Non-toxic dove loads are steel #7 and #6. Texas Game Commission did a study around 2008 (managed by Tom Roster) that found an ounce of steel in either size killed the same percentage of doves per shot fired as 1 1/8 oz of lead 7 1/2, the most popular load. The study was double blind, which means neither the shooters nor the observers knew what they were shooting. The cartridges were identical in appearance.
I bought a flat of steel #7 from Bass Pro Shop for $100 last summer, to use in a public dove shoot area in which non-toxic shot is required. I don't shoot them in old doubles, of course. I have a modern gun with fixed IC choke for such occasions.
Carl, I'm not being argumentative and I understand that you are merely quoting the results of a survey done but ......... after 62 years of shooting doves from here to Cordoba, and some 30 years of shooting ducks with steel (after the previous 25 years shooting them with lead), there's no way I can accept Texas' results as being the "whole story". I shoot ducks with bismuth and can darn well tell the difference in how my bismuth kills as compared to steel. I know we're talking doves here but I'm extrapolating a bit. Hell, I can even see the difference in my nickel plated lead dove loads as compered to regular lead loads, same payload weight. The difference isn't always in the number bagged to number of shots fired. It's sometimes in the difference between doves hitting the ground graveyard dead, or being wounded and having to be chased down and dispatched. Surveys don't always indicate differences like that. If I can see the difference between nickel plated lead and unplated lead, I can't accept that I wouldn't see a difference between unplated lead and steel. JMOBOE.
Another question comes to my mind concerning their survey. If they didn't let the shooters know what loads they were shooting, then the shooters wouldn't have been able to compensate for the (much) tighter patterns that the steel shot would have yielded out of their guns, because they wouldn't have known to "open up" their choke. So, with the steel shot shooters shooting considerable tighter choked guns than the lead shooters, are we to understand from that, that tightening the choke doesn't cause more misses on a dove field? This makes me wonder if the "officials" asked everyone to use the same choke in their guns, or what?
