doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Effectiveness of #4 lead

Tom Roster did a fairly extensive study shooting steel at pheasants. Blind in the sense that the shooters did not know what shot size they were using. (2's, 4's, and 6's were the choices.) They were all 1 oz loads. That study is 15+ years old, and there are certainly better steel loads now than were available back then. (And steel loads are also less expensive than they used to be, to the point that cost is really no longer a factor if you're talking good steel vs "premium" lead loads for upland hunting.) But the wounding loss rate in Roster's study was over 12%, which I consider unacceptable if you're hunting over a decent dog. And those were preserve birds, which are easier to recover in my experience than wild ones. Perhaps not surprising given the loads involved. But it would still be valuable to do a similar blind study comparing good lead loads to good steel loads. Roster's shooters got very good results with steel inside of 30 yards, but lost a lot of cripples on birds hit at longer ranges. If steel is shown to be less effective than lead, that would seem to be one good reason to contest any moves to mandate nontox in the uplands, given that the ingestion of lead shot and resulting mortality does not appear to be an issue with upland birds.

Franchi, the truth regarding the potential danger of spent lead shot to upland birds (or, for that matter, other species of wildlife) is pretty hard to come by, given the nature of upland hunting. Shot fall, other than on areas heavily hunted for doves, is far more dispersed than it is on heavily hunted waterfowl areas.

While I agree a good load of #4's is pure death on pretty much any bird that toys, I think we get too caught up with the idea you need hyper speed and loads to kill pheasants. I whacked the heck out of wild SD roosters in December this year with 7/8oz of #5's from RST. I used my 20ga LC Smith with 26" barrels choked IC/M. The furthest bird killed was on honest 50 yards. If you put the pattern on the bird, the bird dies. It really is that simple and I believe we overthink things too much.

McIntosh, Hill and Brister all sang the praises of the old "super pigeon" formula: 3 1/4 DE, 1 1/4 oz 6's. That's about a 1220 fps load. I don't necessarily believe you need that much shot, but it does pattern very well and is, as McIntosh said, a very good all-around choice. We're now seeing premium lead loads that are 300 fps faster than that. I don't think pheasants have gotten any harder to kill than they were when the 3 gentlemen I named were shooting them. At least I haven't observed that they are.

The 20 ga., 1 oz. , #4 loads I was using Saturday were exactly that......1220 fps.

SRH

The fact that 1 3/8 oz. of 4's was Nash Buckingham's choice for ducks and geese is testament to the effectiveness of good 'ol lead no. 4 shot.....and Buckingham's ability with a shotgun.

The ranges at which waterfowl are shot are longer than typical upland ranges. And waterfowl--at least of mallard size or larger--are bigger and tougher than any upland birds we shoot, with the possible exception of pheasants. Heavy loads of larger shot and quite a bit of choke are the solution . . . for those waterfowlers who are capable of taking advantage of those heavy loads and tight chokes.

O'Connor, in his "Shotgun Book", writes about a hunting companion who got good results on pheasants with 1 1/4 oz 4's through an IC choke. Jack patterned that load at 35 yards and said there were holes through which you could throw a cocker spaniel. Yet his friend did very well with it.

What I find to be O'Connor's best advice in that chapter: "Far fewer wounded birds would escape if pheasant hunters never shot at birds over 45 yards and seldom over 40 yards." In addition to having owned some good dogs and to have given them a lot of experience on wild pheasants, another factor that's worked to keep the number of cripples I've lost to a minimum is that I try to show restraint when it comes to long shots.

Larry,
I have had the exact same experience with 1 1/4oz of 4s through an IC choke. Makes you wonder where they all went. Put a single #4 pellet in center mass of a bird and it likely doesn't matter where the rest of them went.
I'm not one of them, but, I've hunted with guys who were very reliable at knocking down birds at 40+ yards. There were a lot of 12 gauges with modified chokes and store bought 1 1/4 oz loads of 5s and 6s along with those guys.
I like 5s on wild MN pheasants. I have a ton of old 1 1/4oz 12 gauge loads in 4 that I'd happily trade to someone for 5s, or even 6s.

Best,
Ted

Here's the product of 12 ga. 2 3/4" 1 3/8 oz. lead #4 reloads many tides ago. Matthew Brady was the photographer and Ithaca the gunmaker.

. That's a good one, Gil. Heard a guy say this morning that he was so old that when he was born the Dead Sea wasn't even sick yet.

SRH

When notox became mandatory, I still had a stash of 1 1/4 ounce soft #4 loaded up with Herco to about 1225 fps in fairly fresh AA hulls. A few years ago, I got a burr under my saddle and decided to pattern a few of them in long barrel Foxes. I never got past the first 30" Sterlingworth that was bored just a little over .040 ahead of a standard .730 bore. I shot the first patterns at 40 yards. The pattern was so tight that any mallard or pheasant would have been ruined. I went back to 60 yards, and still had a pattern that would have been instant death on a mallard, pheasant, or goose. I have had the same patterning experience with my old AYA light ten. Patterns at 40 to 60 yards with BB and #2 steel were astounding. I sold the gun, but saved the patterns. You never know whether a goose you kill already has shot in him, but my AYA has killed at 90 yards or better with steel BB. I don't know what this proves, except that tight chokes and big shot are the order of the day for long birds.