doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The Square Load

Stir the pot Stan.....

Were they green?

I wish I could remember what brand those shells were. Maybe Rios? I just cannot remember the brand or, the most important thing, .......... the color.

SRH

Well, yeah....

Sheesh.

What is truly significant is the "square loads' are substantially cheaper than "round? loads". For example 25 pack of 16ga 1oz is about $7 while 1&1/8oz or 1&1/4 is $12 or $13 or more depending on manufacturer and country of origin. While I don't shoot 12ga anymore I think the difference between 1oz and 1&1/4 is about $6 or $7 which is very, very large indeed. I'm not mentioning old Euro 12ga game load of 1&1/16 simply because unless you use specialty ammo or foreign make (usually English) it simply isn't readily available. You can look forward to more "square load" users.

Over the years I have concluded that most writers praising the square load have not the foggiest idea what it actually weighs for any given gauge.
Also they nearly always give the British credit for it.
Fact of the matter is the 12ga 1 1/16oz load came about as an act of parliament & not by a ballistician. 1 1/8oz had been settled on as the Standard game gun load. When WWI began for the savings in lead Parliament restricted the load to 1 1/16oz. This resulted in a savings of 1 pound of lead for every 256 shells loaded. Aft6er the war with the restriction lifted many stayed with the load as they liked the reduced recoil, though some went back to 1 1/8oz. I seriously doubt its being square or not had any bearing on either choice.

Another writer advancing the knowledge of ballistic science:


"Hollinger mentions an English shotgun writer who took chronograph readings of heavy field loads and light field loads. �At 30 yards, the shot string from the heavy loads was 25-30 feet long!� he exclaims. �There�s a lot of room for a pheasant to fly through a 30-foot shot string and only take a couple of pellets.�

Aha. Everyone who�s spent time in a duck blind recalls a crippled duck floundering around in the decoys, and someone stands up to shoot it and finish the job. �The distance between the first pellet and last pellet striking the water is sometimes a very long way,� I noted. �Is that what you mean?� �Exactly,� Hollinger says."


"Look Charlie Brown, the snow is coming up out of the ground!"

Another interesting thing to consider is that the 'gauge' system is entirely arbitrary, and that 'pounds and ounces' don't have any correlation with natural phenomenon.

Had we used kilograms instead, a 16 would then be a 35 gauge and use about 28 grams of shot. Nobody would find stars aligning using those numbers.

The whole gauge thing really is a silly way to arrive at a design bore size. We get strange and arbitrary bore sizes like .550, .615, .662, .729.

Would not millimeters have been better? Or round inch fractions?

We could instead have a 17MM shotgun, and go up or down a couple MM at a time for the others. Or perhaps 1/2", 5/8", 11/16", 3/4".

We are wedded to the lead sphere only by tradition.

Ted,
I'm not bothered by the recoil( even in a "svelt" Heym O/U 60cm barreled gun)nearly as much as stumbling around trying not to fall. In my younger days, I also took my share of "bunnies" with .22s(rifle and pistol)as well as .38 and .45. I also took a few Hare with .22 mag. insert barrel in a drilling, when the deer didn't come. I always liked to carry a pistol that complemented the long gun, rather than duplicate it, the insert barrel filled that role. Being on the north side of 70, I can say with some authority that there are a lot more than 10 years between 60 and 70 years old. I wish I had 30 year old legs again.
Mike

Totally ridiculous! I cannot even imagine where that originated but it certainly has nothing to do with math or physics or botany or geology or ............

and that shot string drivel - man, that is one mother fast bird!

In his most excellent work "The Modern Shotgun" Burrard reported virtually no difference in the length of shot string from the ordinary 1 1/16oz load & a 1�oz load. He also found shot string to be of no consequence unless three conditions were met;
1 - The Shot was made @ more than 40 yards
2 - The target was moving faster than 40 miles per hour
3 - The target was moving at 90� to the shot line.

Shot string might thus be of importance if one was passing shooting 60 yd geese. For 99.9% of upland gunning & clays shooting it can be Ignored or Forgotten.