Gear Guide · Pheasant Hunting
The Best Pheasant Loads of 2026
Five lead loads and five nontoxic for pheasant and upland birds, every one stocked at a major retailer right now, with specs and prices read off the listing rather than the press release.
2026 Season · Specs Verified Against Retailer Listings
The Short Answer
For wild roosters, shoot 1¼ to 1⅜ ounces of plated #5 lead. Where nontoxic is required, shoot bismuth in #4 or #5 rather than upland-labeled steel. Bismuth is dense enough to do a rooster's worth of work at a size you can actually buy, while the small steel sold on upland shelves is built for quail and dove. For those smaller birds, cheap steel in #6 or #7½ is the right answer and costs a third as much.
Every upland hunter has the same memory, and it usually turns up around the third week of the season. A rooster gets up wild, forty yards out and climbing, and you swing through and shoot and watch the bird fold a wing and sail. You mark it down in the stubble, walk it out with the dog, and find nothing but a few feathers. Most of us spend that afternoon deciding we missed, because a clean miss is easier to carry than the alternative.
The reflex is to blame the shooting, and sometimes the shooting deserves it. But a meaningful share of those birds come down to what was in the chamber, because a rooster is built to absorb pellets in a way most game birds are not, and the wrong shell simply doesn't get through.
What follows is ten loads, five lead and five nontoxic, with every specification and price read off the retailer's own listing rather than a press release. There's a short section on the ballistics further down for anyone who wants the reasoning, but the picks come first, because that's what you came for.
No affiliate links. Hunt Bums earns nothing if you buy any of these shells, and no manufacturer paid for placement, supplied product, or saw this article before it ran. Links are split across Bass Pro, Sportsman's Warehouse and MidwayUSA simply because that's where each load happens to be stocked. All ten are current catalog items with broad availability rather than boutique shells you have to hunt down. Prices were recorded at publication and move constantly.
RecommendationsOur Top Picks
| Award | Load | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Best Lead Overall | Fiocchi Golden Pheasant | Nickel-plated #5, the benchmark for twenty years |
| Best Late-Season Lead | Federal Prairie Storm FS Lead | Buffered and belted, built for forty-yard roosters |
| Best Pattern Control | Winchester Rooster XR | Shot-Lok resin keeps pellets round downrange |
| Best Heavy Payload | Winchester Super Pheasant | 1⅜ oz of copper-plated shot, stocked everywhere |
| Best Value Lead | Kent Ultimate Fast Lead | Premium shot quality at 92 cents a shell |
| Best Value Nontoxic | Federal Upland Steel | The cheapest shell here by a wide margin |
| Best Steel for Chukar & Huns | Winchester Xpert Upland | Upland-specific wad, priced for volume shooting |
| Best Nontoxic for Roosters | Kent Bismuth | Densest pellet here, and safe in vintage barrels |
| Best Sub-Gauge Nontoxic | HEVI-Bismuth Upland | Widest gauge selection in true bismuth |
| Best One-Box Nontoxic | HEVI-Hammer Upland | Bismuth over steel, cheaper than straight bismuth |
ComparisonAll 10 Pheasant & Upland Loads Compared
| Load | Shot Type | Shell | Payload | Shot Sizes | Velocity | Per Round |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fiocchi Golden Pheasant | Lead, nickel-plated | 12ga 2¾" | 1⅜ oz | #5, #6 | 1,485 fps | $1.32 |
| Federal Prairie Storm FS Lead | Lead, plated + buffered | 12ga 2¾" | 1¼ oz | #4, #5, #6 | 1,500 fps | $1.28 |
| Winchester Rooster XR | Lead, copper-plated | 12ga 2¾" | 1¼ oz | #6 | 1,300 fps | $2.07 |
| Winchester Super Pheasant | Lead, copper-plated | 12ga 2¾" | 1⅜ oz | #4, #5, #6 | 1,450 fps | $1.28 |
| Kent Ultimate Fast Lead | Lead, Diamond Shot | 12ga 2¾" | 1¼ oz | #6 | 1,350 fps | $0.92 |
| Federal Upland Steelnontoxic | Steel | 12ga 2¾" | 1 oz | #6, #7½ | 1,375 fps | $0.60 |
| Winchester Xpert Uplandnontoxic | Steel | 12ga 2¾" | 1⅛ oz | #4 | 1,400 fps | $1.00 |
| Kent Bismuthnontoxic | Bismuth | 12ga 2¾" | 1¼ oz | #4, #5 | 1,350 fps | $2.04 |
| HEVI-Bismuth Uplandnontoxic | Bismuth | 12ga 2¾" | 1¼ oz | #5 | 1,400 fps | $2.00 |
| HEVI-Hammer Uplandnontoxic | Bismuth over steel | 12ga 3" | 1⅛ oz | #5 | 1,350 fps | $1.68 |
Every figure above comes from the retailer listing linked in that load's entry, recorded at publication. Shot sizes shown are the ones offered in that specific listing, and several of these lines carry additional sizes, shell lengths and payloads elsewhere in the catalog. Per-round pricing is for the 25-round box in every case except the Rooster XR, which ships 15.
