If it's farmed birds or early season where they'll hold for a dog and they don't have the heavy winter feathers, I like high brass 7 1/2s. Hard not to get a couple pellets in their head when you nearly double the pellet count. Late season where they're wild and shots may be long I'll go to 5s or 4s.
Had an old guy give me a whole case of Win 3" XX magnum lead 2s last year. I'm sure someday they'll get relegated to late season pheasant duty if for no other reason than I can't think of another use for 20 boxes of lead 2s.
