Written by Mike Swan, GWCT Senior Advisor
In early 2020, when our various organisations announced a joint plan to phase out the use of lead in live quarry shooting, no one could possibly have known about the glitches that would get in the way. Five years seemed like a sensible target, but no one was thinking about the effects of disease. As if the covid pandemic and its lockdowns were not enough, we then had avian influenza and its impact on supplies of birds for releasing.
Many shoots will have lost two complete seasons, and most will have been significantly disrupted, so most shooters have probably fired significantly fewer cartridges than they would normally over the last four years. I am certainly one of those, and I confess straight away that I am still burning up supplies of lead loads, including some extras given to me in the meantime by chums who have retired from shooting.
However, I made myself a promise when the voluntary phase out was announced, that I would no longer buy lead cartridges if I did not need to, and I have stuck to that, and only bought steel. My little caveat, which I have not had to invoke, was that I would still buy lead if there was not a non-lead cartridge to suit my needs for a particular situation. Meanwhile, despite genuine difficulties over world trade during the pandemic impinging on the development of new non-lead loads, there are now over 120 different steel cartridges on the market in a whole range of bore sizes. There may still be some way to go, but the manufacturers are to be congratulated on their progress during difficult times.
One of the features of the 2023/24 season for me has been hearing about shoots that are going lead free. The first came from Arthur Leigh-Pemberton of Torry Hill in Kent, when we were wildfowling together in the autumn. Arthur said that he was actively encouraging folk to go lead free on the home shoot, and that it will become the rule for 2024/5. The following day I received an invitation for what turned out to be a delightful driven day at Bisterne, just south of Ringwood in the Avon Valley. In his instruction my host Hallam Mills said that the shoot is now lead free, and everyone seemed quite happy about that. The same applies at the GWCT’s shoot at Loddington, where there has been an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the lead free rule from our many visiting Guns.
On the other hand, when I contacted a shoot where the keeper had been positive about changing to steel when I visited almost four years ago, I heard that this had gone no further. “My Guns say that they will give up shooting rather than buy a new gun for the heavy steel loads,” said the owner. Sadly, it seems that there are still lots of people out there who do not realise that the guns which they already own are likely to be perfectly compatible with normal steel loads, and I fear that a combination of ignorance and disinformation is holding people back.
As the gun trade has been at pains to point out from the very beginning of the voluntary phase out, if you are concerned that steel is not safe in your gun, you should question whether it is safe with lead too. Anything sound and in proof should be fine with a suitable steel load, so long as the chokes are not excessively tight. Contrary to the perceived wisdom, I am quite sure that this even applies to Damascus barrelled guns, a view which is corroborated by no less an expert than Bill Harriman, BASC’s director of firearms. Doubters should perhaps read his article “Against Received Wisdom” in the November/December 2023 edition of the BASC magazine, about experiments using steel in a Damascus barrelled muzzle loader. Even with no option to protect the bore with a cup wad, careful examination revealed no scratching or other damage to the gun.
Interestingly, Hallam Mills said that changing from lead made his Guns think about their barrels and chambers, and what that meant ballistically. That is something I have been doing myself over the last wee while, alongside pulling cartridges apart to see what they contain. In some senses I am amazed at how few people ever do this. We are mostly happy to fire shots at a pattern plate to see how our cartridge performs, but pulling a squib apart without firing it seems like an anathema.
In getting a bit technical, I have found out that all is not as it might seem, and that shot sizes and pellet counts can be well away from what you expect. Take, for example, Eley ecowad 32g steel 5s – a cartridge with which I have had great success at pheasants, redlegs, pigeons and ducks from mallard to teal. The couple that I opened had 275 and 276 pellets respectively, as against 338 which my Eley shooter’s diary says they should contain. However, for my money that makes them an excellent equivalent of my standard choice game load of 30g lead 6s which the diary says should contain about 285.
This little bit of research led me to the view that the standard advice to go up two sizes when changing to steel was a mistake, and that one size bigger is probably all that is needed. This view is corroborated with another Eley steel load which a chum has tried and pulled apart for me. Ecowad 28g 7s are listed as a clay load, but he spotted that they might be just the business for snipe and the odd teal and confirms suitable success. The pellet count of 400 in 28g matches what you would expect from the same weight of lead 7.5 almost exactly, and I’m champing at the bit to go and walk a few snipe bogs to try them out next autumn.
There is another thing that compounds the issue of choosing the right steel shot sizes and that is that UK, EU and US sizes are not the same. So, a French cartridge with size 4 shot contains number 3s on our scale. Thus, a Jocker 32g steel 4, which I pulled apart, had just over 200 pellets, making them very equivalent in weight to UK lead No 4s. If you chose this cartridge in following the standard advice to go up two sizes from 32g of UK lead 6s which should contain just over 300 pellets then it is clear that the pattern will be much thinner.
And here is where I get critical of the cartridge trade; rather than doing their best to advise us about what we need in this brave new world, I fear that they are, to some extent pandering to ignorance, compounded by the disinformation that I keep hearing. In a recent email exchange with a manufacturer, I was asking about a smaller shot non-lead load for my old 2 ½ inch chambered Damascus barrelled 20 bore. The reply was that what I was after, which was the equivalent of a 23g load of lead 6s or 7s would not sell in today’s market, because everyone was after larger shot sizes for better lethality.
Well ok, but those bigger pellets are only lethal when they hit a vital spot and there needs to be enough of them to ensure that happens. I have long maintained that instant collapse only occurs when a pellet hits the brain, neck or upper spine. Heart shots will kill too, of course, but the bird will normally fly on a couple of hundred metres before it collapses, maybe never to be recovered. Meanwhile, for every bird killed instantly at long range with large shot, there will be several wounded ones with broken limbs and/or pellets driven deep into or even through the body.
Interestingly, this was echoed by the gentleman that I was drawn next to at Bisterne. He was clearly a good shot, and was doing well with his English side by side, but he did say that he felt the wounding rate was higher when he tackled the highest birds; “Too many runners” he said. That, for me is a symptom of pattern failing before pellet lethality. I did not think to ask what shot size he was using, but I bet it was bigger than he needed.