Newbie - .410 TSS Question

[roasterx]

What would it take for me to load .410 with TSS. Do I just substitute the TSS for lead and everything stays the same?

[megasupermagnum]

No, do not use lead shot data. You can't substitute anything for this, you need TSS specific load data. I would not even use a lead wad, you will a steel shot style wad, and I'm only aware of one on the market. TSS is becoming more common, but not so much on this site.

[rking22]

At least one of the TSS vendors sends load data with the shot. Don’t substitute, it is pretty picky stuff to get good performance. They shoot it pretty slow, was kinda suppressed by that. Disclaimer, my experience is limited to helping a friend try to get it to perform and finding info for him. He wound up ordering from the guy that supplied data, still didn’t get what he wanted from it. Perhaps too high expectations?? I sent him a picture of a pattern from my FlightKing at 30 yards with lead factory #6, that wound up being his “goal”. It seems choke picky, but that is based on 1 data point, a Tristan 410 auto vs my fixed full flightking. Please keep us updated.

[W.R.Buchanan]

What is TSS?

Is it some kind of magic shot?

Randy

[megasupermagnum]

What is TSS?

Is it some kind of magic shot?

Randy

Tungsten Super Shot. About 18 g/cc tungsten based shot. Very hard, and out of this world expensive. Steel shot is about 7.9 g/cc and good lead shot is about 11.2 g/cc, and we all know how big of a difference that is. TSS is a bigger step than that. I don't load it myself, as most of my shotguns I don't feel comfortable shooting such hard shot from.

[megasupermagnum]

A quick comparison, if we assume 1.20" calculated ballistics gel is lethal to a duck. This is in the KYP shotshell ballistics program.

1 1/4 oz #3 steel (190 pellets) at 1350 fps, lethal to 44 yards
1 3/8 oz #5 lead (238 pellets) at 1250 fps, lethal to 64 yards
1 1/2 oz #9 TSS (536 pellets) at 1100 fps, lethal to 71 yards
1 1/2 oz #7 TSS (275 pellets) at 1100 fps, lethal to 113 yards

[bikerbeans]

I know a teenage who took a Tom at 41 yards with TSS in his 410. Distance was verified by his guide. His gun had the choke reworked specifically for TSS.

The longest shot I have ever taken on a turkey is 15 yards so TSS makes no sense for me. This year I am using 3/4 oz of chilled 4 shot in my Mossberg 500E. The bird either comes in close or I watch it leave. I am good either way.

BB

[Chad5005]

I bought my wife some for her 870 .410 just mainly so she didn't get beat on by a 12 gauge

[Blood Trail]

TSS is the real deal, especially for waterfowl. I have friends who uses #7.5’ and #8’s folding geese up at 70 yards.

I’m an avid duck hunter and I kill’em dead with cheap ol steel shot out to 40 yards or so.

I’m not interested in pass shooting. Takes the fun out of working the birds in.

Besides, at $10/shot or more, that’s an expensive miss. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200414/881bb36db2cd7429295608558197a510.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200414/6100698596263c5b56573294d1a00e43.jpg


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[W.R.Buchanan]

OK Leon,,, that's dedication!

Randy

[Cap'n Morgan]

You said it, BT. Steelshot will do the job just fine as long as the range is within 40 yards.

https://i.imgur.com/jWAo2Od.jpg

[megasupermagnum]

You end up paying for it one way or the other. What you save in ammo, you spend in decoys and time to set them. With steel shot, a .410 is about useless.

For turkey TSS makes some sense. You don't shoot much, and I've seen guys turn a 4 pound .410 into a 40 yard turkey gun with hardly any recoil. For ducks and geese though, it seems a waste. As Bloodtrail says, you can fold ducks and geese out to some dizzying distances, but hitting them is another matter. I took the half way route. Bismuth is not nearly as expensive, and my 10 gauge with B shot will fold geese up dead out to 65 yards where the pattern starts to fall apart. With #4 in the 12 gauge, I feel comfortable to 55 yards on ducks.

