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.
