doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com speaking of light loads

It's not a light load, but it's a dandy of a pheasant load at a sensible velocity. In this day and age of 1400+ fps 'pheasant loads" it could be considered light, relatively speaking. Below is an RST "Pheasant Load." It's a 12 gauge 1 1/4 oz. load of hard 5's at 1200 fps. I've patterned this load several times in a couple shotguns and it's always given a nice dense pattern downrange. This one was a laser measured 40 yards with a .020 modified choke. I actually stood at 41 yards.

I have been a fan of the B&P 1 1/4 oz nickel plated loads at 1330 fps, but this RST load patterns better and kicks a magnitude less. It's going in the top, modified barrel of a 6 1/2 pound Merkel 200E.

(I mislabeled the note in the corner of the pattern paper. It's not a Kent load. I was patterning some other Kent loads and wrote down the wrong name.)




Just for grins here's the Kent/Gamebore load. It's an ounce of Brit 6's at 25 yards from a skeet-choked barrel. I give Larry Brown credit for turning me on to these. They are peppy, but a good load for the lightish Merkel O/U. (Pretty tight for a fiber wad!)



And the gun. It's a 200E stamped 6/60. (This whole post was a sneaky way to brag about a new shotgun.)

B&P MB Classic 5s at 30 yds.
.030 choke left barrel L.C. Smith 12g.
1 1/8 oz. 3 1/2 dram eq. @ 1330 fps. 171/191 = 89.5%.
Pressure reported by B&P to be 8,416 psi

Looks great, Drew!

The pheasants around Plankinton & Presho were suitably impressed
My low-life Philistine buddies shooting Benelli SBEs with 1 3/8 oz 4s didn't say much

SOOOOO, you also have low-life Phillistine buddies
AND your new name is Samson
Judges" Chapter 15

Mike

Drew reminds me more of the young shepherd boy David, with his five smooth stones ( only one of which was needed, BTW).

SRH

My better side
Guy on the right grew up in Ulysses, KS, is an ambidextrous Orthopedic Surgeon specializing in knee and shoulder arthroscopy which requires extremely good eye-hand coordination, and is the best wing shot I've ever seen. One time near Butler, MO a quail flushed in front of him and he caught the butt of his gun on his vest; killed the bird shooting from the hip. Unfortunately hunting Sage Grouse near Pinedale, WY he shot a bird at (I paced) 50 yds. When I cleaned the bird not a pellet to be found. Big old bird musta died of a heart attack, but thereafter he'd shoot at anything within 50 yds

Ahh. Plankinton & Presho. Don't be giving away such good pheasant hunting sites!

Not sure how bad the drought is in that part of SD. But it may not be that good this season.

Since the thread has no firm direction I'll add I'm a SxS fan who strays to O/U's here and there (the shame!).. I've learned that the 12 ga. guns are the prime choice in the Merkel O/U's. The 16's are wands, but the 12's find the target a whole lot better in my hands.

Fingers crossed for South Dakota birds.

It was not that long ago that I considered 1200 fps and 1 1/8 ounce shot, a 3 dram load, as normal, the 1 1/4 or 1 3/8 hunting loads and 1 1/2 ounce loads heavy duck loads. In the last 30 years everyone has gotten so caught up in the hyper velocity, mega weight loads they have forgotten we killed tons of birds with much more sedate loads. It's almost like they believe a faster load will make up for poor shooting. It does not.

Many years ago I was pass shooting late season doves, along a fence row, with a strong 30 plus mph tail wind behind them. It took me half a dozen shots to figure out for the distance I was shooting them at I needed to triple my original lead. I did not need faster loads I needed to shoot better. After getting the sight picture and figuring out how far to lead them I shot my dozen bird limit in less than a box. My hunting buddy had hit zero birds standing right next to me. He had kept shooting the same way which meant he was about six to nine feet behind every bird. I finally convinced him to double his lead and he got tail feathers. After that he started hitting more than the missed and we were done in about half an hour. But he was a typical shooter who did not want to make adjustments and would fall for the faster is better hype or as some call it the magnum is better trap. A faster arrow does not hit the deer but a better aimed one will.

I started out reloading with a Lee Loader and there were a handful of recipes on the little card that came with it. It selected a Herco load and loaded 1 oz. 20 gauge loads. I quickly moved on to a MEC single stage, but I kept that old Herco load because it worked so well and I shot everything with it from general small game to ducks and pheasants, grouse, etc.. I never felt it wasn't enough and held my own with my buddies with 12 gauges, marsh or field. It was a good load. Then I started shooting trap in my mid twenties and a squad member had a chronograph, so I asked him to check out "my hunting load." I was actually concerned at that point that it might be too hot and possibly dangerous. He got back to me with the results; 1125 fps!

