doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com lowest recoil 20ga shell for grouse?

Due to a serious injury, I am looking for the absolute lowest recoiling 20 ga loading that will cleanly kill roughed groused. I do not reload, so it must be a factory shell.

I have been hunting with a camera and getting pics of my dog on point. that is fun and all, but I am seeing a lot of grouse and would like to shoot (ok, probably shoot "at") a handful of birds each week. Camera would still be my main weapon, but a handful of birds a week would add to my fun, get some feathers in my setter's mouth, and give me something tastey to eat.

My grouse gun is a 5# 11oz double with 25" barrels. i also have a 20ga double with 28" bbls that weighs 7# 3oz. The heavy one would obviously kick less, but the light one is much easier to carry with my broken back. Ideally i coudl find a light load for the light gun.

Thansk!

RST makes a "lite" 20 gauge shell. They are very good about providing information on velocity, pressure, etc. if you call. Their web site is: rstshells.com

That grouse gun sounds like a Bernardelli Gamecock.

Hello Marc,

I agree about RST.

http://www.rstshells.com/rst_classic_shotshells_shotshells.htm

Glad to hear the grouse are good this year. I was concerned with all that rain... I will be heading to Wisconsin in late Oct to try my hand.

Pete

Polywad also produces and sells low-presure and very low recoil 20ga shells. They'll ship to your door...Geo

http://www.polywad.com/sale.html

Yes, my grouse gun is a Bernardelli Gamecock. Do you have one too?

I bent it to fit me, added a pad, reshaped the stock to a more pleasing form, did some things to lighten it, and balanced it to my liking.

I would like to have the barrels back bored to reduce some more weight (then i would be able to reduce an equal amount of weight from the butt) and possibly add choke tubes, but I hate to spend more money on the gun. I never have gotten around to making and extended tang for the trigger guard, but hopefully will make the time to do it next year. I have also been meaning to rust blue the barrels, just on principle.

I am disabled and it is very easy on my arms to carry the short, light gun through the woods.

On another board a guy suggested Gauge Mates and 28 gauge shells. Never even crossed my mind!

Are there effetcive 28ga loads that you think would be as effective as the RST and Polywad 20's, but offer me less recoil?

WHat about .410 loads?

BTW-This morning i ordered a Limb Saver slip on pad and I am going to put it on over the Decelerator mounted on the gun.

Marc a 3/4 ounce load with the same muzzle velocity will recoil the same weather it is fired using a 20 gauge or a 28 gauge shell from the same gun. If you can't find a suitable light load from one of the manufacturers perhaps a board member that lives in your area that does reload 20 gauge would load you a box or two of light grouse loads. I would but I'm a long way from Minnesota.

I didn't see velocities listed for Polywad, so couldn't calculate.

But if you run the numbers, you'll see a standard target load of 7/8 @ 1200 generates about 15 ft-lbs in your gun. Remember what that felt like?

Then RST's 20ga 3/4 @ 1150 generates about 10 ft-lbs, or 2/3 the standard load.

And RST's 28ga 5/8 @ 1175 genrates 8 ft-lbs.

4-5 pellets from any of those (or a .410) will kill the grouse....how good a shot are you?

If I couldn't increase the gun weight, I'd be tempted to go with the RST 20 ga load. It could be bested a bit with a handload of 3/4 @ 1100 fps (only 7 ft-lbs), easily doable.

Winchester WinLite or Remington managed recoil STS target loads are options you can probably find locally. My local WalMart often has the STS.

For whatever reason, grouse are very easy to bring down. Any 20 ga load will put an end to a grouse. I find STS 28 ga target loads kill blue grouse just fine (and blues are a good bit bigger than ruffed).

Before she grew old, deaf, and senile, my silly dog would get a bit flustered when someone shot over her. So, I picked loads speifically for minimum noise. She got over it but I stayed with the light stuff because it kills them fine and as a bonus doesn't damage the the meat as much.

Good luck!

Morris cooked up a really nice 20 ga. load for Burt Spiller's little Parker and he gave me a couple of boxes to shoot at the Vintager's last year. I hardly felt any recoil at all.
Call RST and ask to speak with Morris about those loads but I'm sure if he's not around Alex or Jill will know about them.