I shot steel for years and years, and it does work to 40 yards. With the strongest shoulder slapping 3 1/2" shells you can push it out to 45 MAYBE 50 yards. The recoil on such shells was so extreme that I never could overcome the flinch anyway. Honestly the Federal 1 1/8 oz 2 3/4" loads at 1350fps were as effective as steel shot needs to be. I don't miss any of it

What I really want to see is a company like NiceShot bring those prices down to closer to bismuth prices a $15 a pound, to make them a viable option. TSS is the real deal, but besides the outlandish cost, it is very hard. I would not shoot it in a pre-1980 gun.

[Cap'n Morgan]

I have only tried TSS once, when my guns&ammo pusher gave me a box of five. They worked as promised, but the price was way too high even back then. Some Norwegian guy would reload special shells for fox hunting/calling at ranges out to sixty yards - which certainly should be possible, but then again I hunt mostly foxes with the rifle nowadays.

At one point I contemplated making my own TSS shot. We did a lot of tungsten grinding back then, and all the swarf would end up in the coolant filter as a fine powder, all that was needed was a matrix/binder and some sort of pellet press. Of course I got sidetracked by other projects and nothing ever came of it.

You mention patterns falling apart, and I believe that's what really sets the limit for shotgun range. No matter how we slice n' dice it, once the Magnus effect sets in for real, some fifty yards out , the pattern will disintegrate rapidly. If only we could somehow make a kind of drag stabilized steel pellets which would not start to spin and wander off from the line of flight... some sort of mini-flechette design perhaps... Naah. Better not get involved in more harebrained projects.

[megasupermagnum]

I think the patterns is what the TSS really brings to the table. Suddenly 70+ yard patterns become feasible. Bismuth on the other hand is as close as we have come to lead for the common man. It loads like lead, and shoots like lead. It doesn't have the density, but it is a big enough jump over steel to be significant. Like lead, with good loads and a tight choke patterns can be impressive, but some time around 60 yards it starts to really fall apart fast. It seems the smaller the shot, the worse the effect. Thankfully geese are huge targets, and allow for a more sparse pattern. Steel just doesn't have it. It is a balancing game between staying lethal and acceptable patterns that is really only good to about 40 yards. Steel's saving grace is that it patterns relatively tighter than lead, and being hard, it penetrates better than it's weight would normally provide. When I started with Bismuth, one of the first things I shot was a goose at about 50 yards with #B. It flipped over dead, and all shot had passed clean through the body. I was sold. I never got that performance with B, BB, or BBB steel shot, even inside of 40 yards. You can certainly kill geese with steel, but head shots and broken wings become far more of a factor. I had much better luck with steel on ducks. Inside of 40 yards, #3 did not leave me wanting any more.

Then you get into the problem of actually hitting the target. You can practice all you want, but hitting a moving target at 30 yards is hard enough. Now you have to do it at 70+ where not only lead becomes very important, but wind drift and drop does as well. By my calculations, #5 lead shot that patterns centered at 40 yards would be about a 12" low at 70, and a 10mph wind would move the pattern over 24".

As I said, TSS has some great advantages if for some reason you can't get a turkey inside of 40-45 yards, or you want a very light gun, or you want less recoil. For wingshooting though, I feel lead shot is still the perfect choice. The closer we can get to that performance, the better.

[Hamish]

Outstanding thread gentlemen!

Health pushed me out of waterfowling before bismuth became affordable for average reloader, so I've no experience with the newer alternative alloys. But I can tell you that discussions like this will help me in getting ready to choose components to load for my grandkids to hunt with. I had been looking hard at bismuth, but was unaware of the density of TSS. I am pretty amazed at the reported effective range.

Thank you.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Outstanding thread gentlemen!

But I can tell you that discussions like this will help me in getting ready to choose components to load for my grandkids to hunt with.

Thank you.

Were just full of "discussions!" :mrgreen:

Randy