I was rereading an old book on upland bird shooting today ("Hitting Vs Missing With a Shotgun" Hammond 1898) when I found reference to the loads the author used.
I have posted about this subject before a couple of years ago.

...The charges that I have used for many years in a 12-gauge seven pound cylinder bored gun, with entirely satisfactory results are, for the right barrel-which I nearly always use first, three-drams of good black powder with five-eighths of an ounce of No. 10 shot, and for the left barrel the same amount of powder with seven-eighths of an ounce of No. 8 shot. These charges give good penetration and pattern, while the recoil is scarcely noticeable.

I mention this because of the talk on this board of the heavy charges used today in a twenty eight gauge.
When I posted this a few years ago the general opinion was that the author was probably a market hunter who shot only sitting birds.
But when reading the book you would find that the author was an enthusiastic sportsman, and shot only flying birds.

Pete

Interesting that he used such small shot. I'd hate to eat a bird that was shot with #10 shot!

But there was just over a half ounce of the shot.

Pete

Hard to believe a sportsman would use #10 shot on grouse.

sub ounce loads over three drams of black powder should yield pretty high velocities...any data to share?

My experience using 10's on woodcock--mentioned in John Alden Knight's book "Woodcock" (1944) as having been a pretty typical choice back then--was not a happy one. Also using 5/8 oz, but in a 28ga. Two birds dropped, got back up and flew again. One hit on a crossing shot looked like the breast had been liberally seasoned with pepper. I've killed a few early season grouse with 9's, and a few more with 8.5's. But I can't imagine using 10's on them.

One thing to bear in mind is, No.10 shot might have been larger in size in 1898 and it almost certainly was heavier because there probably wasn't much antimony added to the lead. And as Ed pointed out, with over three drams of powder under a five-eighth ounce load it must have very high velocity with a lot of energy.
Pete

That may well be the case, but I wasn't around in 1898, and nor do I shoot blackpowder loads for upland hunting. I certainly wouldn't use #10 shot today for grouse. I want to be sure they are dead when they hit the ground or die soon after. In that regard I find 6's do the job just fine.

Well, good for you! You can shoot any size shot at grouse that you want.
pete

I read an artical on some famous grouse hunter, that exclusively used a fairly heavy load of 9 shot . I think in a 28 or 20 I can't remember who. But all I could think about was how much shot I would be picking through

One thing needs to be remembered ..........these things were the preferences of one man, who happened to write them down for posterity. That does not make his writings irrelevant, but neither do they make them the gospel.

SRH

Interesting loads used in 1898 in, I presume the east! I think it would be safe to say in this area a 22 cal probably accounted for a majority of the harvested grouse! A shotgun was used for waterfowl hunting during that era, in this area.

I am not advocating five-eights No.10 shot for anyone.
I myself, when I did hunt grouse I used seven-eights of seven and one half shot in 20 gauge and one ounce of seven and one half shot in sixteen gauge.
I just thought it was interesting to see the different loads used in the late 1800s compared to the loads today.
Pete
The author was from Massachusetts, and he did a lot of upland shooting.

The issue I'd have with 6's for grouse: Not necessarily a problem if you're not also shooting woodcock. Especially with standard small bore shot charges, 6's would produce a pattern that could well lack sufficient density for woodcock. I'm pretty sure most hunters would choose something between 6's and 10's for mixed bag grouse and woodcock hunting. Likewise pretty sure that either 7 1/2's or 8's would be the most popular choices.

The old-timers around here mostly .22s for grouse, starting on lower branches not to scare them. Watched my buddy take five from one tree, all head shots. I use only 7 1/2s.

I do not live in an area with lots of woodcock though we do have some along. Most of the ones I killed I used an ounce of #8 from a ¼ choked 12 gauge. I do recall shooting "One" when I was out rabbit hunting & near stepped on one. Don't recall now what gun I was using but remember I shot it with a fairly light load of #5. He hit the ground as Jerry Clower would have said "Graveyard Dead".

#9 is as small of shot as I would ever want to use for any hunting & that would be only for very small loads for use on very small birds at short range. As an example ½ oz of #9 would have about the same pellet count as 1 oz of #7. The #9 would not of course carry pellet energy equal to the #7 so would be useful only when up close & Cosy. Might be good for a 2½ .410 load for woodcock. Personally I would still prefer #8 for quail. Though I have never had the privilege of engaging in it I understand that both #9 & #10 was/is popular for Rail Shooting from small bore guns.

In "The Gunsmith's Manual" published in 1882 by Steele & Harrison they show six US shot towers. For "Soft" shot #10 varies in count per ounce from 815 to 1006. For "Chilled" shot they show only the Sparks & Tatham towers which for #10 have respectfully 960 & 868 per ounce. For the Soft shot Sparks & Tatham showed 950 & 848 per ounce. The sizes from the Tatham tower is incidentally the sizes which are in current use so have remained essentially unchanged for at least 136 years & probably longer.

Different alloys will of course very the count slightly as seen in the soft vs chilled. The antimony in the Chilled is lighter than the lead thus pellet count is a bit higher.

The chart at this point does not show a # 7½ size. As a compasion Tatham listing for #8 shows 399 for soft & 409 for chilled which is essentially the same as modern sizes show.

Drew;
Do you have a date for this chart? It shows 9 towers as opposed to the 6 Steele & Harrison show. They only show Tatham from NY & do not show the Iowa or San Francisco towers. This chart looks very similar to one in a circa 1913 Lefever Arms Co catalog, though I do not recall off hand how many towers are shown in it.

Sparks, Tatham & Le Roy are the only towers S&H listed by name the other three are listed only by location. A Baltimore tower is the one which showed a count of 815 for #10 while this chart shows 1130 for the tower located in Baltimore. Sizes from #9 & larger are similar though not identical but sizes 10, 11 & 12 are listed with much higher counts in this chart from the Baltimore tower.

Note that all shot produced by a tower is "Dropped" & all is "Chilled" when it strikes the water. The two terms basically came to mean that Drop Shot was essentially unalloyed while Chilled Shot was alloyed, primarily with Antimony, to increase its hardness. For "flowability" either type might have a trace of Tin or Arsenic.

Thanks for posting this chart.

Sorry Miller.
That, or a similar chart appeared in several U.S. maker's catalogs in the late 1890s; including Parker and Hunter Arms.

1897 Hunter Arms with "Dust" shot

That is a concern, but I don't pull the trigger on Woodcock enough to be concerned about it.

My chief complaint about bout 7 1/2s and 8s is that I've found to many of them in the breast. 6's pass right through, although I do remember a grouse I shot in an area when lead shot was a no no and the #6 bismuth pellet split and I found both halves in the breast.

In the late 19th century, there would have been far less "recreational" grouse and woodcock hunting pretty much everywhere other than the Northeast. The huge forests of the Upper Midwest were still being logged off at that time. And it wasn't until that happened and a lot of young successional forest replaced mature forest that grouse populations really took off. Access for people other than those hunting close to home would have also been difficult for those living anywhere other than the quite sparsely populated North Woods back in those days. Things did change, especially after WWI with the popularity of North Woods resorts etc, when even the mobsters from Chicago and the Twin Cities came on vacation. But grouse hunting in the Upper Midwest in those days was likely quite similar to what happened in the Far West: People shooting birds for the pot. Maybe some market hunting, in areas where the hunters had good access to transportation (railroads) to get their birds to big city markets.