TSS ammo...is it worth it?

[jduckhunter]

The Kent 2.0 pattern like crap for me. I have 5 boxes in my closet. Bring back the old kents.

Sorry to hear that it doesn't work for you out of your gun, it works great for me. In my Browning I'm using a Briley Invector plus XL, LMOD choke tube and both the old Faststeel and the new 2.0 perform pretty darn well. I opt for the light loads with the 1 1/8 oz shot charge, this gets me a little more velocity and it's always been my assertion that when using steel shot, speed kills.

 

[Deleted member 40394]

Sorry to hear that it doesn't work for you out of your gun, it works great for me. In my Browning I'm using a Briley Invector plus XL, LMOD choke tube and both the old Faststeel and the new 2.0 perform pretty darn well. I opt for the light loads with the 1 1/8 oz shot charge, this gets me a little more velocity and it's always been my assertion that when using steel shot, speed kills.

Yea I like shooting to tight of a choke I guess. I like the steel, tss blends.

 

[jduckhunter]

I found out a long time ago that too tight a choke tube can be a big problem with steel. A lot of the time it blows the center out of your pattern.

 

[Wyatt Smith]

Have you guys ever tried Patternmaster chokes? I really like them.

 

[Deleted member 40394]

Have you guys ever tried Patternmaster chokes? I really like them.

that’s what I am shooting now. It likes #4’s so that’s what i shoot. It also likes tss but every choke likes tss.

 

[jduckhunter]

No I haven't tried them myself. I got pretty lucky when I came across the one I'm using now and I guess I just settled. I'm shooting steel #2, 3 and 4 depending on what and where I'm hunting.

 

[Nevada Mike]

For years I shot waterfowl with 1-3/8 oz. loads in my 28" Browning Superposed. Short magnum loads. By the end of the season my index finger looked like an over-cooked hot dog, but I sure killed a lot of ducks and geese.

When I started shooting my .404J I thought, "this is like shooting my old Browning Super at ducks, and thought no more about it.

TSS or Tungsten Matrix is a revelation. My hunting partner wants to load 1 oz. of this in a 16 gauge hull for upland shooting, and believes it would kill out to 60 yards or more.

 

[Deleted member 40394]

For years I shot waterfowl with 1-3/8 oz. loads in my 28" Browning Superposed. Short magnum loads. By the end of the season my index finger looked like an over-cooked hot dog, but I sure killed a lot of ducks and geese.

When I started shooting my .404J I thought, "this is like shooting my old Browning Super at ducks, and thought no more about it.

TSS or Tungsten Matrix is a revelation. My hunting partner wants to load 1 oz. of this in a 16 gauge hull for upland shooting, and believes it would kill out to 60 yards or more.

Lots of guys loading 1 oz waterfowl shells. They will kill way out there. 1400 FPS with 1 oz #8’s will kill way past 60.

 

[BeeMaa]

Have you guys ever tried Patternmaster chokes? I really like them.

I've tried PatternMaster, TruGlo and Carlson's chokes in a variety of constrictions in my SBE2. The Carlson's always seem to pattern the best with all other things being equal. I've sold off everything but my Carlson's chokes.

For Duck & Goose I'm using a Carlson's Black Cloud Long Range with Hevi-Metal 3.5" 1 1/2 oz BB or BBB at 1500 fps...this combo is good to about 30-40 yards, beyond that it's just too spread out. If they are on the water, I'll eject the Hevi-Metal and put in a TSS cartridge with the Extra Full TSS choke and have a range of 60+ yards.

My friend is considering a Browning Cynergy 3.5" Wicked Wing so he can have a long range barrel with TSS and a short range barrel with Hevi-Metal or some type of tungsten matrix. The other option is having 2 shotguns with different setups and loads.

 

[BeeMaa]

Here is the video @flatwater bill was talking about. Results at 4:50 and 7:00, but take them with a grain of salt. Comparing a turkey load to a dove/quail/target load is not a fair fight.

 

[flatwater bill]

So true. But I think it was meant to show the extremes rather than compare. And it does show the extremes......thanks, BeeMaa................FWB

 

[BeeMaa]

It's Turkey season...get your TSS ready.

 

[Deleted member 40394]

My tss has spoke. Already.

 

[BeeMaa]

A friend and I just retuned from opening weekend Turkey hunt in Virginia. I was not successful, mostly because I chose to pass on taking a Jake. My friend however, did not pass. He took the shot at 20 yards using Federal TSS, 3.5", 7 shot, 2 1/4 oz at 1200fps. I was not present when he shot, but he said that it was devastating. The Turkey was knocked off of his feet, the head never came off the ground and the wings flapped a couple of times. Postmortem showed no pellets were in the skull because they had all passed through! I should have taken a picture, but I just didn't think about it.

 

[BeeMaa]

I also patterned my SBE3 with the same load I was using with the SBE2...same results. My point of hold was dead center with the bead covering the center of the target. At 30 yards it's a little high but it's definitely a dead bird.

At 60 yards the pattern had dropped a few inches, so a 3-4" holdover would be necessary for a shot at that range. Side note - this pattern looks much like a pattern I had when using Winchester Long Beard #4's, except that it was at 40 yards not 60. The game has changed.

