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Originally Posted by MOGC
How are pellets outside a deers vital area helpful? Seems to me that if my pattern were larger than 12" - 16" I'm wasting precious pellets. How many 000/00 pellets does it take to reliably kill deer cleanly? Just to be on the safe side, maybe 4 or 5? Then there is all that brush in the way and of course distance and the pattern opening up is a consideration. May have some bone to break. I'd rather have a center dense more concentrated pattern than a wide pattern to try to get as many pellets through cover and into the vitals as possible. Pellets in the gut or leg or whizzing through the brush completely missing the deer do no good. In fact, I think I'd work with Number 1 Buck for a close range load. Many more .30 caliber pellets would seem better to me than about half as many .32/.33 caliber pellets.

That's great if you can find a #1 load your gun likes. Most times I find the gun will pick the load. If you are determined to find a #1 load your gun likes, I'm sure you will. Just be prepared to spend time and money.

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I've been through the process searching for effective coyote shotgun, choke and load combinations. It's a process just like finding the best handload for your deer rifle and then getting it shooting to point of aim. Many guys have no real idea how finicky shotguns can be. I do use No. 1 Buck in my self defense Benelli Tactical. Wicked stuff...


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I've taken a few deer that would have been impossible to kill without a shotgun. Sometimes when hunting a piece of thick property that is holding deer the hunting pressure can make them go nocturnal. If we don't stir them up they stay bedded until after dark.


My brother and I will take turns doing man drives. The stander gets up in a high spot overlooking the exit we predict the deer will take. You can take a rifle too but you had better be holding the shotgun and be ready. The deer come out like lightning bolts and if you are holding anything other than a shotgun the odds are way against you.

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Originally Posted by MOGC
How are pellets outside a deers vital area helpful? Seems to me that if my pattern were larger than 12" - 16" I'm wasting precious pellets. How many 000/00 pellets does it take to reliably kill deer cleanly? Just to be on the safe side, maybe 4 or 5? Then there is all that brush in the way and of course distance and the pattern opening up is a consideration. May have some bone to break. I'd rather have a center dense more concentrated pattern than a wide pattern to try to get as many pellets through cover and into the vitals as possible. Pellets in the gut or leg or whizzing through the brush completely missing the deer do no good. In fact, I think I'd work with Number 1 Buck for a close range load. Many more .30 caliber pellets would seem better to me than about half as many .32/.33 caliber pellets.


I prefer 00, all it takes is one pellet to kill a deer and it's not always in the vitals.

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Originally Posted by smokinggun
Originally Posted by MOGC
How are pellets outside a deers vital area helpful? Seems to me that if my pattern were larger than 12" - 16" I'm wasting precious pellets. How many 000/00 pellets does it take to reliably kill deer cleanly? Just to be on the safe side, maybe 4 or 5? Then there is all that brush in the way and of course distance and the pattern opening up is a consideration. May have some bone to break. I'd rather have a center dense more concentrated pattern than a wide pattern to try to get as many pellets through cover and into the vitals as possible. Pellets in the gut or leg or whizzing through the brush completely missing the deer do no good. In fact, I think I'd work with Number 1 Buck for a close range load. Many more .30 caliber pellets would seem better to me than about half as many .32/.33 caliber pellets.


I prefer 00, all it takes is one pellet to kill a deer and it's not always in the vitals.


A 00 Buck pellet weighs 54 grains and clocks about 1,300 fps from the muzzle. Without dogs can you find a deer hit in a non-vital area by just one pellet in those super thickets mentioned in this thread? Honest question...

Last edited by MOGC; 11/21/16.

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Can you find a deer hit in a non-vital area?


Define non-vital?

You could shoot the tail off a deer with a .50 BMG and it would run off and you couldn't find it, with or without dogs.

Honest answer... I've killed over 80 deer with buckshot, only 1 was hit with 1 buckshot and it was at 20 yds and it dropped him. Only 1 ever got away. Knowing what your gun will do and taking good shots is the answer, same as shooting a rifle. When you can only see 30-40 yds or less, buckshot will work.

The advantage of buckshot in a thicket is this. You can shoot thru the brush and have more opportunities to make a hit. Some shot will hit limbs, but some will get thru. If a rifle bullet hits a limb, will it get thru? Dont know.

Agreed they usually dont bleed as much, but I've only lost 1. Most have piled up right there.


