I shoot early season doves regularly now with a .410, and have used 11/16 and 1/2 ounce loads extensively. What I can say for certain concerning lightening the payload for wild birds is this ............. get too light and you will start seeing less stone dead birds hit the ground. Better have a dog when you get on the extreme end of light loads. I reaffirm this every dove season by beginning using 1/2 oz. loads of 8s, then going to 11/16 as the birds get warier and older, then 7/8, and end up using 1 oz. of 7 1/2s on the old tough migratory birds. The short of it ...... less shot and smaller shot, more cripples.
The other variable in all this is choke. You have to have density in the pattern, whatever your load is, to kill reliably. My above experience is with pretty tight chokes. The only time I will ever go under .015" is for bobs. My most open choke for doves is .015", and I will not hesitate to use .025" in the right barrel. And I clean them all, and eat them, so normally, no "shot to pieces" birds.
SRH
Last edited by Stan; 12/20/14 08:44 AM.
