doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com European / Italian Shot Size vs US Shot Size

More important with pheasant size loads. As said, I like the B&P MB Classic 1 1/8 oz. at 1330 with 194 5s. It would require 1 3/8 oz. to get 187 4s for the same pattern density, with ALOT more recoil.

Or maybe dr wonko's intellectual inferiors are just interested in knowing.

Far be it from me to demean the pursuit of knowledge.

I would suggest that the time spent in that noble endeavor might be better applied to improving shooting skills. IIRC a properly placed load of 6's was more than adequate for the phez. And I'm not sure you could even cram a 1 3/8 into one of those miniature Brit game guns and they kill lotsa phez, eh?

besta luck on that shooting stuff

have a day

Dr.WtS

dr wonko: please share your personal experience walking up big country non-opening day wild pheasants

A bit of mine back when I used a 20g with 1 oz. of 6s, but I was younger then and I'm not as quick now, and I value the prize enough to want the bird to hit the ground dead rather than running. You'll note than none were flushing at our feet, and all going away or shallow angle crossing shots

That looks more like dove shooting in Argentina . . . .

Doc,

I truly respect all you do and the casual friendship we have shared these last ten or twelve years, but I have to say that with that photo, you are fudging now like some of the spin doctors in D.C.

I have been in on so may hundred bird flushes in SD over the last 30 years, both hunting for myself and while guiding for others. Never was there a flush where the dogs didn't find birds sneaking around in the bull rushes, cattails and Kosha weed that did not flush with the flock. Especially later in the season when the veterans go to the wing only as a last resort.

And if I took such a photo with the wide angle (which is where it opens when turned on) of my pocket camera, the little lens would make all those twenty yard flushes look like they happened at 40 yards. Now I am not saying that your photo is of a twenty yard flush, just photos can be deceiving and rarely alone tell the whole story.

Or maybe those creepers and sneakers are truly a lab's forte. Regardless, the truth is I hunt through out the High Plains from Sept to January and always with a light 12 or a 16 because good dogs put birds up inside of twenty five yards all season long and ten or twelve pellets more or less in the pattern of an ounce of chilled lead at that range is mox nix.

bc: We all have our own degree of comfort with leaving birds in the field, and FOR ME doing so diminishes the joy of the hunt so much that many years ago I started only using my bird guns for low gun skeet and sporting clays and shot a couple of rounds once or twice a week. In the field I try my best to choose shots that with a high degree of certainty would produce a bird dead in the air, and have chosen a gun, choke combination, and load with which I have a great deal of confidence, and with some degree of 'over-kill' to accommodate a misplaced pattern.
Lots of guys have killed more birds that me (including dr btdst in Kansas and N. Dakota behind his excellent GSPs), lots of guys are better shots, and lots of guys have better dogs. But this is what I'm comfortable with, and dr wonko can use whatever he wishes if he makes it to the prairie, and will likely be less condescending thereafter.

Near Plankinton after a long day of drive and block hunting; all wild birds. Not really what I enjoy, and the other low life philistines mostly had SBEs with 1 3/8 4s



Also Plankinton, my better side and part of our lab power

Drew,

We were in KS last weekend and the quail report seems fairly good for you know where. Pheasants, however, really poor again this year. Going down for the PC opener so will learn more then. Will let you know.

Bob, I agree that 10 or 12 pellets one way or the other won't make much difference. Even more than that. However, if you compare 4's to 6's--and quite a few people shoot pheasants with lead 4's--that's a difference of 90 pellets to the ounce. That would concern me . . . although maybe it shouldn't. Jack O'Connor wrote about a friend who shot pheasants with 4's (I think 1 1/8 oz) through an IC choke, and was quite successful. Yet when O'Connor patterned the same load himself, he said he found holes through which he could have tossed a cocker spaniel. If you're shooting the birds within 25 yards, it might not make any difference. But just in case, I'd rather shoot the same load of 6's and make it much less likely a rooster would slip through one of those holes.

I haven't been hunting for over 50 yrs so I'm sure I'm dated. At that time I always went with my Grandfather and shot one of his guns - a M37 Featherweight 16ga 1oz 7 1/2's (just like his cuz they were). No dog, just walked them up in the stubble fields outside Wilson, KS. I suppose we could've lost a bird now and then but I don't recall any.

Shoot what you like for whatever reason - don't make no diff to me

have a day

Dr.WtS

Larry, I guess I have misread or misunderstood, or both the subject of this thread.

I thought we were discussing the shot size difference between Italian shot and American, not the difference in number of pellets between large shot and smaller shot.

And that is why I say the 10 or 12 pellets, more or less, difference in a pattern of American shot compared to the same size designation of Italian is not worth much concern.

Drew, I truly do know how much of a conservationist you are in the field and certainly was not questioning that of you.

It is just that I advocate, as many here can tell you, the use of a good dog above all else and such will, if her owner will spend enough time on shank's mare, find three a day inside of 20/25 yards, particularly in SD. To that end, any reasonable shot size will anchor them pretty good.


For more than a half century up close and personal because of a good dog, has been more important that the pellet count in my shells and I really believe that to be true for any Uplander.

I don't really know off hand how many birds I have shot over the last 53 seasons that did not make it into the bag, but it is really very few. That's not to say it is because I am such a great wing shot. Rather it is to say that good ammo and good dogs have made even my marginal shots lethal and those birds the dogs had to make me look good on would have been no less wounded if I had been using pterodactyl loads.

I guess all of this rambling is to say that shot size is in my experience such a minor consideration in the Uplands relative to other factors that weigh so heavily. The difference between Italian shot and American, size for size, is IMHO even less of a worry.

BTW Drew, one of those youngsters that I gave one of your collars too, took a second with his dog in a FT over in Idaho week before last. He really has become a fine trainer over the last decade and is now training with Don Romine.

And if you haven't heard. I had to put Belle down in April. As fine a master huntress as ever delivered a rooster to hand.