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Originally Posted by MOGC
Originally Posted by smokinggun
Originally Posted by MOGC
How are pellets outside a deers vital area helpful? Seems to me that if my pattern were larger than 12" - 16" I'm wasting precious pellets. How many 000/00 pellets does it take to reliably kill deer cleanly? Just to be on the safe side, maybe 4 or 5? Then there is all that brush in the way and of course distance and the pattern opening up is a consideration. May have some bone to break. I'd rather have a center dense more concentrated pattern than a wide pattern to try to get as many pellets through cover and into the vitals as possible. Pellets in the gut or leg or whizzing through the brush completely missing the deer do no good. In fact, I think I'd work with Number 1 Buck for a close range load. Many more .30 caliber pellets would seem better to me than about half as many .32/.33 caliber pellets.


I prefer 00, all it takes is one pellet to kill a deer and it's not always in the vitals.


A 00 Buck pellet weighs 54 grains and clocks about 1,300 fps from the muzzle. Without dogs can you find a deer hit in a non-vital area by just one pellet in those super thickets mentioned in this thread? Honest question...


My first choice is a rifle, but I prefer a shotgun with 00 when I know the deer will be running by at warp speed. I've seen a lot of deer drop in their tracks that weren't hit in the vitals. Sometimes the pellet lands in the neck or head. I don't like to take marginal shots with a shotgun where the odds are the deer will run off a long ways even if hit.

To answer your question: If the deer doesn't run too far, but ends up in the thick stuff, I'm gonna find it. I think it's more of knowing when to shoot and when not to shoot. If I can't aim at the head of a running deer 50 yards or closer, I don't take the shot.

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Originally Posted by SKane
Originally Posted by 4ager

Now, that said, I would not hunt that 10 acres. If you have that, then keep it as a sanctuary for the deer. Not only will the deer on your properties use it to escape pressure and stay on your land, but so will deer from adjacent properties when the pressure goes up. I'd not go in it, at all. Instead, figure out where to hunt the edges of it and the travel corridors to and from on different winds and conditions and do that. Give the deer a place to hide where they feel safe, don't go in there, and the deer will stay. If it's really that thick, you MIGHT get lucky - once - and get a shot at something decent, but the greatest odds are that you'll just push things out and they won't come back in there because they don't see it as a safe place to hide.


This.

Hunt a good edge and use a rifle. smile


Yep...+3...

We have a very thick bedding area within our acreage that is off-limits to hunting.
We kill bucks on the edge of it every year, this year we got two--I got mine last night!

I walk that area every year after the season and revel in the beds, rubs, scrapes, deer scat. Amazing.

Leave it be!

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I took my first deer with buckshot, but that was the last one.

Decades later I patterned my modest collection of shotguns with most of the buckshot available from #4 to 000. Three shotguns were tested: one had a 20" cylinder bore choke, another a 24" cylinder bore choke, and the last a 28" barrel with IC, mod, and full choke tubes.

Some worked better than others. As someone mentioned the Federal premium plated stuff worked well, and as someone else said the cylinder bore chokes did not work well. The result of this testing is that I wouldn't used any of the combinations for shooting deer beyond 20 yards. The admittedly arbitrary, but I believe reasonable, criterion I used was the ability to keep half the pellets on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper. None of them would do this at 25 yards.

FWIW, that first deer I shot with a Winchester model 1400 with a 28" barrel with a full choke tube using Remington 2-3/4" 12 pellet unplated and unbuffered 00. I shot two shots at the deer 35 yards away. Of the 24 pellets out there only one hit the deer. The pellet went between two ribs, through the valves of the heart, and out between two ribs. I have no idea where the other 23 pellets went


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I used to hunt the Big Thicket in east Texas. I had a 870 Wingmaster choked full and it would not pattern any of the bigger buckshot worth cussing out. I found some 2 3/4 #4 buck that would almost all stay on a paper plate at 25 yards. I never got a shot at a deer until I painted that shiny gun flat black and brown but after that I took many deer with that shotgun at ranges all the way to 30 yards though most were closer than that. It had a 28 inch vent ribbed barrel that was handy for knocking down spider webs and moving thorn vines out of the way. I tried to aim for the neck and have to say it was very effective.

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When I was a kid in the late 70's early 80's we lived in Southern Michigan where you had to use shotguns to deer hunt.
My brother and I hunted a thick swamp behind our house. Between us two, we must have killed at least 20 deer with 12 gauge 00 buck shot. Some nice bucks too.

