Has anyone ever tried to load and shoot steel balls in a shotgun instead of the round lead ball? Both being the same size .690 dia. Will it work? Does anyone have a specific load for this in 12ga?

Never seen anyone do that. I know I wouldn't try. Theirs a forcing cone in shotguns and steel won't compress very well.

I would be really worried about pressure too...not saying it can't be done but I would do a whole lot of homework before I tried it. There's a reason some barrels have a "steel" rating, and its because even in regular shotgun pellet sizes it increases pressure noticeably. Why do you want to go steel? Are we just after velocity here?

It MIGHT work! It might just cost you a barrel or worse!! I would not try to shoot any ball from a shotgun that was not made from PURE SOFT LEAD!!

What about a .690 lead ball with a1/4 inch steel core?

You still have to deal with the forcing cone and the tapering of the barrel. It really would depend on the sabot holding the ball. Seeing how I have never seen it offered, I doubt many of us has pressure measureing equipment to find out if its safe or not. Steel would not have near the density to do much anyway. Now Tungten, maybe. You could always get some heat treated balls. Might shatter on impact. Maybe if you gave use some idea of its use? Wouldn't be good on deer. A copper solid would penetrate better I believe.

You know, if the Federal government came along tomorrow and decreed that we had to use steel projectiles only for deer hunting (same logic as the steel shot for waterfowl), we would be outraged. Complaining 24/7 about how poorly the steel performs compared to good old lead.

The only way I can see this could work would be to load it in sabot - like a .50 caliber steel ball bearing in a .729 plastic sabot. But why??