doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Federal Master Class shells

New product line from Federal.

They state 'high antimony shot'.

The vendors are publishing further specifications including 'density 11.35g/cc' which is the density of pure lead.

So, we have high antimony shot with the density of pure lead.

Neat trick. How do you suppose they did that?

Snake oil?

Federal says 5% antimony. Maybe the dealers are wrong, maybe Federal is lying, tough call for a consumer.

https://www.instagram.com/federalpremium/reel/DFF5fIINvGJ/

I smell a corporate decision to replace the Top Gun with a more profitable product line.

Top Gun has evolved over the years to be a very good shell at a promo load price. Shot hardness testing in recent years shows Top Gun near the top of the heap.

The new product line appears to be a similar hull to Top Gun but loaded with a one piece wad.

The 'Grand' line, which was a Gold Medal with a steel head failed miserably when shooters refused to pay the price for that 'superior' new shell. Part of that was the advertised hull improvements for better reloading life that coincided with an enormous cost increase on reloading components when they could be found. Not entirely Federal's fault there, but the Grand was not an improvement on the plastic Gold Medal. Old style Gold Medal hulls are prized now, I found all my Grand shells in the trash buckets.

The HOA then appeared as a replacement, which is a STS disguised as a Federal product. There is zero reason to chose that over STS but of course Federal owns the Remington line now and one wonders when the inevitable consolidation will occur.

Discontinuation of Top Gun would be a loss and another blow to the survival of the sport. I can see no other reason for the Master Class shell product line.

The shot density specification is at least amusing.

“Master Class” ???

The marketing Guru's need to come up with a superlative that exceeds “HOA” or “Top Gun”.
Either of which is where I’d prefer to place.
😀.

Marketing hokum

Look at the stark decline in student performance in public education for the last 50 years.

They know damn well they can say whatever they want, who is going to prove them wrong?

Best,
Ted

Buy some and figure it out. Not too hard to come up with some approximate values for what it is and, more importantly, what it is not.

These are the loads that interest me. Local Walmart is carrying them for $14.99. I'm going to be trying them my next round of sporting. I like that velocity.

They claim the density is 11.35 g/cc. Anybody know of a chart that will tell what the actual antimony content is, based on that number? Considering that pure lead is 11.34 g/cc, how could that be high antimony shot?

https://www.federalpremium.com/shotshell/high-over-all/11-HOA12L+8.html

Density of the lead alloy that is made into lead shot:

0% Sb 11.35 g/cc
2% Sb 11.18 g/cc
4% Sb 11.03 g/cc
5% Sb 10.95 g/cc
6% Sb 10.88 g/cc

The density of antimony (Sb) is 6.7 g/cc