I hear a few people claim a long shot strings may help in hunting. Long shot strings are one of the most over rated things to me. Steel loads, start out at 1450fps at the muzzle, then slow to 1200 fps at 40 yards. A target that travels 40mph, which is 58.66fps, they cross paths. If the shot string is ten feet long, how far does the target travel, if at right angle to the shot string, while the entire shot string blast past it? About 5.866" maximum, at best. I did the math, mostly in my head, but math is still math. One train is going 1200 fps (818mph) and one is going at 58.66fps (40mph) so how far does the slower train move, while the faster one moves ten feet across the slower one, in front of it? Classic math problem we all hated back in school.

1200fps load is equal to how many MPH?

1200fps X 60 Seconds X 60 Minutes = 4,320,000feet/5,280 feet per mile = 818MPH


A target traveling at 40MPH travels = how many feet per second?

40 X 5280 feet = 211,200 feet in a hour

211,200/60 minutes in an hour = 3,520 Feet Per Minute,
3,520 FPM / 60 Seconds = 58.66 FPS

So if our shot stream is traveling 1450FPS at the muzzle it is going about 1200 at 40 yards. Our shot string is about 10-12' long. How long does that take 1200fps shot to travel 10'? First pellet to last pellet, past the bird.

10 foot string
______________ = .008333 seconds to travel 10 feet.
1200 FPS

So our shot string travels past the target in .008333 seconds.

How far does the target move in .00833 seconds?

58.66 FPS X .00833 seconds = .48883 feet

.48883 feet = 5.866 inches.

As the shot slows down, the distance the target travels increases in relation to the shot string. So 900fps gives you 7.82". But much slower than that I doubt you have enough energy to kill cleanly. So while the string effect might increase, the return becomes irrelevant. Who cares how far a target travels, if the pellets lack energy to break it or kill a bird?

And ten feet, for the shot string, might be twice the real lengthen, depending on distance and starting muzzle velocity, so the target moves even less than 5.86". A five foot string gives you a 2.933" distance traveled. Or if the shot is less than 1200 FPS at target distance and you might get an extra inch or two of target travel. Big deal. And the closer to parallel the shot and target are, the less the target moves across the string, as the shot flies past. So less than 5.866", again all the way down to zero if they are parallel. Parallel lines never cross.

So when I hear people talk about long shot strings killing more birds I have to say bunk. If that was the case, shell makers would not have spent a lot of money making strings short and the patterns dense as possible. If you are counting on the edge of your pattern to do all the killing work, it is a very iffy thing. We try to use the center of the pattern, not the edge or trailing end. And a center hit, has the densest pattern, which means plus or minus a couple inches is meaningless.

And shot strings are not perfect cylinders, with shot evenly distributed from front to back. So the chance of hitting a target is not equal along the entire string. If 90% of the shot goes by in the first 20% of the string the sparse pellets near the rear may not be enough to give you a statistical chance for a hit. So again that 5.866" becomes less.

Give me a short shot string, with as near a pancake pattern as you can. I'll do the rest, by figuring out the right lead, not how to use some mythical string to backdoor a hit.