The ReasoningWhy These Picks, and Not Smaller Shot
A rooster is built to stop pellets, so what you need from a shell is penetration rather than a dense cloud of small shot. That single fact drives every recommendation above: plated #5 in lead, bismuth rather than steel for nontoxic roosters, and small steel reserved for small birds.
Pheasants have a reputation for being hard to put down, and unlike most reputations earned around a tailgate, this one is anatomy. A rooster's gizzard is a thick muscular organ packed with grit and lined with tough keratin, and on a going-away shot it sits squarely between your pattern and the heart and lungs. The fine feathers over the rump compound it by balling up around incoming pellets and stripping their energy before they reach skin. The classic upland shot, the bird climbing away and quartering off, is also the one most likely to leave you walking a hedgerow looking for feathers.
The best field evidence for how much that matters comes from a shooting test the ballistician Tom Roster ran in 1997 and 1998, in which hunters shot more than 300 pheasants using one-ounce loads of #2, #4 and #6 steel at 1,375 fps and every recovered bird went to necropsy and X-ray.
| Load Tested | Pellets per Ounce | Wounding Loss | Dead or Immobile in 30 Seconds (under 40 yds) |
|---|---|---|---|
| #2 steel | 111 | 8.5% | 86.5% |
| #4 steel | 177 | 14.3% | 73% |
| #6 steel | 326 | 13.6% | 75% |
CONSEP shooting test, fall 1997 and 1998, more than 300 pheasants at a North Dakota hunting club, designed by Tom Roster and funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the North and South Dakota game departments. Only those three sizes were tested.
The result runs backwards from the way most of us shop. An ounce of #6 carries 326 pellets against 111 for #2, so the denser pattern ought to win. Instead the big shot lost the fewest birds, because the pellets that connected had the mass to punch through to something that mattered.
What That Test Does and Doesn't Tell You in 2026
Those shells are nearly thirty years old, and shotshell design has not stood still. Wad technology has improved considerably, pellet consistency is better across the board, and the bismuth and bismuth-over-steel loads in this guide simply did not exist as retail options when that test was run. So treat the numbers as a demonstration of the principle rather than a verdict on today's shelf: on a bird as heavily built as a rooster, pellet mass and penetration matter more than raw pellet count. The modern answer to that problem usually isn't larger steel, it's denser material, which is why the nontoxic picks above are bismuth.
Roster's practical guidance for pheasant, published in his Nontoxic Shot Lethality Table and distributed by Montana, Nebraska, Texas and South Dakota alongside their own hunting regulations, is steel #3 to #2 with 90 to 95 pellets inside the pattern at 20 to 50 yards. That's the range to buy if you shoot straight steel, and it's why upland-labeled steel in #4 and smaller is the wrong shelf. Bismuth reaches the same place from the other direction, since at 9.6 g/cc a #4 pellet carries roughly the authority of steel two sizes larger.
Distance beats every shell on this page
One figure from that test is worth more than any load comparison. Hunters lost two of the 68 birds they hit inside 30 yards, a 2.9 percent wounding rate, and past 40 yards it jumped to 15.1 percent. That five-fold difference came from nothing but distance, and it dwarfs the gap between any two shells here. You can buy a slightly better pattern; you cannot buy your way out of a 45-yard shot.
Does speed kill?
Not past a point nearly every load already clears, which is worth knowing before you pay for velocity. Roster's lethality database, built from necropsies of some 26,000 birds and pattern testing of more than 25,000 rounds, is the largest of its kind by Outdoor Life's reckoning.
All you need for effective (spelled: lethal) velocity is something near 1250 fps ± 50 fps. For steel loads, all that is needed is something near 1350 fps ± 50 fps.
Velocities beyond those benchmarks, in his words, "have not proven to increase lethality, but do help some shooters with their leads and thus hitting success." Look back at the comparison table and the tension is hard to miss, because four of the five lead loads here run between 1,450 and 1,500 fps, well past the point where extra speed stops buying dead birds. That's what the premium pheasant shelf has become, since velocity is easy to print on a box and pattern quality is not. A faster shell is a shooting preference rather than a killing advantage, and you pay for it in recoil.
LeadThe 5 Best Lead Pheasant Loads
Plated #5 in 1¼ to 1⅜ ounces is the answer for wild roosters, and Fiocchi Golden Pheasant is the shell to standardize on. The other four are genuine alternatives rather than filler, and the cheapest of them costs less than half what the most expensive does.
