Classic lead ammunition is increasingly being replaced by lead-free ammunition. Hunters are at best critical of this change, which is due to the widespread lead bans, because lead-free shot has ballistic disadvantages:

First, the flight characteristics of steel shot are worse than lead shot. Lead shot can be fired further in case of doubt, since it brings more energy to the target. With steel shot, a maximum distance of approx. 30 meters must be observed. The fact that lead shot brings more energy to the target should also be taken into account when choosing the shot grain: With lead-free ammunition, the grain size should be somewhat larger than with lead shot.

Another disadvantage of steel shot is that it is more easily deflected. When shooting at hard surfaces or water from a shallow angle, lead-free shot is more likely to ricochet. A circumstance that is also criticized by hunters with lead-free rifle ammunition, because this significantly increases the danger zone.

In order to fire lead-free shot from shotguns, they must be steel shot fired. This follows from the following properties, which steel or soft iron brings with it:

Steel shot is much harder than lead, with lower specific gravity.

In addition to those already mentioned, this has the following consequences:

• More individual shot pellets with the same pattern and grain size
• higher penetrating power despite lower impact energy
• faster loss of velocity of the shot sheaf
• Individual shot grains no longer deform in the barrel because they are too hard. Because steel shot does not yield, the load on the barrel increases, and individual shot grains are also "pushed away" to the side - risk of "rim shot".
• The shot grains penetrate deeper into the game body, but emit less shock energy.

It follows for the ammunition:

To achieve the same performance as a leaded cartridge, lead-free shot ammunition must be more heavily loaded. To prevent the barrel from being stressed by the hard shot grains, other intermediate means must be incorporated into the cartridges to prevent contact. So the steel shot load (recognizable on the barrel as a "fleur-de-lis") shows that the gun is up to the higher load.