The faster they leave the muzzle the faster they slow down. That is a fact that many of my friends either cannot understand or just ignore.

SRH

Years ago I found if I pushed my .410 loads too hot they tended to have blown patterns. By that, I mean they would have areas which had clumps of pellets and others which only had a few. With today's wads, powders and extra hard shot I see much less of that. It was very upsetting though because I knew every one of my .410 misses in Skeet were caused by blown patterns. Well a few were slow pulls I guess.

This hyper shot speed obsession seems to be worst with Steel shot. You can push the heck out of it and still get tight patterns but Steel is Steel and no amount of extra initial velocity will make it into lead. Those 3 1/2" roman candles are like sticks of dynamite. Plus the recoil becomes a real killer for anything other than a semi automatic. I refuse to shoot Steel shot in any doubles and will just pay what I must for other non steel loads if I can not reload them myself.

As Stan said, "the faster they leave the muzzle the faster they slow down". The physics of it is this: drag quadruples as speed doubles. In other words, if the speed of shot is doubled then the drag forces against it is four times greater. At distances most game or clays are shot this negates much of the benefit of increased speed. I hold all of my reloads to 1200 fps or slower and enjoy superb killing patterns and penetration even at extended range.

I've read that past 30 yards there is no significant difference in velocity due to what you point out. That's why I think this hyper velocity is so much crap. The entire point is to extend killing range and by the distance it would make an improvement the improvement is marginal at best.

If I could just find a good source of Bismuth shot for $40 a bag I'd be happy for most my upland and waterfowl needs. 1150-1200 fps is fine with me in just about any place I want to hunt or shoot.

Joe I was wondering if you could tell me, if enrolled in a shooting school are there Student Loans from the government that I could apply for? I have read that the Government, who makes all the Student loans, is looking at a large default rate and is going to forgive about a third of all student loans. While I would only borrow money to advance my shooting education it would be nice to have debt forgiveness as a future Government program. Perhaps enough to buy and shoot a couple flats or shells a day would be a good start. Maybe a double gun for school purposes.

From an old table published by W/W division, Olin many years ago. Comparing #7� size shot at MV's of 1330 FPS & 1135 FPS. By 20 yds the V's were 930fps & 830Fps, by 40 yds 715fps & 655fps, by 60 yds 580fps & 540fps.
Thus the "Faster" load remained faster all the way, but a 195 fps edge at the muzzle had been reduced to only 40 fps @ 60yds. The slower one would never catch the faster one but the farther they go the less is the difference.
I could be wrong on this but I believe that increased drag being proportional to the square of the velocity is only good below the speed of sound. I believe the drag is even greater than that above the speed of sound with an increase of speed.

At typical game killing ranges the high velocity is not needed, and at longer range, as pointed out, the difference isn't great enough to matter. Beating the hell out of your gun and yourself for no benefit is consumer stupid. A quality pattern on target is what matters.

One other point is that Steel shot sheds velocity much faster than lead shot being less dense. Sure fast Steel will always be faster at any range than Steel which starts out with slower velocity but the difference past 30 yards becomes trivial to me.

I still think shooters have bought this myth that higher velocity is such a great thing in the first place. I've seen deer hunters going to calibers to gain more velocity, more energy and a flatter shooting bullet. But I often ask them if they think it makes any difference inside 200-250 yards. I think it's just a way to stimulate new gun and ammo sales. Find me a deer which can standup to a 30 06, 270 or 7mm at 200 yards. Most people should limit their ranges more and use proper placement of their load or bullet. You are not fighting off starvation for your family. It's hunting for fun not a life or death issue. And I hate game which is lost to waste because hunters were to dumb or lazy to recover it.

Seems to be parallel thinking with pheasant and deer hunters. Always thinking worst case, extreme range scenarios when most deer are shot at less than 100 yards and most pheasants under 30.

Well... nobody increases velocity for velocity's sake.

A 60 fps velocity difference of a 1.46 grain #7 1/2 lead pellet at 40 yards works out to very nearly 20% difference in kinetic energy which is the whole point of the exercise.

Drag increases with the square of velocity, but so does kinetic energy.

It's good to have options and to understand the options, but I really like the way a 1330 fps load of nickel plated 5's ices a pheasant.

