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

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.