Keep it inside 30 yards, and it'll do the job just fine.

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Originally Posted by MOGC
Originally Posted by smokinggun
Originally Posted by MOGC
How are pellets outside a deers vital area helpful? Seems to me that if my pattern were larger than 12" - 16" I'm wasting precious pellets. How many 000/00 pellets does it take to reliably kill deer cleanly? Just to be on the safe side, maybe 4 or 5? Then there is all that brush in the way and of course distance and the pattern opening up is a consideration. May have some bone to break. I'd rather have a center dense more concentrated pattern than a wide pattern to try to get as many pellets through cover and into the vitals as possible. Pellets in the gut or leg or whizzing through the brush completely missing the deer do no good. In fact, I think I'd work with Number 1 Buck for a close range load. Many more .30 caliber pellets would seem better to me than about half as many .32/.33 caliber pellets.


I prefer 00, all it takes is one pellet to kill a deer and it's not always in the vitals.


A 00 Buck pellet weighs 54 grains and clocks about 1,300 fps from the muzzle. Without dogs can you find a deer hit in a non-vital area by just one pellet in those super thickets mentioned in this thread? Honest question...


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At ranges within the capability of the shotgun (in terms of pattern), I'm sold on buckshot. If brush is involved it can't be beat.

But it is not magic and poorly hit deer still do what they do, which is go forever. A single .30 cal shot does nowhere near the damage a single rifle round does of similar caliber -- but you know this. In fact, a single round from a .223 damages much than a single shotgun pellet of .30 cal.

But that's not point. I used it a lot out east and would again.

Now if one is in a shotgun only area, I personally would use a specialty rifled slug, not buckshot, unless hunting a nasty thicket with no options.

I've killed quite a few whitetails with a double barreled 12 gauge quail gun stoked with buckshot.


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I have an 870 with a 3" chamber with a Paternmaster choke tube. This thing is deadly out to 50 yards. I have seldom hot anything with it past 30. I do not use it much any more as I am too old and busted up to tackle the thickets as I once did. A deer in the thickets is running like a bat out of Hades, dodging stumps and trees and zig-zaging like a snipe or a woodcock. Not only that you can only see bits and pieces of them once they get going. Hitting one with a rifle or a hand gun is not likely if it starts moving before you shoot, and most of them are moving in a hurry. Besides, like another poster said, buckshot appears to penetrate thick stuff where a bullet will not go through. I am partial to #1 buck for that reason when it is really thick.

Don't listen to anyone that says buckshot is not effective on deer. Like other posters have said, you have got to be willing to live within the limitations.


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I mostly hunted from my bow stands and would shoot looking almost down on them. I aimed for the neck and almost all fell right there, I never lost one.


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Extremely effective. Out to 35 yards you don't need the extra horsepower of 3". I shoot the Remington 2 3/4" 000buck. Pick one and pattern it before you hunt. Also try different chokes. I use a skeet choke in my 20" Rem 870 barrel. I get 8-10"patterns at 40 yards despite the "looser" choke than improved.
My brother uses the same load with a modified choke and gets about the same pattern. So don't be afraid to go up or down as needed.
Have fun and good luck! Thanks, Tom

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I just got a Primos Tight Wad Turkey choke and tested it with #1 and 00 Buckshot. The #1 Buck was some 20 year old Federal Magnum 2 3/4 20 pellet count stuff (no longer made), put 15 on a paper plate at 30 yards and the rest a bit high. The 00 Buck is the cheap 2 3/4 Express load, it put 6 on the plate and 3 just on the right edge of the plate. If I had centered the paper plates better I bet I would have gotten a few more hits with both types of Buckshot. Good enough for me.


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The bigger the buckshot, the more open the choke you need. OO should start with a Mod or Imp choke to test it...

I have killed an awful lot of deer and hogs for 45 years with it. Limit your shots to less than 50 yards and it will stone them if you center the pattern. If you don't, no firearm will help for a pulled shot. I would also advise you to go ahead and get COPPER PLATED buckshot. It will pattern much better than regular lead, esp at longer ranges. Good luck.


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Going to test Fiochi nickel plated #4 buck as soon as it arrives. I still hunt from my bow stands on public property in Texas. Your lucky to see 35 yards in there and once the season starts that is where the deer are.


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