I never did like running.

Jones, I'm glad to hear you like 5's in the old "Super X" formula. I'd be seriously concerned if you were actually recommending that we shoot wild roosters at 40 yards with 7 1/2's!

But I do come out with significantly different numbers than you
do. Your 7 1/2, launched at 1145 fps, retains 1.03 ft-lbs of energy at 40 yards. (Most of the stuff I've read suggests that you ought to aim for a minimum of 2 ft-lbs retained energy on pheasants.) Bump that velocity up to 1200 fps . . . 1.09 ft-lbs. I'm not sure the bird is going to notice an energy increase of .06 ft-lbs.

Dave, I just noticed that I recommended those Game Bore loads to you. I mostly use the "heavier" ones: Game Bore Pure Gold 1 1/16 oz Brit 6's in a 2 1/2" paper case. That's my favorite 1st barrel load in a 12ga. Later in the season, if it's a cold and snowy hunt, I may switch to some of the RST 1 1/4 oz loads of 6's or 5's out of an SKB. Had one hunt last year where my hands were cold enough that I'm pretty sure a DT gun would have been a problem for me. Also slower getting on birds due to more layers of clothes, and roosters carrying more layers of pheasant armor (fat) than they were earlier in the season. And all of them pretty much full grown by mid-Dec or so.

Yabutt... Larry...

I was using a 60 fps speed differential at 40 yards, which Miller referenced using launch velocities of 1135 and 1330.

Your speed differential would be 1/4 of that, and 4x .06 is .24 which is (ta da) close enough to 20%.

For 7 1/2 that's actually significant.

Of course, larger pellets retain energy better which is one reason we use them.

I don't take issue with the light load crowd at all, and I use lighter loads when appropriate such as with lighter and older guns. Likewise, I try to limit range in that case. Again, I'm not out there to run.

Agree that heavy loads don't make up for lousy shooting.

Larry, you're correct. The ones I stocked up on were 1 oz of Brit 6's in a plastic hull. They seem to spec pretty close to the papers you use, and the pellet count on the one I opened was 270/oz. The patterns and recoil looked and felt the same as the 1 1/16 oz. papers you gave me to sample with maybe slightly less recoil, but not much and definitely peppy. I used them for the first 2-3 weeks last year in my way open-choked (cyl/ic) 200E and never dirtied the top barrel! They worked well, but I upsized the shot in the top barrel/tighter choke with a 1 1/8 oz. load of 6's @ 1200 fps in that light 6 1/4 pound gun.

Shotgunjones, I've had great success with the B&P MB Long Range NP5's in my heavier Beretta. Those are a 1330 fps load and that's the very top end for me.

I still have a few boxes of Eley Grand Prix paper with brit #6 from when Mr. Crocker down in TX was importing them.

No complaints. They work well in my Fox and Parker.

Only wish someone would start importing them again.

A gentleman was selling off some ammo at 16ga..com last year and of course his 16 ga. ammo went quickly. I already have too much 16 gauge hunting ammo, but I couldn't pass up a flat of these when he offered them. Anyone know when they stopped making this load?

Still quoting from the chart, energy of the #7� shot @ 1330 is 4.88 ft/lbs, @1135 3.56 ft/;bs a difference of 37%. At 60 yds they are respectively .93 ft/lbs & .80 ft/lbs a difference of 16�%
With #5's ME of the 1330 load is 10.08 ft/lbs, with the 1135 load 7.43 ft/lps for the same 37% difference. At 60 yds the faster load has dropped to 655 fps & 2.46 ft/lbs, the slower one has 605 fps & 2.09 ft/lbs a difference in energy of 17.7%. Obviously the higher speed load retains an advantage all the way, but it is nowhere near the magnitude that many believe & that the shell Makers promoted for years.

Here's the RST "Pheasant Load".. hard #5's @ 1200 fps at 35 yards. It would take a tough bird to run after getting nailed. I think this pattern would hang together out to 45 yards. 2nd barrel load.

You'd better have him near the middle of your pattern, though, and not on the edge. The edges of that pattern are pretty sketchy. That's a pretty "hot core", which is fine as long as you're dead on him. You'll be putting lot of shot in the body of a big pheasant if you've got 'im in the middle of that.

I'd have to see what several shots look like at 45 yards before pronouncing judgement on it.

SRH

Is this the same load as the first pattern on page one? I think Dave, that Stan has a point. I didn't count marks in the picture, but it's probably a 50% pattern. Then, out at 40 yards there would probably be some stringing. I'm not picking on your pattern, just conversation.

