doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Too fast for me.

I was looking at shells yesterday and noted the Winchester Dove loads were 1 ounce loads being pushed at 1350fps. Unless dove have started growing Kevlar feathers that's just so much over kill. I killed more early season Dove with ammo going 1100-1150 fps that anything but never missed a bird and thought if only I had 1350-1400 fps shells I'd be better off. And even 1 once loads will be more than a decent amount of recoil going that fast.

Don't know if they push them that fast to be sure of working semi automatics or they consider that higher speed will be a marketing advantage. But it for sure is not required to give enough penetration. This faster is better myth, just bugs me.

Recent practice on clay targets is much more important to me than equipment or super express ammo. When I had Dove fields on the farm everyone had to shoot a few clay targets behind the equipment shed. That made sure their gun was working properly and gave them a chance to shoot several going away targets and half a dozen crossing targets to get the rust off their swing. Plus more than a few figured out they had their full choke tubes in their guns and could change them right there. Kind of funny watching them borrow a more open choke tube from another shooter.

There's dead, dead-enough, and Super-dead.

It's obvious by what you see at impact,that faster pellets hit harder.

Doesn't make a bird more dead though.

Bolluxes everything in an old gun up as well.

I like "dead-enough" myself.

Hmm, gonna be missing in front now instead of behind.
O.M

You're just too old school. Like rifle and pistol shooters, shotgun shooters aren't far behind. Everything is about velocity, to most of these shooters. The low to moderate velocity shooters in any discipline are few and far between. It's been that way for a very long time. All of the ammunition makers were pimping HV shotgun loads for damn near a century now and they're obviously still doing it.

Steel shot has had some influence on these speeds. Because of the lighter weight per pellet for any given size the manufactures ramped up velocity to compensate. You can now buy steel loads in excess of 1700fps.

Combine this and Americans love for anything magnum along with a good marketing hook. We now have expensive super speed magnum doves loads.

What happened to the good old days when you waited for the ammo sales the last two weeks of August when dove loads would go on sale for under $2.00 a box. I guess I'm showing my age. I bought a lot of the under $2.00 stuff at Target back in the day.

I shot competitive International Skeet for years and never subscribed to the need for 1350 fps loads. I always loaded my shells to 1200 and learned to "compensate" for the extra inch or two of lead that my loads required.

My go to load for Sporting Clays is 1oz/1350 FPS. (7.5 or 8's)
Love 'em and they're cheap. They do say Dove Loads on the box and no doubt they would make short work of a Dove.

Ky Jon, I hardly ever shoot anything more than 1150-1200 and mostly closer to the 1150-1160 area. Dead is dead and broken is broken I have shot some of the 1350 stuff and the only difference is a headache when I finish.

I fail to see a problem.

Winchester 'Super Target' runs one ounce at 1180.

Academy Sports will deliver them to your door for $5.49/box.

Take a Sharpie, cross out the 'Target' on the box, and make it say 'Dove'.

Done.

WalMart (bad word) has Federal Gold Medals on sale at $5 per box. Great shells at a great price, but still not necessarily the thing for old guns.