Most of the country still hunts uplands with lead, and there's no getting around the fact that it makes the job easier: it costs less, patterns forgivingly, and every gun ever built will digest it. All five loads below use plated shot, which is deliberate, because copper and nickel plating keeps pellets round on their way down the barrel and round pellets stay in the pattern instead of curving off into the weeds. It's one of the few premium ammunition claims that reliably shows up on a pattern board, with one limit worth knowing: plating protects a pellet's shape but isn't the same thing as a hard antimony alloy underneath.
Fiocchi Golden Pheasant, 12 Gauge
2¾" · 1⅜ oz · #5 or #6 · 1,485 fps · nickel-plated lead
Why it's number one: Spend enough time in a pheasant camp and somebody will call Golden Pheasant the gold standard, usually without noticing the pun. The reason is the shot itself, which is hard, uniformly graded and nickel-plated, and an ounce and three-eighths of it arrives in a pattern that's been the benchmark for two decades.
The version stocked at Bass Pro is the Extreme High-Velocity loading at 1,485 fps, which sits well above the roughly 1,250 fps where Roster's data say lead lethality plateaus. That speed isn't what makes the shell good. The payload and the quality of the pellets are, and if you'd rather shoot the benchmark than the marketing, Fiocchi still catalogs Golden Pheasant at 1,250 fps in the same weight. Either version outshoots most of what sits beside it.
Take #5 as your default, since it splits the difference between the pellet count of #6 and the penetration of #4. The #6 offered alongside it is the better choice over dogs early in the season.
What to buy: the 1⅜ oz #5. It runs about $33 for 25 rounds, which is real money, and it's the shell worth standardizing on so you actually learn its pattern in your own gun.
Federal Prairie Storm FS Lead, 12 Gauge
2¾" · 1¼ oz · #4, #5 or #6 · 1,500 fps · plated and buffered
Why we recommend it: Prairie Storm blends copper-plated pellets with belted FLITESTOPPER pellets that cut a wider wound channel, seventy-thirty by Federal's own split, out of a rear-opening FLITECONTROL wad that holds the pattern together longer than a conventional design manages. On late-season roosters flushing at forty yards, that engineering earns its keep.
The honest caveat is velocity, because at 1,500 fps this is the fastest shell in the guide and by Roster's numbers you're paying for speed that isn't buying dead birds. What you're actually buying is the wad and the buffering, both of which do measurable work, and the recoil is the price of admission. It's a shell for days when birds are wild and shots are long rather than one to burn a hundred rounds of.
What to buy: the #5 for all-around late-season work, or #4 if you're consistently stretching for heavy winter birds. One box lives in the vest, not five.
Winchester Rooster XR, 12 Gauge
2¾" · 1¼ oz · #6 · 1,300 fps · copper-plated with Shot-Lok
Why we recommend it: Shot-Lok is a hardened resin that encases the shot column and stops copper-plated pellets deforming during the worst moment of their lives, the instant the powder lights and the payload slams into itself. The resin breaks apart on the way out, and what leaves the muzzle is rounder shot.
This is also the one load here shooting at a velocity the research actually endorses, since 1,300 fps sits right inside Roster's window for lead. Combined with the pattern work, that makes it the most technically coherent shell in the lineup.
The catch is what it costs, and you have to read the box to see it, because Winchester sells Rooster XR in 15-round boxes rather than the usual 25. A shelf price that looks competitive is nothing of the sort: at roughly $31 for fifteen it works out near $2.07 a shell, the most expensive round in this guide by a comfortable margin.
What to buy: the 2¾" #6 if you want the pattern technology and you're hunting birds that hold. If most of your shots are routine, the Kent below does most of the same job for well under half the money.
Winchester Super Pheasant, 12 Gauge
2¾" · 1⅜ oz · #4, #5 or #6 · 1,450 fps · copper-plated lead
Why we recommend it: An ounce and three-eighths of copper-plated shot from a high-brass hull, offered in all three useful pheasant sizes and stocked just about everywhere. Super Pheasant has been Winchester's answer to this bird for decades.
It gives up a little to Golden Pheasant in shot hardness, and inside 35 yards, where the large majority of roosters actually die, it gives up nothing you'll notice. The trade is the same one Prairie Storm asks for: at 1,450 fps with the heaviest payload in the guide, it hits your shoulder about as hard as anything you'll fire at a bird.
What to buy: the #5. At roughly $32 for 25 it's priced alongside the premium loads rather than below them, so buy it for the payload rather than to save money.
Kent Ultimate Fast Lead, 12 Gauge
2¾" · 1¼ oz · #6 · 1,350 fps · polished Diamond Shot
Why we recommend it: Kent's Diamond Shot is highly polished, uniformly graded hard lead, and it does most of what plating does for a good deal less money per box. At roughly 92 cents a shell it undercuts every other lead load here by thirty percent or more while giving up very little downrange.
