doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Heavy 16 gauge load

Was recently looking back through some old items I had saved for various reasons. One was a Handloader Mag from 1997. The late Don Zutz had an article in it on reloading the 16. The last load he gave was one he had used some years prior, didn't say how many.
It was late enough he used Federal plastic (paper base) hulls primed with the old Alcan 220 MaxFire primers. It was charged with 52.5 grains of DuPont IMR 4227 powder under 1 3/8 oz of lead shot. Wadding was a .135" Nitro Card plus �" filler seated with 100 lbs pressure. He had this load tested in the DuPont ballistic's lab & it recorded 1216 FPZ muzzle velocity @ 6,900 LUP. The range which gave these averages was for LUP +600 to -800 & for FPS +23 to -32,

This load was fired from an L C Smith having 28" barrels bored Mod/Full & he reported 80% patterns at 40 yards. He did not state which barrel, but the way it was worded it would seem that either barrel would reach that percentage.

The thread on Fiber Wads brought this to mind but thought I would start a new thread rather than hijack that one.

PS, he made no mention of cracking the stock on that "Fine Old Elsie" (His description), while feeding it these loads. He was using this load on crows which had gotten "Street Savvy" (his words) & refused to come into range but would hang around just outside. He was searching for the densest pattern he could come up with using copper plated #5 & #4 shot. Stated he Hammered quite a few of them using this load form the Smith.

That sounds like a decent load for wild pheasant!! I am not aware of any commercial loads that are this heavy?

I miss Don. He covered a lot of ground in his writing and was not afraid to try things. I just never figured out how he convinced his wife to drive the car, pulling a trailer with a patterning board on it, so he could see if patterns were different as they moved instead of just being against a flat wall.

I never got past asking my wife to drive slowly as I shot a shotgun just behind her rear bumper.

I have no need for more than 1 1/8 oz in 16 gauge.
I suspect recoil would be stout with 1 3/8 oz shot.

I don't think Don Zutz was married, I think it was Bob Brister that had his wife tow the patterning board behind the car.
Pete

You are right it was Bob. Still a good thought. Honey I need you to drive the car.

I also have not seen the need for anything heavier than 1 1/8 on pheasants. I have the new Browning A5 Sweet Sixteen and it is a dream to carry and to shoot. I dont think a heavier load would bother me but like you say, I have no real need for it to make them any more dead than the loads I currently use. When I was shooting a NID 16 I never used anything over 1 ounce.

When hunting wild pheasants on state wildlife areas where non-tox shot was required and the roosters were hammered every day, I foud Kent TM 1 1/4 oz. #5 shot in 16 gauge worked best. The roosters moved into the marsh with the ducks. If you didn't have a catail, tule busting retriever, you would never see a rooster.

To the best of my recollection, this would have been back in the 1970s. I was at Ray Judges' gun shop one evening. This was located a bit South of Winchester TN in the Cumberland Plateau not far from Keith Springs mountain. While I was there a gentleman came by on his way home from deer hunting on the mountain. He brought in a fired shell he had found & picked up & asked had anyone ever seen one like it.

It was a Remington SP hull plainly marked 3" Magnum 16 gauge. The load was 3DE-1�oz # 7� shot. At the time I wrote to the American Rifleman to see if they had any info on this load. They did not, could only guess that Remington was experimenting with a 3" 16. Obviously, they didn't go to market with it.

My first thought though was WHY would one want an oz & a half of shot in size 7�. The only reason I could think of was the philosophy of an old bird hunter I once knew.
His idea was to use a cylinder bore loaded heavy with small shot. He then said Fill the Air with shot, then Flush the Birds.

My all-time favorite 16 gauge load is the 2�-1 load of shot size suitable for the game at hand.

That load would be too much in my Parker and Sauer 16s---for me. Great load though for modern guns and great for same Kent load in a 12. I load one ounce 6500-7000 psi in 16s for everything, don't feel handicapped.