Quest For Tin

Move over steel, bismuth, tungsten-iron and tungsten-polymer, here comes tin shot.

The quest continues for an inexpensive and effective substitute for lead throughout the ammunition community. Tin appears to be an up-and-coming possibility. Indeed, Winchester is already using tin as the core material for its new line of SuperClean NT (Non-Toxic) handgun ammunition.

In its 1999 literature, Winchester remarks that the soft, ductile, tin core assembles, loads and fires like lead, and performs like lead against range backstops while eliminating airborne contaminants.

Leading the charge for tin shot is the Gamebore Cartridge Corp. in Great Britain. Gamebore already offers 1, 1/8 and 1 3/16 oz. 12 gauge tin loads as well as 7/8 oz. 20 gauge and 15/16 oz. 16 gauge field loads in Europe.

As a basic element, tin does look interesting. It's an abundant industrial metal that consumers see most often as the coating inside iron food cans. Tin is a soft, white metal that is not quite as dense as iron. According to the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, a cubic centimeter of iron weighs 7.9 grams; tin, 7.3 grams; bismuth, 9.8 grams; and tungsten 19.35 grams. According to the tin industry's Vickers hardness scale figures, tin measures 7, lead measures 6, bismuth measures 20 and steel measures in the range of 100.

What you end up with is a metal that is fairly close to iron ("steel") shot in density and yet is soft and malleable enough to provide some degree of deformation on impact like lead.

Unlike steel, Gamebore suggests that the softer tin shot will not damage older barrels and chokes, can be loaded in standard machines with standard wads, and will reduce pellet ricochet because of its deformation upon impact.

Like steel shot, the trade-off with tin is that one should use shot one or two sizes larger than lead and at higher muzzle velocities to achieve adequate ballistic performance. Price-wise, tin shot cartridges will fall somewhere between steel and the bismuth and tungsten-based loads. Given that pricing, possibly the highest and best use of tin shot will be in the smaller gauges that are not as adaptable to steel shot.

Tin is already here, but tin shot hasn't yet come ashore in the United States.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Publishers' Development Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group