The velocity is the quiet argument in its favor. At 1,350 fps this is one of only two lead loads here anywhere near Roster's benchmark, so you aren't paying a recoil penalty for speed that isn't helping you, and staying comfortable behind a shell all afternoon is worth more on a bird count than anything printed on the fast boxes. One thing to watch is which loading you pull off the shelf, because the 12-gauge 2¾-inch alone runs from 1¼ ounces at 1,350 fps up to 1½ at 1,415, and the heavy end is punishing in volume.
What to buy: the 1¼ oz loading, in #6 early or #5 once the birds get educated. This is the case-quantity shell of the group.
NontoxicThe 5 Best Nontoxic Loads
Kent Bismuth in #4 is the best nontoxic rooster load you can buy off a shelf, because bismuth's density lets a #4 pellet do work a #4 steel pellet cannot. Federal Upland Steel is the value pick for quail, dove and close cover at roughly 60 cents a shell.
California went nonlead statewide on July 1, 2019, not merely on refuges and wildlife areas but everywhere, for everything. So while much of the country is still arguing about whether steel works on roosters, an entire state has spent six seasons finding out, and the answer is that it works provided you respect what it can't do. That means larger pellets than instinct suggests, an honest ceiling on range, and choking it correctly rather than by rule of thumb.
Read This Before You Buy Nontoxic for Pheasants
None of the five loads below is a #2 or #3 steel shell, which is what the research recommends for wild roosters, and that absence is worth explaining rather than glossing over. Upland-labeled steel is almost universally sold in #4 and smaller, because manufacturers build it for quail, dove and released birds, so if you're shooting straight steel at wild pheasants at range the sizes you want live on the waterfowl shelf in a box with a duck on it. The bismuth loads here are a different case, since bismuth runs 9.6 g/cc against steel's 7.8 and a bismuth #4 or #5 carries roughly the downrange authority of steel two sizes larger. That density is why the bismuth options, and not the steel ones, are the rooster answers in this group.
Federal Upland Steel, 12 Gauge
2¾" · 1 oz · #6 or #7½ · 1,375 fps · steel
Why we recommend it: At roughly 60 cents a round this is far and away the cheapest shell here, and a genuinely good one for the birds it was built for. An ounce of steel at 1,375 fps in #6 or #7½ is right for quail, dove and anything flushing close in heavy cover, and the price lets you shoot it in the volume those birds demand.
Be clear-eyed about what it isn't. Those are small-bird sizes, and #6 steel was one of the two worst performers on pheasants in Roster's test at 13.6 percent wounding loss. On a released bird flushing at fifteen yards it does the job well; on a wild rooster at forty it's the wrong tool, and no amount of velocity fixes that.
What to buy: the #6 for chukar, quail and early-season close work, or #7½ if doves are the main event. Buy it by the case, because at this price there's no reason not to.
Winchester Xpert Upland Steel, 12 Gauge
2¾" · 1⅛ oz · #4 · 1,400 fps · steel
Why we recommend it: Winchester built this for uplands specifically, with thicker wad segments to protect the barrel, and priced it for people who shoot a lot. An ounce and an eighth of #4 steel at 1,400 fps suits chukar and Hungarian partridge, birds that flush at moderate range and don't take the killing a rooster does.
For pheasants specifically this is the size the data argues against, which is worth saying plainly rather than burying, since #4 steel posted the worst wounding loss of the three sizes Roster tested at 14.3 percent. That doesn't make it a bad shell, it makes it a shell aimed at a different bird. Winchester loads a #6 version of the Xpert Upland at 1,280 fps for smaller game, and the same Xpert steel comes in #2 and #3 on the waterfowl side if roosters are what you're after.
What to buy: the #4 for chukar, Huns and grouse in nontoxic country, at about a dollar a shell.
Kent Bismuth Waterfowl & Upland, 12 Gauge
2¾" · 1¼ oz · #4 or #5 · 1,350 fps · bismuth
Why it's the rooster pick: Bismuth runs 9.6 g/cc against steel's 7.8, which puts it much closer to lead's 11.3, and Kent offers this one in #4. That combination is the closest thing on a nontoxic shelf to the plated #5 lead the research points at, and unlike steel it's soft enough to shoot safely through old fixed-choke barrels.
It also holds the best independent pattern result of any bismuth load measured. In hobbyist pattern-board testing published by Randy Wakeman, using one Remington 870 with a factory Modified choke and five shots per load rather than a laboratory setup, the 1¼-ounce #5 put 119 pellets inside a 30-inch circle at 40 yards for a 60 percent pattern. That's precisely what a Modified choke should deliver and nearly double what the HEVI bismuth managed in the same session.
The price is the whole argument against it. At roughly $2.04 a round it's the most expensive shell here and a season of it adds up faster than people expect. But if you own a gun your grandfather carried, or you shoot a 16 or a 28 where Kent also loads this line, that premium buys something nothing else on the shelf provides.
