Non-Toxic Shot Requirements & Materials

Non-toxic shot has been federally required for all waterfowl hunting in the United States since 1991 (lead shot ingested by feeding waterfowl causes lead poisoning) and is required in Virginia for all waterfowl hunting, plus rail and snipe hunting — see the Non-Toxic Shot legal requirement for the current citation.

Steel shot is the most common and generally least expensive non-toxic option, widely available across gauges; because steel is lighter than lead for a given pellet size, it requires larger pellet sizes and generally closer effective ranges to deliver comparable energy — pattern and pattern-density testing (see Patterning below) matters more with steel than many hunters assume.

Bismuth and tungsten-based shot (including tungsten-alloy blends) are denser than steel — closer to lead's density — and pattern/perform more like traditional lead loads at the cost of a significantly higher price per box; some hunters choose them specifically for longer-range goose or diver hunting where retained energy at distance matters more.

Never use lead shot for waterfowl, rail, or snipe hunting under any circumstance — this is a hard legal requirement, not a suggestion, and using lead shot where non-toxic shot is required is a real, prosecutable violation, not a technicality.