Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Effect of shot velocity on pheasants ?

Head and neck shooting, and 75% is damn good, is the place for small shot.

Not sure if I'm reading you right, but I prefer to place the shot into the most exposed vitals.

Addition: Just figured out what you meant. I'm a little slow.

I mostly use "low brass" #5 shot, 1 1/4 @ 1220fps. It works all season and its cheap.

If you really feel the need to reach out long, I've had excellent results with Winchester Super Pheasant #4 shot, 1 3/8 @ 1300fps. They also make a 1400fps load, which patterns not so well in my gun. The slower loads pattern much better for me.

Though most people seem to do fine with #6 shot, I've found that on pheasants that jump up and go straight away, I've had trouble getting penetration into the vitals. #5 always work, and #4 work great so long as you have enough pellets to get the job done.

If you need to use steel (on many public land areas), I've had best results with #2 duck loads, though #3 is fine until you're way out there.

Interesting listening to you guys that hunt alot of birds.

I used to.....

There are reasons why folks who shoot 12's and less than an ounce and a quarter seem to hit the front half.

Also a fine reason for a shot size that mostly only reloaders have access to.

That said, six seems a fine compromise.

IC is my right barrel, and it worked well for my Dad for years.

I like fours for the very longest shots, but never in a long shot string; I like 1 1/4 oz. with a mod choke.

The last time my Dad walked (a few weeks before his accident) and we bird hunted together with a friends dog (Rikki), I took one at eighty paces with his old gun and a handload of 1 1/4 oz number fours.

What y'all have against the poor folk that'd make you want to shoot them anyhow?

my expeience mirrors selmer and the other fellas that favor the lighter loads almost exactly , except I use mostly 6 shot .

for years all I used in my old Citori was my standard trap loads in AA hulls , except I would load 6 instead of the 7.5 or 8s .

my favortie factory load in my Sweet Sixteen , when I could find them , was the 2 3/4 dram 1 1/8 load of 6s , rated at at a screaming 1145fps muzzle velocity .

these days I mostly use a 28 ga. double , with the WW 1 oz. load of 6s .

I run skeet or IC in a 20 auto early in the season with 6's that pattern well in that gun. Late season I'll go to IC or Mod. Finding out what loads and chokes pattern well in your gun is important. I recently shot a 28 O/U recently that patterned as tight as I'd ever want using skeet/skeet.

I`ve hunted pheasant in SD and Iowa for more than 40 yrs, over a dog. I hand load all my shotshells. I`ve come to a few conclusions:
1, No matter the size shot, or velocity, you need to hit the bird.
2, You can hit a bird, break a wing, and color the bird gone.
3, You can hit a bird, break a leg, and color the bird gone.(IME most people shoot way to fast, relying on follow up shots instead of concentrating on the first shot)
or 4, concentrate on the head of the bird when it flushes, place the shot there, and you have a dead bird.
#4 shot has worked better for us than any other size. Normally 1/1/4 oz., 1250fps. I have also found I/C-Mod to work very well as a combination in the O/U.
I have not found any one velocity to kill better than another.

I quess nothing others haven`t said here. But man, I could tell stories!!

Going out this fall again...can`t wait!!! NOTHING gets me going like pheasant and SD.

Carried an open choked 20 SxS yesterday (#6 if it matters) and wouldn't you know it, shootable birds got up too far out. My luck from last year is holding, could have shot a half-dozen hens.

I think shot velocity affects hunters more than it affects pheasants.

It's hard to hit something when you are subconsciously closing your eyes and flinching every time you jerk on the trigger and let loose that rocket a couple inches from your face that's going to snap back and hit you in the nose or cheek bone.

I'd like to see a study done that tallies the guessed yardage from the hunter vs. the measured yardage by an observer. I would bet that more than half of the 40+ yard birds are less than 30 yards away and could more effectively be hit with a shot shell designed for those yardages vs. one designed for about 5% of the population to use effectively.

Selmer speak big medicine.

If you want more birds, work on your gun mount and then your gun fit, in that order. Practice matters.

I suppose one major variable that has not been included in each of our favorite load discussions is whether one is hunting over a dog or not, especially a pointer. That changes the average shot distance by a goodly amount.

A second distinct variable is what type of cover is usually being hunted. A dry, noisy CRP field gives much longer average shots than does a wet cattail slough.

Good point. After a straight down snow of about six inches and using a pointing dog, you only need size 8 1/2 pellets (copper plated) in your slingshot.

Our opening week this year has been miserable IMO--hot, dry, windless, so many mosquitos that you can't even stay in the field. Most birds still in the corn.

I have had good luck with 1 1/8 5s from my 16ga. I use Fiocchi goden pheasant. I like 4's late season. I hunt over springers so shots are not very close. Going friday to Platte South Dakota!

I think Vol. 1 of WW Greener's The Gun contains about all you'd like to know about how fast a piece shot slows.



YMMV

The older I get the less shot and speed I find necessary. Despite harder lead shot being a little lighter per pellet, I find hard shot penetrate better. Late we have used a lot of hard #7 shot on pheasants and find it does very well, especially in 28-gauge.

Here in Montana I tend to use a little smaller shot, because we often put up a covey of Huns while after pheasants, and the extra pattern density helps. Early in the season we mostly shoot sevens, but later switch to 6's, all at velocities of 1200-1250 fps or so. But if hunting pheasants-only I often use 5's later in the season.

Personally, I HATE the recent trend to ultra-high-velocity lead loads. It doesn't do anything for killing power--except on my shoulder. But once shotshell manufacturers starfted putting actual muzzle velocities on shotshell boxes, instead of "drams-equivalent," many average hunters started buying the higher-velocity ammo. And the ammo companies do like to sell ammo.

Being a real loony, I have some handloads with 5-1/2's on hand this year, which I intend to test later in the season!

I was one of those hunter's that saw the velocity on the box and bought accordingly. It wasn't till I used some of my Dad's "plain Jane" Remingtons and shot better did I realize that I like a little less velocity for pheasants.

I tend to shoot 6's early in the season and switch to 5's later. Our birds tend to run even early in the season.


ddj

Now clamp those poor-folk buck teef of yours on your lower lip and say it...."Ffff"..."Fffff"...........e-sant.

Naw!!! That's the schmuck and peasant load!!!