doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Damascus, light loads, and birds

For several years now I have been shooting light (one ounce lead loads) loads in my Damascus shotguns with good luck at clays. However, when I use the same loads, (with bismuth) on birds I have a very low sucess rate. So this weekend I took my Berretta target gun out with Heavishot factory loads and had very good luck. Should I decrease the amount of Bismuth to increase the speed of the load and obtain better killing power? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
John

Jas, could it be more an issue of shooting technique than loads?

As you surely know, birds do not fly like clays.

JC

P.S.: Luck should only be a very small percentage of the total equation as far as
killing birds (or hitting clays for that matter) goes. JC :-)

jas,
have you chronographed your loads? Only actual data will tell you what's going on.

light 1oz loads can make a gun shoot very tightly have you tried patterning the gun?

Lots of things unstated, undefined here. I have used bismuth loads of #6, #5, #4 and #3 at about 1200 fps and killed even big mallards cleanly at 30-40 yards. #5 and #3 at 1300 fps kill big geese cleanly at between 40 and 50 yards, often with too many #5 pellets in bird.

Pattern density: In my old guns with tight chokes, bismuth shot patterns very tightly, often 80% or more. Point it just right and dead ducks and geese fall.

In my old doubles, lead and bismuth loads shoot to same POI, and same for both barrels. With tight bismuth patterns, a wayward POI could be bad news.

Niklas

Bismuth does shoot very tightly in my Lefever. When shooting ducks this year I held my fire until all the autos were empty and then went to work. Several birds killed had been hit by other shooters but some had not been shot at at all. Most of my shot were in the 30-35 yard range but several were 50 plus yards in an attempt to anchor birds that had been hit by others. One large Mallard, which had been hit twice by others, was anchored at well past 50 yards. I swear you could count one, two, three from the time I shot until the duck was hit. It was stone, cold, dead. Made a believer out of me for Bismuth and made me wish for the good old days of lead again.

Bismuth = good old days of lead.

I don't miss lead at all, save for lower price.

Sure hope bismuth shot gets back into production again.

Niklas

For several years I've been shooting bismuth #5 loads in a tightly choked Lefever, either 12 or 10 gauge. The bismuth #5 load knocks the sea ducks and scaup down for me a lot better than the steel that the guy next to me in the layout boat uses.

Bismuth 5's, 4's & 2's work well for me as long as I use buffer

CJ

There is a world of difference between factory HeviShot loads and those puny light and low pressure Bismuth "home brews".
Luck has lot to do with seening many birds, but nothing to do with size of the "bag".