What to buy: the #4 for wild roosters, the #5 for mixed-bag days. Buy one box and pattern it before committing to a case, because bismuth pricing punishes guessing.
HEVI-Bismuth Upland, 12 Gauge
2¾" · 1¼ oz · #5 · 1,400 fps · bismuth
Why we recommend it: The most widely distributed true bismuth on the market, sold under both HEVI and Federal branding, in enough gauges that most people find their gun on the list. The pellets are rated at 9.6 g/cc, 22 percent denser than steel, and HEVI states they're safe in older barrels.
There's a reservation worth knowing before you commit. In that same pattern-board session the 2¾-inch #5 managed only 85 pellets in the circle for a 37 percent pattern, which the tester attributed to wad failures, and that's roughly half what the Kent above delivered from an identical payload at a nearly identical price. Roster's broader work doesn't help bismuth's case either, since his duck testing found unbuffered bismuth produced a higher wounding rate than steel or lead between 30 and 50 yards, about 42 percent against 34.
One batch of wads is not a verdict, so none of that is reason to avoid the shell outright. It is reason to pattern it yourself before buying a case. Where it genuinely earns its place is sub-gauge, because if you shoot a 16 or a .410 and need nontoxic the list of options is very short and this is on it.
What to buy: a single box of #5 first, patterned at 30 and 40 yards. If it prints well in your gun it's a fine shell, and if it doesn't, the Kent is right there for four cents more a round.
HEVI-Hammer Upland, 12 Gauge
3" · 1⅛ oz · #5 · 1,350 fps · 15% bismuth over 85% steel
Why we recommend it: HEVI layers bismuth across the front of the payload and steel behind it, so the leading pellets carry near-lead density while the rest keeps the price survivable. It splits the difference between the cheap steel and the expensive bismuth here, and at $1.68 a round it splits the price too.
HEVI claims the arrangement delivers up to 50 percent more downrange energy at 40 yards than all-steel, and that you can therefore drop one shot size against what you'd normally shoot in steel. Those are the manufacturer's numbers rather than independent ones and deserve the same scrutiny as any figure printed on a box, though the underlying physics is sound enough to make the claim plausible.
The duplex concept has skeptics who argue it splits the difference rather than winning at either end, and that's fair. What it genuinely offers is simplicity: one box in the truck that handles roosters, chukar and the occasional quail without you having to think about it.
What to buy: the 3" #5 if you want a single nontoxic box that covers a mixed day. For pheasants alone, the Kent bismuth in #4 is the better shell.
SetupWhat Shot Size for Pheasant, Quail, and Chukar?
Shoot #5 lead for pheasant, in 1¼ ounces or more, and bismuth #4 or #5 where nontoxic is required. For quail it's #7½ or #8 lead and #6 to #7 steel, and chukar sit between the two at #6 lead or #4 steel. Everything past that is adjusting for season and distance.
| Species & Season | Lead | Steel | Bismuth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pheasant, early season (close flushes, thick cover) | #6 | #3 | #5 |
| Pheasant, mid season (the do-it-all size) | #5 | #2 or #3 | #4 |
| Pheasant, late season (long shots, wary birds) | #4 | #2 | #4 |
| Quail (bobwhite, valley) | #7½ or #8 | #6 or #7 | #5 or #6 |
| Chukar | #6 early, #5 late | #4 | #5 |
| Hungarian partridge | #6 | #4 | #5 |
| Ruffed and blue grouse | #6 or #7½ | #6 | #6 |
The lead column is the standard early-mid-late progression and matches Remington's and Project Upland's published guidance. The steel column applies to waterfowl-labeled steel, which is the only place those sizes are sold; it follows Roster's lethality table and does not step down for close birds, and the section below explains why. The bismuth column is conventional practice rather than research, interpolated from bismuth's density relative to steel and lead, and it's the column our own nontoxic picks are built on. Approximate pellet counts per ounce: lead #5 about 170, lead #6 about 225, steel #2 about 125, steel #3 about 155, steel #4 about 190, steel #6 about 315.
Why the steel column doesn't move with the lead column
Look at that table again and you'll notice something most shot-size advice gets wrong. The lead column steps down for close birds and up for far ones, while the steel column barely moves, and that difference is deliberate.
The lead progression is fundamentally about distance. Birds flushing close in thick cover reward a denser pattern, so you drop to #6, and birds getting up wild in the open reward retained energy, so you climb to #4. The trouble starts when hunters apply the two-sizes-up conversion to that mechanically, turning lead #6 into steel #4 and assuming the seasonal reasoning carries across.
It doesn't, because steel's weakness was never distance. Steel's weakness is penetration, and getting closer does nothing to fix a pellet too light to punch through a gizzard packed with grit. In the CONSEP test the advantage of the biggest shot was actually widest under 40 yards, where those hunters took most of their shots, which is the exact opposite of what conversion-chart logic predicts.
