Creating Today's Shotshells

Conversations in the blind amongst passionate waterfowlers run the gamut from solving the world’s problems, inappropriate jokes, life advice, and just about everything inbetween. Another popular, and often heated, topic of conversation is that of the terminal performance, or sometimes lack thereof, of non-toxic shotshells. While hunting sea ducks on the eastern shores of Maryland several years ago, Jeff Barry, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing at Kent Cartridge, had an interesting conversation with his grizzled guide. “We were discussing effective shot sizes, leaning towards #1 and #2 shot for hearty sea ducks, when our guide piped in on the discussion. Based on his extensive experience, he preferred smaller shot sizes to increase pellet count and subsequently increase the likelihood of knocking that bird out of the sky,” said Barry. “Coming from him, I knew there was merit to his opinion.” That simple conversation was the catalyst that got the ball rolling on the early concept of Kent Cartridge’s all new Fasteel+ shotshells.

Behind every good product is the underlying question of why? Why do we need to bring another shotshell to market? “At the end of the day, we are always looking for ways to give folks an edge in the field,” said Barry. “You can’t discount the energy that a larger pellet gives, so we set out to develop a new load that would accomplish both a dense, high pellet count pattern while still maintaining sufficient down-range energy.” That logic is without fault, but it is also what every shotshell manufacturer and waterfowler strives to achieve but struggles to accomplish.

With a brainstormed idea and a lofty goal set, Kent Cartridge engineers put their nose to the grindstone and began developing the next generation of Kent Fasteel shotshells. Engineers began tinkering with a binary payload, consisting of two different shot sizes, to see if it had a positive impact on pattern density — and it did. The scientific explanation behind the aerodynamics of the new payload and why it improved pattern density is complicated. Put simply, engineers found that when the larger pellets led the payload, that the smaller pellets drafted behind the larger ones, maintaining downrange energy and drastically increasing pattern densities. While they cannot prove it, they also believe that the binary payload and drafting that takes place has shortened the shot string. After seeing the results that their early binary payloads produced, Kent then relied on their 25+ years of shotshell development experience to fine tune the components and find the sweet spot between payload and velocity.

With Barry’s idea now molded into the early stages of a product that was showing promising results, Kent Cartridge sent the new load off to be independently tested. “We really knew we were onto something special when the company that performed the independent tests came back and asked if we had our pellet counts right as their results had yielded such unusually high pattern percentages,” said Barry. Furthermore, the independent tests affirmed that not only was this new load producing incredibly high pattern percentages, but the uniformity of the pattern across a 30-inch circle at 40-yards was nothing short of impressive.

What many do not understand is that there is a substantial difference between handloading shotshells and being able to mass produce them. Matt Vosika, Plant Manager at Kent Cartridge, said, “I remember after Jeff got the patterning results back, he came into my office and basically asked if we could make it. I said I don’t know, but we kind of have to, don’t we?” Loading a lay- ered payload presented a few hurdles for Vosika and his team, but nothing that they couldn’t overcome. Kent’s new Fasteel+ is currently full steam ahead with produc- tion and should be readily available on shelves at your favorite sporting goods store soon.

By the numbers, Kent’s Fasteel+ #2 and #4 layered load is achieving equivalent downrange energy as a straight payload of #2 pellets, while increasing pattern density by nearly 25%. Everything can look perfect on paper, but at the end of the day, what really matters is how the new load performs in the field. Kent Cartridge has been extensively field testing the Fasteel+ loads for nearly two years with deadly results, and WILDFOWL Editor Skip Knowles ran a small batch of test loads with friends on January ducks and reports they flat-out hit birds hard.

Kent kept it simple with three payload options for 12-gauge and two payload for 20, covering everything from mallards in the timber, to late-season honkers on the frozen plains of the Dakotas. With modern advance- ments in non-toxic shotshells, there has never been a better time to be a waterfowler. Kent’s Fasteel+ loads optimize the terminal capabilities of steel and will surely live up to their tag line of “Next-Level Lethal.”