Bismuth, getting ready for duck season

 All of a sudden it occurs to me that I don't appear to have written hardly anything about my recent forays into the world of non-toxic shot.

For those of you not in the know waterfowl (ducks, geese, etc) need to be hunted with non-toxic shot. For most folks that means steel. However steel shot is hard and will damage the barrel of a classic gun. Last year I decided I might like to hunt ducks with my grandfather's 16ga Remington model 31. The old 31 (mine is from 1924) is often regarded as the smoothest pump action gun ever made. They only made them for a few years and mine is the only one I've ever seen.

A 2020 pheasant with the old model 31

16ga is a fun, uncommon, gauge. The advertising used to say "Hits like a 12, recoils like a 20". These days its mostly out of favor but has it's adherents, including me.

So to shoot ducks with the 16 I needed a non-toxic shot softer than steel which brings us to bismuth. The other advantage is that bismuth is more dense than steel which gives it more oomph and better ballistics. The disadvantage is that it's much more expensive...

So last year I ordered a case of #5 loads from Boss Shotshells. This is not a paid endorsement of them, in fact AFAIK they don't do that. While I did get one stud wood duck last year with the 16ga mostly it shot partridge.

I guess tailgate pictures are kind of a thing for me...

Edit: I almost forgot the green wing teal from last fall that I took with the Model 31. That gun logged a great season, 1 teal, 1 wood duck, 13 partridge, one pheasant and a porcupine. Not bad for a gun that's pushing 100 years old.

When I picked up the 16ga ammo I also got 2 boxes of 12ga #4 shot. These are their 2 3/4" "shortie" loads which did pretty well on geese. I didn't have a whole lot of luck with these on ducks. Later I realized that I'd screwed up with the choke. Steel shot doesn't compress much as it goes through the choke owing to the hardness of the steel. Bismuth and lead are much softer so you need a tighter choke to get the same pattern out of the gun.

During duck season last year I noticed a lot of people complaining about finding ammunition, this isn't uncommon during the season, people wait to buy. Last year was worse because of the widespread ammunition shortage. This year I decided that I'd again stock up early.

That's a case of Boss 12ga 3", #5 shot. Should be real good for ducks. Since bismuth is heavier than steel you can use a smaller shot size which gives you more pellets per shot. I went with #5 as a compromise, it should be heavy enough for early season geese but with more pellets should be better for ducks. That case was eye wateringly expensive but as they say "I didn't come this far to miss". These shells should result in a better kill percentage and fewer cripples. I hate the idea of leaving a bird to die later.

The #5s probably won't be good enough on late season geese but we really don't have that much late goose action since the water usually freezes. If I do get a chance for late goose hunting I still have a few #4s from last year and a couple of boxes of steel BB so I'm plenty well supplied.

Finally, for some real entertainment I picked up 10# of bismuth #6 shot. I've got a couple ideas for that, one is to get my first muzzleloader duck. Back in 2017 I tried for a muzzleloader duck and failed. My 2020 and 2021 muzzleloader pheasants (and a 2021 muzzleloader rabbit) were a bit of redemption but I still want a duck. Back in 2017 I was carrying #4s because I didn't realize I could get away with lighter shot, I've learned a lot in 5 years, hopefully this will be the year.

The other thought is to load some black powder cartridges and shoot a fine damascus double. Dad has a bunch of them, these are antique guns that won't hold up to the pressure of smokeless power but will still shoot fine with a proper blackpowder load. A big advantage in a black powder cartridge gun is the ease of cleanup.

So at least from an ammunition standpoint I'm ready for duck season 2022. All that's left is to wait 4 more months...