by Phil Bourjaily
The trend in shotshells is to higher velocities, both because speed kills and because no one ever got rich selling “slow” to the American public. How important is velocity really? Speed does kill, to a point. Shoot two clay targets at the same distance, one with something like Winchester’s 1300 fps Super Sporting and one with a 1145 fps standard target load, and there is no question that the faster load breaks the target more violently.
On the other hand, your shoulder will know which is the faster load, too. Increasing velocity increases recoil. The question isn’t “does speed kill?” but “is more speed worth added recoil?”
The lighter the pellet material, the more it benefits from high velocity to increase its downrange energy. Therefore steel, the lightest shot material, benefits the most from high launch speeds.