 

[DannyArcher]

You should really look into reloading TSS, especially for turkeys. You don't even need a press, just get a roll crimper attachment and hook it up to a drill.

Everything else just weigh by hand with a digital scale. You can load 10 shells within an hour easily.

Some of the guys selling bulk TSS have it around $50/lb which allows you to get the cost per shell down to the $3-4 range for 1 ounce loads.

 

[BeeMaa]

Canada Goose hunting trip has been planned for this Sept 2022 in NY with a friend. This is an early season hunt for Canada Goose that are non-migratory and have become more of a nuisance to the public*. Bag limit for this is 15 per person per day. We have a lot of friends in NY who love to make smoked sausage and our plan is supply lots of meat for their freezers. I'll be there for a week, mostly hunting from a blind but possibly doing a float or kayak hunt depending on water levels.

So why am I posting it here? Because (thanks to @Mark Biggerstaff & @R&M FIREARMS) I will be taking a case of Federal Black Cloud TSS BB/7 for formal field testing. Other ammo to be used is another case of Federal Black Cloud TSS 3/9, Federal Heavyweight TSS Turkey and some Hevi-Shot Magnum Blend Turkey loads I have laying around. All of these are lead-free loads safe for use on waterfowl.

I have a couple of shotguns for use as well. My ever faithful Benelli SBE3 and the newly added Browning Cynergy (yes, it's a camo over/under), both of which have 28" barrels, 3.5" chambers along with appropriate chokes for TSS Black Cloud and TSS Turkey. My friend has a similar set up with a Browning Maxus and Browning Cynergy, meaning we could have as many as 4 guns in the blind available for "go time".

Pics to follow...

*Migratory Canada Goose limits are much more restrictive to conserve the geese that are actually migrating. Daily limits vary from 1 to 8 depending on zone and time of year.

 

[BeeMaa]

Yeah, Black Cloud TSS is worth it. By mistake I grabbed the 3 & 9 shot instead of the BB & 7… still poleaxed birds like I’ve never seen.

Shots for these two were at 30 yards as they flew directly over me. First one folded and fell like a stone. The second one took two shots, but still folded and dropped. No birds injured, just a clean harvest.

On Monday I’m giving the BB & 7 shot a try.

 

[BeeMaa]

Results are in on the Federal Black Cloud TSS BB & 7 loads. The short version is devastating on goose out to 50+ yards. Below is a picture of a goose I had injured at 70 yards and had to do a follow up on it as it was running up the bank. I pulled the trigger at 20 yards and the head disappeared.

I know, it's 20 yards...but still that's impressive. My friend and I have used the BB & 7 combination on several geese and it has a significant advantage over steel, steel blends and bismuth when it comes to range.

We are averaging less than 1.5 shells per goose, so with the cost of ammo I'm spending less than $7 per goose. Compare that to the regular steel shot that my friend (known as IGS) was using last year, costing $35 for 25 ($1.4 per shell) and he was using an average of 2 to 2.5 shells per bird. His cost was $3 to $3.5 per goose.

So what does the data tell us? I'll answer for myself because there is certainly more than one opinion on this subject. The facts are that Black Cloud TSS extends the range for goose hunting beyond what was previously thought possible with steel, steel blend and bismuth...but at a greater cost per bird. IMO - the juice is worth the squeeze. Watching goose fold like a lawn chair while on the fly at 50 yards has cemented my views on this.

Of course there are other factors that can come into play and TSS is not going to make up for bad shooting. You have to do your part. Get out and practice. All the birds we have taken on this hunt have been head shot with no meat damage. The only exception is one that was injured by another hunter in the breast but IGS was able to head shoot it as it ran down the bank.

 

[Mekaniks]

Results are in on the Federal Black Cloud TSS BB & 7 loads. The short version is devastating on goose out to 50+ yards. Below is a picture of a goose I had injured at 70 yards and had to do a follow up on it as it was running up the bank. I pulled the trigger at 20 yards and the head disappeared.
View attachment 487693
I know, it's 20 yards...but still that's impressive. My friend and I have used the BB & 7 combination on several geese and it has a significant advantage over steel, steel blends and bismuth when it comes to range.

We are averaging less than 1.5 shells per goose, so with the cost of ammo I'm spending less than $7 per goose. Compare that to the regular steel shot that my friend (known as IGS) was using last year, costing $35 for 25 ($1.4 per shell) and he was using an average of 2 to 2.5 shells per bird. His cost was $3 to $3.5 per goose.

So what does the data tell us? I'll answer for myself because there is certainly more than one opinion on this subject. The facts are that Black Cloud TSS extends the range for goose hunting beyond what was previously thought possible with steel, steel blend and bismuth...but at a greater cost per bird. IMO - the juice is worth the squeeze. Watching goose fold like a lawn chair while on the fly at 50 yards has cemented my views on this.

Of course there are other factors that can come into play and TSS is not going to make up for bad shooting. You have to do your part. Get out and practice. All the birds we have taken on this hunt have been head shot with no meat damage. The only exception is one that was injured by another hunter in the breast but IGS was able to head shoot it as it ran down the bank.

I am taking BB & 7 hunting Sandhill Cranes and Geese over decoys next week. I cant wait to try it out