So step your lead sizes through the season and leave your nontoxic alone. In straight steel that means staying at #2 or #3 year-round and letting the choke do the seasonal work; in bismuth it means #4 or #5, which is where our picks sit. On the conversion rule itself, Roster's figures show lead #4 at 1,330 fps out-penetrating #2 steel at 1,500 fps by roughly 36 percent at 40 yards, so two sizes up gets you into the neighborhood without quite making steel lead's equal.
Sub-gauges follow the same rules with less margin. A 20 with an ounce of #5 lead kills roosters inside 35 yards all day and a 28 is a superb quail gun, but nontoxic selection thins fast below 12 gauge. Kent loads bismuth in 16, 20 and 28 gauge and .410 and HEVI covers 16, 20 and .410, which is most of why both appear here. If yours is an inertia gun, a Benelli or Franchi or Stoeger, those actions need a minimum recoil impulse to cycle and Franchi publishes a floor of ⅞ ounce at 1,200 fps for its 20s. Every load here clears it.
RegulationsWhere Nontoxic Shot Is Required
California requires nonlead statewide, and it's also mandatory on all federal Waterfowl Production Areas, on refuges and state areas where posted, and across South Dakota's state-owned hunting lands. Upland birds are exempt from the federal rule that governs waterfowl, so state law and property posting are the only things setting it.
| Where | What's Required |
|---|---|
| California | Nonlead statewide, all species, public and private land, since July 1, 2019 |
| Federal Waterfowl Production Areas | You may possess only approved nontoxic shot in the field, upland included |
| National Wildlife Refuges | Nontoxic where delineated by map, leaflet, sign or refuge-specific regulation |
| South Dakota | All small game on state game production areas, water access areas, the state park system, plus COE, BuRec and USFWS land |
| Washington | All upland at every pheasant release site statewide, $1,000 mandatory fine plus two-year loss of small game privileges |
| Iowa | Nontoxic on selected public areas in the north-central and northwest counties |
| Illinois | Nontoxic at a long list of named IDNR sites and controlled pheasant areas |
| Indiana | Nontoxic on specific DNR properties and some put-and-take pheasant sites |
| Nebraska | Nontoxic on posted WMAs |
| Kansas | Nontoxic on numerous posted state wildlife areas |
| Minnesota | Federal WPAs and refuges, state parks, SNAs, and specifically designated WMAs |
Not exhaustive, and these change annually. Check current-year state regulations and posted signage on the specific property you intend to hunt. Federal refuge rule per 50 CFR 32.2(k), which carves out lead slugs and shot for turkey and deer unless a refuge says otherwise.
Two of those entries catch people out every season. South Dakota is the first, and the wording is what gets hunters rather than the requirement itself, because you may not even possess lead shot while hunting small game there, so a forgotten box in your vest is enough. The second is Minnesota, which is widely misreported online: a broad nontoxic requirement for farmland-zone wildlife management areas has been proposed repeatedly since 2006 and has never been adopted. What's in force covers federal production areas and refuges, state parks, scientific and natural areas, and a short list of designated WMAs.
Don't Ask a Chatbot About Regulations
In October 2025, Idaho Fish and Game publicly warned that AI-generated answers about hunting regulations are frequently wrong. Their example was a hunter who asked an AI when waterfowl season opened and showed up a day early, because the model surfaced proposed dates rather than adopted ones. Read the actual regulations or call the agency, and that applies to this page as much as to any other.
SetupThe Choke Mistake Almost Everybody Makes
Run Improved Cylinder inside 30 yards and Modified from 30 to 50. The popular advice to open a full notch when you switch to steel is right for close birds and wrong for far ones, because big steel gives you so few pellets that you cannot afford to scatter them.
Steel doesn't deform going down the barrel the way lead does. It stays round, holds together, and prints tighter through the same constriction, and from that entirely correct observation people draw a tidy rule: open your choke one notch when you switch to steel. The rule is half right, and the half it gets wrong is the half where roosters get lost.
Go back to Roster's threshold. His table wants 90 to 95 pellets inside the pattern for a pheasant, and #2 steel carries only about 125 pellets to the ounce to begin with. Compare a quail load carrying four hundred-odd pellets, where throwing away a third costs you nothing you'll notice, and the difference in margin is obvious. With big steel you're close to the line already, and a wide-open choke at forty yards spends pellets you needed.
Roster's guidance for pheasant with #2 and #3 steel is specific: Improved Cylinder from 20 to 30 yards, Modified from 30 to 50. Close birds over dogs, open up; wild birds flushing at forty, tighten down. For lead the ranges are what you'd expect anyway, with Improved Cylinder for close work, Modified from 25 to 40 yards, and Full reserved for genuinely long late-season shots. Bismuth behaves like lead, so choke it the same way.
