or "That one was all me!" and then afterwards hear my old man say "You got that one, huh?" when the majority of the birds were full of lead pellets. The steel just passed on through or ended up crippling when the lead was smackin' em down. lol
Or at least to pattern and shoot for sight in for those with a budget.[/quote]
Not sure this stuff is really a "budget" load considering how everywhere I'm seeing it on the shelves it is 12 bucks for 5 rounds of the 3" 1.25 ounce loads! 24 bucks for ten rounds? Not a huge difference from even the lighter hevi shot loads that STILL give you at least 1 5/8 ounce payloads... Marketing ploy to catch the suckers...nothing more impo.
Quote from: mightyjoeyoung on February 23, 2012, 05:53:53 PM
Or at least to pattern and shoot for sight in for those with a budget.
Not sure this stuff is really a "budget" load considering how everywhere I'm seeing it on the shelves it is 12 bucks for 5 rounds of the 3" 1.25 ounce loads! 24 bucks for ten rounds? Not a huge difference from even the lighter hevi shot loads that STILL give you at least 1 5/8 ounce payloads... Marketing ploy to catch the suckers...nothing more impo.
[/quote]
I wish I could find ten rounds of H13 turkey loads out here all I have seen are 5 rounds per box on the shelves. At Cabela's yesterday the price for 5 mag blend loads was double the cost of the heavy metal duplex load???
ok, let's do some math shall we?
There are aprox. 127 #4 steel pellets and aprox. 132, #6 hevi shot pellets in a 1.25 ounce load of hevi metal turkey for a grand total of about 259 total pellets IF the load is devided equally between the two shot types. The steel pellets WILL lose energy to ethically and reliably kill a turkey far sooner than the Hevi pellets will due to larger diam (higher wind resistance) and just less mass in relation to pellet size (density). Sure the hevi pellets will kill past the steel, but imo, there just aren't enough of them in there to do the job reliably and ethically. I drop the hammer on a big gobbler, I want him dead right there. I have seen BB size steel shot litterally bounce off of big late season Canada geese at 45 yards or so and they carry quite a bit more energy that those measly #4s for certain. Again...marketing ploy to catch the suckers out there...nothing more. I am disapointed in EM on this one I gotta tell ya.
Just me but I'd never shoot any type of steel for turkey.
Not my cup of tea . be better with lead & hevi
Quote from: Philippe on February 22, 2012, 08:24:06 PM
That stuff is straight up junk! I shot hevi metal during duck season and after shooting almost an entire box and only cleanly killing 3 ducks and crippling several others i tossed it all and went back to the cheap ole Federal blue box number 2's and went right back to smackin ducks cleanly. So in other words, i'd never touch their turkey loads with a 10 foot pole.
Glad to read this I was going to try it for next year for ducks, but I guess I'll just stick to my cheap winchesters and occasional black clouds when I catch them on sale.
I hunted with an outfitter in TX a couple of seasons ago and one of the other hunters was using steel shot to hunt with and he had to shoot 4 times and still had to run down the gobbler, he was hunting with a shotgun set up for duck hunting. I just shook my head.
Quote from: Philippe on February 22, 2012, 08:24:06 PM
That stuff is straight up junk! I shot hevi metal during duck season and after shooting almost an entire box and only cleanly killing 3 ducks and crippling several others i tossed it all and went back to the cheap ole Federal blue box number 2's and went right back to smackin ducks cleanly. So in other words, i'd never touch their turkey loads with a 10 foot pole.
This is gonna hurt you more than it hurts me...
1. Did you ever even bother to pattern it? By the statement "after shooting an ENTIRE BOX and only cleanly..." I bet you did not. If you've got duck-sized holes in your patterns I'd be willing to bet you were a crippling machine!
2. I was crushing big resident honkers with hevi metal 2s all season long and into our late season at ranges from a few feet to 50+ yards. Why on earth would you think you'd need 2s to kill duckswhen 4 shot will kill em dead to 40 yards? Btw...geese are way tougher than any duck that flies.
In other words, you're post sounds woefully uninformed.
We had some boxes of Hevi metal #4 for ducks out of out 1187's and we couldn't notice a performance gap betwren that and 1400 fps #4 steel - but other people rave about for ducks
I don't know the reasoning behind the promotion of this product , but it is their company and they can do as they please - had anyone taken the time to survey some turkey hunters they could saved themselves the trouble - With any luck they can repackage the product for the waterfowlers in time for duck season
My only recommendation to EM is to develop some H13 loads in popular straight shot sizes that turkey hunters like 6's and 7's and offer them in 1200 and 1300 fps offerings - what I am suggesting is straight versions of the Mag Blend may I suggest the trademark "Hot Load" Im willing to bet some hunters would be willing to trade off some pattern to get a kicking load -
Thanks for all your help everyone. I was about 2 seconds away from ordering a pile of it
Quote from: mightyjoeyoung on February 25, 2012, 09:26:25 PM
Quote from: Philippe on February 22, 2012, 08:24:06 PM
That stuff is straight up junk! I shot hevi metal during duck season and after shooting almost an entire box and only cleanly killing 3 ducks and crippling several others i tossed it all and went back to the cheap ole Federal blue box number 2's and went right back to smackin ducks cleanly. So in other words, i'd never touch their turkey loads with a 10 foot pole.