Same load. This last one was shot through a .025 (IM) choke at 35 yards. The first pattern was at 40 yards through a .020 choke.

Perfect patterns are hard to find, but this last one is more than 50% (at that range). that said, I'd like to see a more even distribution.

I'm curious to see how those older Federal Premium 6's pattern. That's my next mission.

Stan, I'll shoot a couple at 45 yards with the same gun and choke next time out. I'm curious, too.

Just for fun, I'd also try an ounce of #6 at 1200fps. Who knows, for only giving up 20fps, you may like the pattern and usable count better. Hope those Federals work out just fine.

It is really eye opening to shoot patterns at over 40 yards. I have patterned my regular sporting clays load, 1 1/8 oz. at 1180 fps, at 45 yards and walked away scratching my head at how inadequate it looked. Yet, I run stations with 45 yard birds all the time ....... 4 for 4. Last two rounds I shot the course had been reset by a member who wanted to toughen it up a bit. Station 2 had a bird that was launched from the far side of about a three acre pond, very high, and landed in the pond at 50 yards. It had to be broken near the top, while it was above the trees and had a blue sky background, which put it at somewhere around 60 yards at the break point. I shoot two fixed .020" chokes, and it broke every time I got the lead right, 2 out of 3.

Could it have slipped through a hole in the pattern at 60 yards? I have no doubt. But, it is amazing how often it doesn't. When you get the lead right, it's usually a dead bird.

I know that sounds self-contradictory, but I still strive for the absolute best patterns I can deliver.

SRH

That's sort of my point. Here's that first RST 1 1/4 oz. 5 shot pattern shot through a .020 choke standing at 41 yards. There are not many 5's in 1 1/4 oz, and most of them are in the 30" circle. I'm definitely going to be comfortable shooting this load at 40-45 yard pheasants. I'd rather take them all with my open barrel much closer, and the vast majority will be taken within 30 yards, but I like what I see with these if I have to touch one off at long range.

We talk about the negative aspects of shot string, but a 3 dimensional pattern is probably the reason those clays break when the lead is right. The pattern board can't capture this aspect of a shot pattern. Just food for thought. Great discussion.

There may be something to that, jb. The pattern we see cannot be the same as what the clay "sees" as it moves through the shot string, for a crosser, that is. However, for a straight away and for a straight on, it's very accurate.

You know, on second thought, that may be the very reason that straight aways are so easy to miss if you are even the tiniest bit off the edge of the bird. I have wondered for many years why you have to be so precise when you are shooting a straight away bird. It seems to be contrary to the lack of precision necessary when establishing lead on a crosser. The movement of the bird through the shot string, on a crosser, may just be the reason. It may help to negate the empty "pockets" we see on a two dimensional pattern.

SRH

Craig, you made me do it! I counted the pellets and there are 178 strikes in the 30" circle. A 1 1/4 load of 5's normally has about 213 pellets. When I bought these I contacted RST and they confirmed they use hard shot, so going with the 178/213 strikes it comes out to be an 84% pattern at 40 yards. That's pretty good performance out of a modified choke! Maybe RST will read this and send me another flat.

Sorry about that Dave. I quick ballparked it at a good bit less, and noticed the flyers seem to be long gone by the time they get to your 40yd circle.

Western Wisconsin eh? There was a time that the grouse were pretty good east of La Crosse and around the Ft. McCoy area. My favorite part of deer camp was heading out midday for birds when things quieted down from all the restless deer hunters. I can't recall much pheasant though, but it's been a bit.

No problem, Craig. 5's patterns rarely look great. I took zero offense and I'm glad I ran the numbers for my own sake. The grouse hunting was great in this region. There are still birds, but not like before and the new landowners have kept me out of my best areas. We're mostly DNR stocked pheasants with pockets of natural reproduction here and there. Fortunately I can drive to southern MN and northern IA and do most weekends when I'm not up a little farther north chasing grouse.

That's a nice full choke pattern, Dave.

.020 or not, it throws a full choke pattern with that load.

Not too unusual really.

The larger shot responds to choke differently than real fine shot. Less can be more, even with 5's and for sure with 4's.

20 gauge 3" Fiocchi 'Golden Pheasant' #5 looks just like that out of my Beretta with .020" 'Mobil' chokes. It's a splendid pheasant load.

I believe there is no question that a crossing target does not 'see' what we see on a 2d pattern plate, but unfortunately the 2d pattern is most likely 'best case'.