Whatever you settle on, pattern the actual shell in your actual gun before the season starts. Everything here is a starting point, and a pattern board at 30 and 40 yards is the only thing that tells you the truth about your combination. It's the highest-value ten minutes in bird hunting.
The MathWhat Pheasant Loads Actually Cost
Between 60 cents and $2.07 a shell, a spread of more than three to one. Steel is the cheap option and bismuth the expensive one, and the Rooster XR deserves a second look because it ships 15 rounds to a box rather than 25.
| Load | Type | Box Price | Per Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| Federal Upland Steel | Steel | $14.99 / 25 | $0.60 |
| Kent Ultimate Fast Lead | Lead | $22.99 / 25 | $0.92 |
| Winchester Xpert Upland | Steel | $24.99 / 25 | $1.00 |
| Federal Prairie Storm FS Lead | Lead | $31.99 / 25 | $1.28 |
| Winchester Super Pheasant | Lead | $31.99 / 25 | $1.28 |
| Fiocchi Golden Pheasant | Lead | $32.99 / 25 | $1.32 |
| HEVI-Hammer Upland | Bismuth over steel | $41.99 / 25 | $1.68 |
| HEVI-Bismuth Upland | Bismuth | $49.99 / 25 | $2.00 |
| Kent Bismuth | Bismuth | $50.99 / 25 | $2.04 |
| Winchester Rooster XR | Lead | $30.99 / 15 | $2.07 |
Prices recorded from the linked retailer listings at publication and sorted cheapest first per round. Buying by the case typically saves five to ten percent. Ammunition pricing is the first thing on this page that will go stale.
Two things fall out of that table that are easy to miss on a shelf. Rooster XR lands at the bottom despite one of the lower box prices, purely because there are fifteen shells in the box rather than twenty-five. And the nontoxic spread is enormous: Federal's steel and Kent's bismuth are both nontoxic and both legitimate, and one costs more than three times the other. If you hunt somewhere nonlead you don't get a vote on whether to buy nontoxic, but you get a large vote on which kind, and matching the material to the bird is worth real money across a season.
ChecklistHow to Pick and Test a Pheasant Load Before the Opener
Five steps and about thirty minutes at a patterning board, done in September rather than the night before the opener. It's the difference between knowing what your gun does and hoping it does something.
- Check whether nonlead is requiredCheck the state regulation and the specific property, because those are two different rules and the property usually wins. California requires nonlead statewide, federal Waterfowl Production Areas require it everywhere, and South Dakota bars you from even possessing lead shot on state-owned areas.
- Pick your shot sizeUse #5 lead or #2 to #3 steel for pheasant, which is what Roster's lethality table specifies. Drop to #6 lead early when birds hold tight, and move up to #4 lead for heavy late-season roosters. For quail use #7.5 lead, and for chukar use #6 lead or #4 steel.
- Match the material to the birdUpland-labeled steel is mostly sold in #4 and smaller, which suits quail and chukar but not wild roosters. If you need nontoxic for pheasants, either step up to #2 or #3 steel from the waterfowl shelf or move to bismuth in #4, which carries the density that steel of that size lacks.
- Pattern it at 30 and 40 yardsShoot the exact shell you plan to hunt at a 30-inch circle at both distances and count what lands inside. You are looking for 90 to 95 pellets for a pheasant. Use Improved Cylinder inside 30 yards and Modified from 30 to 50.
- Set an honest range ceilingDecide before the season how far you will shoot and hold to it. Hunters in the CONSEP study lost 2.9 percent of birds hit inside 30 yards and 15.1 percent past 40, so the cheapest way to lose fewer birds is to let them get closer.
Bottom LineWhat to Buy
Where lead is legal: Fiocchi Golden Pheasant in 1⅜ ounces of #5. If the price stings, Kent Ultimate Fast Lead does most of the same work at 92 cents a round, at a velocity closer to what the research calls for.
On nontoxic ground, for wild roosters: Kent Bismuth in #4. Expensive, the closest thing on a nontoxic shelf to a proper pheasant load, and the only one here also safe in an old fixed-choke double.
On nontoxic ground, for everything smaller: Federal Upland Steel at roughly 60 cents a round, for quail, dove, chukar, close cover and released birds. Buy it by the case.
If you want one nontoxic box for a mixed day: HEVI-Hammer Upland, which lands between the two on both performance and price.
Whatever you settle on, pattern it and let a rooster get closer than feels comfortable. Those two habits put more birds in the vest than any shell on this page.
Quick AnswersPheasant Load FAQ
Number 5 lead is the best all-around pheasant shot size, in 1-1/4 ounces or more. Step down to #6 for early-season birds flushing close in thick cover, and up to #4 late in the year when roosters are wary and the shots stretch out. Where nontoxic is required, use bismuth in #4 or #5, since upland-labeled steel is sold in sizes built for quail rather than roosters.
