Tighten your chokes.
The first thing you need to know about steel shot is, IT SUCKS.
Steel does pattern tighter than lead in any gun I have tested it. In general it patterns one choke tighter, imp. cyl. shoots mod. patterns, mod shoots full patterns, full shoots tight but irregular patterns.
Larger shot sizes retain more energy but also restrict penetration.
The most boring firearm related activity there is but yes, you should.you should pattern the shotgun
Yeah there is zero 12 gauge ammo around here also. Lots of 28 though.In Missouri I can’t find any shotgun shells. Even trap loads are sold out in 12 and 20.
Shoot steel 2s or 4s and don’t miss. I hunt squirrels with duck loads sometimes just to see how much worse they are than lead.
One of the guys i hunt for with regularly managed to buy a couple hundred rounds of steel #2... mostly stocked at sports authority by accident I think, as theres no reason ro use steel here...but he proceeded to kill pretty much everything he pointed his shotgun at with it.I use #2 steel on everything, Ptarmigan, Geese, Rabbits, Beaver, etc.
Good stuff when its all you can get.
1550FPS is a good speed.