This is gonna hurt you more than it hurts me...
1. Did you ever even bother to pattern it? By the statement "after shooting an ENTIRE BOX and only cleanly..." I bet you did not. If you've got duck-sized holes in your patterns I'd be willing to bet you were a crippling machine!
2. I was crushing big resident honkers with hevi metal 2s all season long and into our late season at ranges from a few feet to 50+ yards. Why on earth would you think you'd need 2s to kill duckswhen 4 shot will kill em dead to 40 yards? Btw...geese are way tougher than any duck that flies.
In other words, you're post sounds woefully uninformed.
All of my duck/goose guns are all well maintained and patterened correctly for the distances we plan to bring our birds into wich is always 30 yards from blind to decoys. I have also done penetration tests with ballistic gel. Hevi metal is garbage! I'd like to goose hunt with you sometime and see you crumple them with hevi metal 2's at 50+. If you like it, so be it. I'll stick with plain ole steel or hevi duck.
Quote from: onelow69c10 on February 25, 2012, 03:00:06 PM
Quote from: Philippe on February 22, 2012, 08:24:06 PM
That stuff is straight up junk! I shot hevi metal during duck season and after shooting almost an entire box and only cleanly killing 3 ducks and crippling several others i tossed it all and went back to the cheap ole Federal blue box number 2's and went right back to smackin ducks cleanly. So in other words, i'd never touch their turkey loads with a 10 foot pole.
Glad to read this I was going to try it for next year for ducks, but I guess I'll just stick to my cheap winchesters and occasional black clouds when I catch them on sale.
That would be a good bet, get a good choke and shell combo, learn your gun and bring those birds into a resonable distance and stick with steel.
Quote from: jtg88 on February 22, 2012, 06:34:50 PM
I would go back to shooting 100% lead loads before I would consider shooting a shell that is half steel shot at a turkey.
Except in an increasing number of wildlife areas we have to shoot nontoxic loads for turkey hunting. I actually expected alot more testing and results analysis from this board, rather than all they hyperbole and assumptions going on. Which many were proven very wrong by my own testing. I have to agree that I would have drawn the same conclusions just thinking out loud about it, but I decided just to try it and see what happens.
I know this is an older thread but I just shot some of it find out the "Real World" performance of it. I expected the worst knowing that it was #4 steel shot and #6 hevis. So we set up a target at 50 yds to test the pattern and penetration. (I wanted to get beyond 40 yards to see if the steel had lost its umph.) We then set up a 2x4 next to the turkey head target to test the penetration. I was shooting my Mossberg SSI One with the factory ulti-full extended turkey choke.
Well I was blown away by the results. The steel pellets penetrated just as far as the 6 hevis, measured from the poing of entry. Which actually means they went farther because they were protrudeing more into the wood. Also their footprint is much larger. overal the pattern was pretty good and killable at our distance. It actually got my thinker going and was wonderying if I could make a good turkey load out of just number four steel.
Quote from: JDogg on March 21, 2012, 06:13:10 PM
Quote from: jtg88 on February 22, 2012, 06:34:50 PM
I would go back to shooting 100% lead loads before I would consider shooting a shell that is half steel shot at a turkey.
Except in an increasing number of wildlife areas we have to shoot nontoxic loads for turkey hunting. I actually expected alot more testing and results analysis from this board, rather than all they hyperbole and assumptions going on. Which many were proven very wrong by my own testing. I have to agree that I would have drawn the same conclusions just thinking out loud about it, but I decided just to try it and see what happens.
I know this is an older thread but I just shot some of it find out the "Real World" performance of it. I expected the worst knowing that it was #4 steel shot and #6 hevis. So we set up a target at 50 yds to test the pattern and penetration. (I wanted to get beyond 40 yards to see if the steel had lost its umph.) We then set up a 2x4 next to the turkey head target to test the penetration. I was shooting my Mossberg SSI One with the factory ulti-full extended turkey choke.
Well I was blown away by the results. The steel pellets penetrated just as far as the 6 hevis, measured from the poing of entry. Which actually means they went farther because they were protrudeing more into the wood. Also their footprint is much larger. overal the pattern was pretty good and killable at our distance. It actually got my thinker going and was wonderying if I could make a good turkey load out of just number four steel.
I intend to do the same with some pheasant loads but it seems there are a lot of people that have not shot the duplex load that are loaded for bear here. I know first hand that the duck/goose loads work just fine but I will keep that to my self as steel seems to be a bad word!
Contrary to popular belief, you can kill a tom with #4 steel at 40 yards out of a modified choke. :TooFunny:
I know, I know, but i was young and dumb. I was duck hunting and had 3 other guns backing me up though.
I will take a pass. I am sure EM will catch a few with it.