Yes, if straight steel is what you're shooting. Tom Roster's Nontoxic Shot Lethality Table lists steel #3 to #2 for ring-necked pheasant in a 1 to 1-1/8 ounce charge from 20 to 50 yards, and those sizes are sold on the waterfowl shelf rather than the upland one. The simpler route for most hunters is bismuth in #4 or #5, which reaches similar downrange authority at a size that upland ammunition is actually loaded in.
Yes, provided you use larger shot than you would with lead and keep shots inside 40 yards. In the CONSEP test #2 steel outperformed both #4 and #6, penetrating deeper and breaking more bone. The tradeoff is pellet count, since an ounce of #2 carries about 125 pellets against roughly 315 for #6, so pattern quality matters more rather than less.
Because manufacturers build upland-labeled steel for quail, dove and released birds rather than wild roosters, so most of it tops out at #4. If you need nontoxic for pheasants you have two options: step up to #2 or #3 steel from a waterfowl-labeled box, or move to bismuth in #4, which at 9.6 g/cc carries roughly the downrange authority of steel two sizes larger.
For pheasant with #2 or #3 steel, Roster's lethality table recommends Improved Cylinder from 20 to 30 yards and Modified from 30 to 50. The common advice to open a full notch when switching to steel is right for close birds and wrong for far ones, because big steel carries so few pellets that a wide pattern drops you below the 90 to 95 a rooster needs.
No, not past a point most loads already clear. Ballistician Tom Roster, whose lethality database is built on necropsies of roughly 26,000 game birds, puts effective lethal velocity at about 1,250 fps plus or minus 50 for lead and 1,350 fps plus or minus 50 for steel. Beyond that, in his words, higher velocity has not proven to increase lethality, though it does add recoil.
Anatomy. A rooster carries a thick, muscular gizzard packed with grit and lined with tough keratin, and on a going-away shot it sits between your pattern and the heart and lungs. The fine feathers over the rump also ball up around incoming pellets and reduce penetration. That is why the classic quartering-away flush is the shot most likely to produce a cripple.
California requires nonlead statewide for all hunting since July 1, 2019. Nontoxic is also required on all federal Waterfowl Production Areas, on refuge lands where posted, on South Dakota state game production areas and parks, at every Washington pheasant release site, and on designated areas in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, Kansas and Minnesota.
Number 7.5 or #8 lead. Bobwhite and valley quail are small, thin-skinned birds usually taken inside 25 yards over dogs, so pattern density matters far more than penetration. If nontoxic is required, use #6 or #7 steel. A standard one-ounce target load in #7.5 is entirely adequate and much cheaper than dedicated upland ammunition.
For pheasant hunters on nontoxic ground, often yes, because bismuth in #4 is the closest thing on the shelf to a proper rooster load and upland steel isn't sold in the sizes the research supports. For quail and chukar, no, since cheap steel does that job at a third of the price. Pattern results have also been inconsistent between brands.
Sources and disclosures: This article contains no affiliate links and Hunt Bums earns no commission on any purchase made through it. No manufacturer paid for placement, supplied product, or reviewed the article before publication. Pheasant lethality and wounding-loss data from the CONSEP shooting test of 1997 and 1998, designed by Tom Roster and funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, North Dakota Game and Fish, and South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks, reported by Craig Bihrle in North Dakota Outdoors, 1999; that test compared only #2, #4 and #6 steel. Shot-size, pattern-density, range and choke recommendations for pheasant per Tom Roster's Nontoxic Shot Lethality Table as distributed by Montana FWP, and also published by Nebraska Game and Parks, Texas Parks and Wildlife and South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks. Lethal-velocity benchmarks quoted from Roster's "Does Speed Kill?" in Shotgun Life; database scale per Outdoor Life; further shot-size commentary per Pheasants Forever. Bismuth pattern percentages at 40 yards come from Joe Hunter's pattern-board testing published by Randy Wakeman, using one 12-gauge Remington 870 with a factory Modified Rem-choke and five shots per load into a 30-inch circle; that is careful hobbyist testing rather than laboratory testing, it reflects a single gun, and it is labeled as such wherever it appears above. Bismuth shot sizes are interpolated from steel and lead practice, since Roster's table carries no bismuth entry for pheasant. Regulations per CDFW (AB 711), 50 CFR 32.2(k), S.D. Admin. R. 41:06:04:05.01, WDFW, and the Minnesota DNR; AI regulation warning per Idaho Fish and Game, October 2025. All load specifications and prices were taken from the linked retailer listings at publication and verified individually. Manufacturer performance claims, including HEVI's downrange-energy figure, are marketing and have not been independently verified. Always confirm current rules with your state wildlife agency and check posted signage on the property you hunt.