doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com "The Queen of Guns"

Sorry, but you're pretty much wrong. Today's 20 ga. loadings, especially in 3" form, are great for waterfowling. There are very few choices in 16 waterfowl loads to equal those in 20 ga.

https://www.midwayusa.com/20-gauge-3/br?cid=21270

https://www.midwayusa.com/16-gauge-2-3-4/br?cid=21271
JR

old colonel, the board is doing commendably well on self-control with politics, particularly during unprecedented current fulminations which make kid's stuff of so much of earlier goings-on here.

We should give credit where it's due, and keep the board free of partisan and personal bickering as it has been doing for the last little while. It's clearly members' conscious effort to do the right thing for the board.

This is a great board.

Back about 10 years ago I guided 5 guy's from Louisiana for 3 consecutive years for ducks and geese, a total of 30 hunts. They all used 20 ga. autos with Kent Tungsten 3 inch. These men could out shoot most anyone using any other gauge. I remember time and again being in and out of the field in 1.5 hours with 40 geese and often as many ducks. They killed the geese as dead as any 12 gauge shell would be expected to do.

Don't think the gauge really matters as much as understanding the limitations of the instrument and shells you are using. Far too many do not take the time or have the inclination to really understand what they have in their hands and what it can and can not do.

Tungsten Matrix--at least until Hevi-Shot came along--was about as good as any nontoxic load out there. Agree that once you go to the 3" 20ga, there are far more choices for waterfowl (and heavier loads) than are available for the 16ga. Now if you can find some of those old Kent 1 1/4 oz TM 16ga loads, they are far killers for sure.

Those are two absolutely true statements. Especially the second one.

SRH

I stand corrected then....possibly the twenty is the best all-around gauge? Luckily I have three of them!

Nonetheless, my twelves rarely get the call.

A 20 gauge or 16 gauge for geese? For ducks, definitely. For geese, never. That's irresponsible in my book and I think some of you guys are getting a little carried away with these smaller gauges.

To easy to miss a shot and we all do and wound a bird that cannot be found.

If I'm going for ducks and geese, I'll take the 12 gauge.

It is irresponsible if hunters don't consider limits of skill, gauge, distance and prey. After 75 years of duck and geese hunting, I've found the knack of responsible shooting from a blind, as you have for yours. The irresponsible part of your post to me is wounding a bird that can't be found. All birds will be found with a dog. I've not retrieved exactly three birds in my life: when my Lab couldn't get a dead one that slid under the ice, another called in because he would have drowned from exhaustion chasing a diving bluebill in white-caps, and one that set its wings a kilometre way and dove into the bay; retrieve impossible.

What too many do not take into consideration, when talking about the use of the sub-gauges, is distance. Density and energy is what kills a bird .... period. IOW, there is no difference in a goose hit with 6 BBs from a 10, 12 or 20. The trick is having enough skill to choose your shots carefully and limiting the range on the smaller gauges so that the density in the pattern is the same. It's not shooting skill as much as it is discipline not to take longer shots that would be okay with a 12.

Explain to me the difference in energy with a #7 1/2 pellet from a 12 ga. and one from a .410. Again, density can be controlled by distance.

SRH

I'm a 12ga believer, but I can't agree that there is no place for a 20 on a goose hunt. My buddy shoots a 20ga with 3" high speed steel twos and they kill even the big Canadas just fine. We hunt from a blind over decoys. Pass shooting might be a whole 'nother story...Geo