Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting How effective is buckshot?

Did you mean 00? Nobody that I'm aware of makes a 3.5" 000 load. If you meant 00, that load shoots so good because it is actually in a wad. That Rem 3.5" 00 load is the only traditional buckshot load that is in a wad. It shoots good in every 3.5" gun I have tried it in.

FLdoghunter,

Yes, I did mean 00 buck. It has 18 pellets, not the 15 found in a 3 inch shell. Shell produces about 50 pounds of free recoil....it's a lot to handle. The Winchester 3.5 inch super high velocity actually caused my shotgun to jump completely out of my hands a couple of times; though it was real fast and you could hear the difference of the impact on the pattern board, it didn't pattern well at all in my Remington shotgun. The Remington buckshot patterned very tight.....like 18 inches in diameter at 40 yards, but all other brands sucked in my gun. You really have to do a lot of testing to have the best performing shotgun when it comes to buckshot.

I had pretty much the same results with my Benelli. Winchester 18 pellet load shot horrible. The black 15 pellet load didn't do too bad, around a 20" pattern at 40 that was very even. Then the Remington does great. Not only will it put all the pellets in 13", but about 12 of those are in a very tight 8" core. I used to load green shell, black shell green shell black shell, trying to cover all my bases. I killed one deer with the gun loaded like this. The second shot sounded and felt so much different than the first shot, that it messed me up. I hesitated for a few seconds thinking I had blown my gun up or something. I quit loading it that way after that and just figured I better remember to aim, especially on close shots. I still load a 3" black shell as the last shot. I modified my SBE2 to be able to float a shell, then it will hold 2 3.5s in the tube and one 3, for a total of 5. It won't hold 3 3.5s in the tube.

That is what I did with my Versa Max - floated a shell. I could hunt with four 3.5 inch shells or five 3 inch shells. The Black Winchester Super High Velocity Buckshot is the hardest recoiling shell I have ever shot. It's not even close to the other shells from Federal or Remington. I am actually glad it did not pattern well in my gun!!

Do you dog hunt in Florida? Most folks that have never done it have no idea how much fun it can be. I grew up dog hunting in SC and still do it a few times each year....nothing like the sound of a pack hot on a trail and rip roaring through the swamp on a crisp November morning.

Yes sir. I hunt public land in central Fl. I'm feeding 8 hounds right now, and love it more than anything. Though my job doesn't pay great, it usually allows me to take 6 or 7 weeks off during the season. I spend them wearing out a Toyota and running hounds. You're right, there's nothing like it!

Most of Fl is bucks only. On this hard hunted WMA, we don't get many oportunities. I learned a long time ago to make the most of them. It blows my mind to see folks blow their ony chance at a buck because they don't know how there gun performs.

To All,

ImVho, after nearly 3 decades of Army service & many hunting days "on post", where ONLY buckshot is allowed for deer (and feral hog) hunting, I can assure you that 00, 0 & #1 Buck will work fine on WT-sized game out to 50M, IF you have found a brand that works well in YOUR shotgun.
(My old pump-gun works OK with several brands BUT Remington Express #1 Buck works BEST.)

yours, satx

Friend of mine is just wrapping up a 35 year career as a senior fish and wildlife technician with the DEC. During that time one of his primary duties was dealing with nuisance wildlife. He has also acted as "agent" for landowners with permits to cull large numbers of deer where they are doing agricultural damage, orchards, whatever. In the course of his career he's shot a whole bunch more deer under a whole lot more conditions and restrictions than most of us face, in a whole lot more ways. He has told me that, within the effective range of a particular gun and load (usually about 30 - 35 yards) absolutely nothing bang-flops deer like buckshot.

When I was a kid I grew up in a shotgun only county and stacked deer up with my Marlin 12 gauge and 00 Buck. It wasn't 'til I got older, and wiser, that I learned how under-gunned I was .

skeen,

CHUCKLE.

yours, satx

Buckshot is not legal for deer here, but it is in my home defense shotgun. (Alternating buckshot, and deer slugs.) It will do just fine.

I haven't read the whole post and I am no expert for sure but I've killed a few deer with buckshot and my family has taken a lot with it. Louisiana has never been a buckshot only place but it was a preferred choice when most deer hunting was done with the assistance of hounds that were bred just for that purpose. Don't worry about the "poor little deer." Deer were never run down and killed by the dogs not was it a pot shoot where every deer that the dogs ran was shot. There were a lot more times that the deer were not bucks and were illegal to kill. Many is the time when a buck was seen and never presented a shot. The dogs were used primarily because of the briar thickets and swamps were there was zero chance to still hunt. Buckshot was the right tool for those circumstances and it got the job done. Now I will get off of my soapbox.

Buckshot is a funny animal so to speak. You could have two identical shotguns that patterned buckshot completely different. 00 was/is what most people think of when buckshot is mention but it is not always the best choice. For example, my brother's 870 would not pattern 00 at all but No.1 was deadly with tight patterns out to fifty yards. I found that my old 12ga. would pattern well (repeatedly) with 3" magnum 00 but only if it was the Winchester unplated, buffered kind. Inside 30-35 yards a shotgun that patterned well would drop a deer insight of the hunter if he had done his part. In my my experience out to 50yards a deer wasn't going far IF you had done your part to find the right load and shot true. By that distance buckshot per pellet energy is getting low and is losing it fast. Sure, someone would make a freak shot and kill deer at 75 yards, or if they lived right, further. Before you call me a liarremember that we were using dogs who could follow them up. I've read all my life about how useless buckshot is past 25-30 yards at most but I've got generations of hunters that say that isn't so. One writer in a "tactical" article wrote that, "buckshot will not go through a leather jacket at 70 yards." I realize that is a looong way for buckshot but no one could get him to put on the jacket and let someone take a shot.......