Of Dragon's Breath and hammer-shells: from bizarre to basic, these shotshells can 'lighten-up' your life!

Guns Magazine, Sept, 2004 by Holt Bodinson

If you're a dyed-in-the-wool environ mentalist, here's a load for you--Bismuth's ECO Amino. Designed to be totally nontoxic and fully biodegradable, the ECO shell features a classic paper hull; a thin, fiber, over-powder wad; a thick fiber filler wad; and, of course, a dose of Bismuth shot. This is a serious shell, and on many European shooting grounds, biodegradable ammunition is required.

While Bismuth was once the only alternative nontoxic steel shot, today's specialty waterfowling loads now carry Federal's Tungsten-Iron and Tungsten-Polymer shot, Kent's Tungsten Matrix shot, and--just announced by Remington--a load featuring Hevishot, which is a tungsten, nickel, and iron alloy. Where the nontoxic shot story will end is anyone's guess, but it's getting pretty pricey out there, and cheap steel still works.

What about Granddad's nice old Damascus barreled double that has been collecting dust all these years? No problem. Traditional black powder shells are still loaded in England by GameBore and are imported into the United States and marketed by the Old Western Scrounger. Current offerings include:

10 ga./2 7/8" with 1 1/2 oz. #4 12 ga./2 1/2 with 1 1/8 oz. #7 16 ga./2 1/2" with 1 oz. # 7 1/2 20 ga./2 1/2" with 7/8 oz. # 7 1/2

Black powder loads can also be a great gag load if they're slipped into a round of nighttime skeet or trap. The flash, the smoke, and the smell will long be remembered.

Before leaving the GameBore Cartridge Company (notice how the Brits call them "cartridges" and we call them "shells"), GameBore is also the world's leading source of 2-inch and 2 1/2-inch "cartridges" for those svelte British 12 bores that weigh a mere 5 to 6 pounds.

And speaking of odd-size shells, there are still enough examples of Continental 24and 32-gauge scatterguns in use that Fiocchi continues to offer #5, #6 and #8 shot loads for these little tubes. The loads look pretty good, too.

The 2 1/2-inch. 24 gauge loading consists of 11/16 ounce of shot at 1,280 fps, while the 32 gauge load pushes 1/2 ounce at 1,260 fps. And for those European "garden and collecting" guns that fire the 9mm Flobert rimfire shot cartridge, Fiocchi offers 1/4 ounces of numbers 6, 7 1/2, 8 and 9 at 600 fps.

In fact, when it comes to special-purpose sporting and target shotshells. Fiocchi is a sterling stand out. In 12-gauge, the company currently offers low-recoil trap loads (1 1/8 ounce at 1,140 fps); ultra low recoil training loads (7/8 ounce at 1,200 fps); high-speed "crusher" loads (1 ounce at 1,300 fps); live pigeon loads (11/4 ounce at 1,225 fps); and an assortment of three spreader loads for field or sporting clays use.

Of course, the classic American spreader load is Polywad's Spred-R. This unique load can change a full choke into a modified or a modified into a cylinder, and it features a special toad-stool looking, rolled-crimp closure wad that projects down into the center of the shot column. It works, and the resulting patterns are very uniform.

Moving in the opposite direction is Muninord of Italy's long-range Double Impact 12-gauge, 2 1/4,-inch loading that's designed to throw two controlled patterns from the same shell--one pattern develops at 20 to 80 meters and the other blossoms from 80 meters onward. It's magic.