High Velocity Steel (shotgun) for Hunting Defense

I have a load using the following and it's a duck buster.

Federal 3" Game load shell
1 1/8th oz #4 shot
Ballistic Products #3221230 wad or equivalent
Federal 209A primer
39.5 grs of Alliant "Steel" powder
1/4" under card
these loads constantly average 1550 fps.

Steel is less dense than lead so it does not hold its momentum and velocity as well. This results in less penetration and velocity at distance. To overcome the deficiencies of steel the shot is larger and the velocity is higher.

While steel shot will undoubtedly work at short range for a defense load its unlikely that it will be superior or significantly better than a lead load so there is little reason to spend more money for steel shot just to load in your home defense gun. The only real reason to use steel is to comply with hunting regulations.

You've really been hitting the exotic shot shell loads a lot lately Blarby. Maybe a reloading - a - holics class is in the future for ya?

All joking aside, I've never done any steel shot shell loading. But no doubt, steel can surely push some fps.

What I'll do is dig through my piles of published recipes and see what I can find for you. I know I've got some steel data, nothing very recent, but steel data none the less. And since I don't load steel, those pages won't be all bent up and mangled from years of constant use.

I'm getting prepared for a move anyway, so it would be a good time for me to "dig" through all of it, while packing for the move. I guess you could say I'll be killing two birds with one steel shotshell, or "stone" to politically correct.

GS