ryanaller: Hevi-shot costs about $22/10 shells, so maybe you shoot 20 shells a day maximum taking your limit of 6 ducks, which is say $50 for a day of duck hunting, when the hunting is good and you are seeing action. I guess I don't see that to be a prohibitive cost. I spend a lot of money duck hunting -- waders, driving 250 miles to hunt ducks for a weekend, calls, clothes, out-of-state hunting license, duck stamps -- and it ain't cheap. More to the point, my time and availability for these duck hunting activities are limited, I can only do this a small number of weekends per year. Spending a little more to improve the results of my duck hunting doesn't seem an unwise way to spend this portion of my duck hunting budget.

I am a novice duck hunter. I imagine that seasoned, knowledgable duck hunters have much greater control of their hunts in several ways than I do. Seasoned hunters can probably bring ducks in close over their decoys much more reliably than I can and can rely on the short range penetration power of steel and not require the benefit of denser shot to kill their ducks. Seasoned hunters probably have more self-control and discipline for waiting for the ducks to come in and better judgment in assessing what range the ducks are at than a novice duck hunter like me. I think I can have better success using Hevi-shot and so I am using it. If I ever get to the point where I feel I can take as many ducks shooting steel versus the expensive high density shot, I'll be saving my money and buying steel shot ammunition! I agree that for some people in some situations steel gets the job done. I think when I become a more skilled and knowledgable duck hunter I will be able to better use steel than now.

Or at least that is my thinking today. I have read a lot of posts by others that indicate high levels of satisfcation with the denser shot, even while acknowledging the painful cost of this ammunition.