There's still research to be done on that.

Shot string can work for or against you. From the high speed photos I've seen the leading edge of the shot stream is center mass and tapers out like a cone rearward. There seems to be a reverse cone effect towards the rear of the stream but much less well defined. Flyers or out laying pellets can be so unpredictable.

In clay targets I always figured when I cut the nose off a bird I was using the edge of the shot string. Crushed targets were centered. Those birds which split in half were most likely hit by out laying pellets and were all sheer luck. I'm am sure you could figure out the distance a clay target or bird travels in the time the entire shot string takes to fly by it. I've read 2"-10" depending on angle and speed of shot and bird. Having heard a lot of pellets rain down in the dove field I figure at 25 yards it is a few inches because at a hundred plus yards, when spent, the stream takes several seconds to fall completely.

So our most commonly used tool to determine load effectiveness only gives us a two dimensional view of what is a 3-d world. Not perfect, but it does give us a lot of information. And I wonder if what it can't tell us is that big of a deal? Every pattern is slightly different. Those flyers in one pattern are somewhere else in the next, but center density should be fairly constant. And we should mostly be using center density most of the time.

Based on those assumptions that is a very good looking pattern. I'd use something more open if closer, if I could, but sometimes you have to accept that there is not one size fits all conditions in shooting.

I'm sure that many of you have seen this video for the Blaser F16, but it is pretty neat to see the shot hitting the targets in slow motion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8LPRHEhAuw

Aha. My bad. I thought you were addressing muzzle velocity, not retained velocity at 40 yards. Sure, .20 ft-lbs or so would make a difference . . . but not enough that I'd want to shoot the faster, harder hitting load of 7 1/2's at a pheasant at that range. Probably nothing larger than a quail. Increasing pellet size rather than adding velocity is a much more effective way to increase retained energy.

Correct, but of course at the expense of number of pellet strikes.

Shot size selection requires finding a workable balance for both the game and the range.

The 'style' of shooting must be considered also.

Brits are very fond of their #6 at 270/oz, but that's generally used for high elevation 'driven' shooting. We have a very good simulation of that here and I can attest to the effectiveness of that classic load when the birds show their underside to the gun.

That equates to about a US #7, and I really would hesitate before an up the tailpipe shot at a tough old rooster... unless of course the elusive 'perfect point and flush' could be achieved and the hammer dropped at 25 yards.

Therin lies the beauty of 2 triggers and two different chokes for flushing birds. On this particular gun I can use pattern filling Brit 6's, US 7's, or whatever on the front-trigger .006 barrel, and have the hammer blow 5's through the .020 choke barrel for the longer pokes.

Dave that sounds like you are getting the best of both barrels out of them. Should be good for 20-40+ yards with barrels selection and shot placement.

That's the plan, Jon. Of course I need to shoot straight!

When I'm using a 12ga--especially short-chambered--Gamebore's "Pure Gold" load of 1 1/16 oz Brit 6's (essentially the same pellet count as 1 1/4 oz US 6) is what I'll use in the R barrel. Very effective on our "walked up" wild roosters over dogs. But then a 40 yard shot is unusually long for me. And if I'm presented with a longer opportunity, I'll do as Dave Erickson suggests and select the rear trigger. The L barrel has a 1 1/8 oz load US 6's through a tighter choke, reloading formula that yields 1150 fps at about 7,000 psi, so pretty gentle in old doubles.

Since we've posted some patterns, this might be of interest. Unfortunately the image is not attributed and I haven't found the source, but it is labeled "photographs" rather than marketing dept. illustrations.

The only load with 304 pellets that I can find is 1 1/4 oz. Steel 5s per http://shotshell.drundel.com/pelletcount.htm

The only 1 1/4 oz. Steel 5 load I've found is Kent Teal Steel at 1350 fps.
Anyone recognize the image?



40 yd. - Cyl = 43%, Full = 76.6%;
50 yd. - Cyl = 25%, Full = 51% but if the bird was centered (and the pellets retained adequate energy) it should be dead in the air.

I don't recognize it, but I bookmarked that Drundel page.

I smell Greener.

Every pattern he published was perfect, just like those.

Ballistic equivalent of the SI swimsuit issue... unobtainable but fun to look at.

Jones, I like that line!

Note that the cylinder pattern at 20 yards puts more pellets in the circle than does the full at 40 yards, and cylinder at 30 is better than full at 50 . . . clearly demonstrating why very open chokes are very good choices for clays or birds at close range.