Home Forums Birds & Dogs Turkey Hunting 3.5IN 2OZ #6 LONGBEARD SHELLS

got 3 boxes of em 2 with same lot #
went batshyt crazy looking around for them

cant wait to get out and pattern some with my 835 and rhino.670


tired of the bait and switch magblends/hevi13,s
envoirmetal put out some good stuff at 1st
got everybody lured in with big pellet counts
then went downhill on their shells and pellet counts

tore apart a mag blend last year
broke out the digital scale
and got pretty pissed off
when I separated what looked like 5 6 7 shot into different piles
the 1st quarter inch of the payload was flax seeds......
the granular filler/buffering of the shell didn't even extend above the bottom 1/4th of the shell
total hevishot payload was well its below the advertised 2 1/4th oz by far

weighed it all with the flax seeds and the filler/buffer and wad included
then it weighed just barely over the 2 1/4th advertised load
called them up/emailed them numerous times wanting an explanation
ph# is to some mom and pop grocery store they operate out of
and they never return calls or emails

used to shoot nitro rays 501L economy heavy shot with copper load
same story
switching components cutting corners and short pellet counts long waits



if I can get a 225-240ish count in 10" @40yds with the longbeard shell I will be happy with the price and double the number of shells(10)versus 5 with crapblend or conman13 or ripoffray nowadays
I seen a ad in outdoor life (I think) where win longbeard shot a 325 into 10"@40 and 50 into 3" on that same target at the world paper championships last spring and how they also set 3 new world records


I used to get a count of 225ish with a strut stopper extreme .670 in a mossy 835 and hevi13 3.5 2 1/4th #6 a long time ago
then I bought a .680 rhino for the gun and shot the 501L for the longest time and got 325ish counts in 10"@40yds
then dealt with seriously declining pellet counts and component switching from ripoffray on orders placed with him the next 2 years

then sold that gun like a fool cause of tough times

but basically resetup the same gun again last year with a rhino.670 instead of the .680 shot the mag blends with a 200-210 pellet count(totally unhappy with that count)killed 2 good toms and started hearing all the reviews about win longbeardso im gonna give em a whirl and if they pattern good and kill good I will be happy

if not I will bide my time till after the season and use what I got and then look for someone with a good TSS load or swallow my pride a little and try nitro rays shell h517 in straight 7 but I sure as fugg aint ordering them directly from him and waiting till the cows come home for him to make and ship them
plenty of local dealers in TN and KY carry his shells





it is just too fuggin cold to go out and pattern now

I have played with the LB's and for a straight lead shell, it is good stuff. They do pack a punch....

all type of pattern stuff on old gobbler
good pellet counts for sure
cant wait to get out when it warms up and shoot

Will be trying these in my Benelli Super 90

I shot the long beard 3.5" #5 out of a Mossberg 835 with a Carlson's Long Beard XR Turkey Choke .683 today. Wow, this combination shoots a tight pattern. I only shot at 20 and 40 yards but at 20 yards I really need to aim. At 40 yards the pattern was still super tight. The 40 yard pattern looks close to that my 20 yard pattern looked like with the stock xx-full choke and standard 3.5" loads. For close turkeys this may actually shoot to tight.

I learned the hard way about very tight patterns (12 gauge 3" mag blend, Indian Creek choke, and Rem 870) and close range shots. Bumped into a tom romping along the bottomland woods edge and coming right to me. Dropped into an old dry oxbow behind a few trees and waited for him to walk by. Didn't realize until he was right on me that it would be a shot of less than 3 yards. First shot went right by his head. He hesitated, started running and second shot did the same. Finally took the third shot when he was about 15 yards out and nailed him.

I had close range shots before, but with a very tight patterned and tuned gun, close range becomes a much greater challenge than 40 yards.

Think I too will have to give the new Winchesters a try. Might work real well in my Encore.

With flax seeds in the shell, if you had to shoot twice, would that be baiting?

I dunno
I could not get envoirmetal to answer why they got flax seeds in their shells to begin with

I couldn't get out today
thinking about sunday supposed to be in mid to high 60,s

had to do a brake job on my truck today
I hate swinging wrench,s
it aint that I cant do it
I just friggin hate it

oh well I got outta it cheap
46 bucks for new ceramic pads and solved the brake dragging/front end noise problem

so hopefully the weather will be warm sunday and I can send some shells downrange and see what it does

5 shots yesterday @40
257 average in 10
then took 2 at 30
had a 331 and 349 in 10 that I could count
im happy with the load
price and amount

the copper plated rounds from the long beard penetrated deeper on my target board frame than nickel ones that are in it from years gone by

now to see what they do to a tom

gonna try kent diamond shot in 3.5" 2 1/4th oz #6 after the season and see what that can do


im off the nitro ray and enviornmetal mag blend /hevi13 band wagon for now
specially now since better lead loads are on the market

the longbeards out shoot the hevi13 3.5" 2 1/4oz #6 by almost 40 pellets from past experience patterning and cost twice as less for twice as more

the only issue I have with the longbeard shell is some slight shifting in pattern density from side to side and up and down
and I think this is due to the wad petals not being evenly cut and spreading out not evenly and causing shot column cant/wander to the side of which petal spreads out the most and the quickest from the other 3 and their seems to be a lot of plastic fouling from their stuff they use to hold the shot together in the wad


not a lot of powder fouling
but almost like a plastic glaze type of fouling that had to scrubbed rather more that what I was used to for shot to shot at the pattern board that I think is from the shotlok buffer
when iwas bore brushing the barrel between shots
I could see white specks of floating away plastic
and my bore snake had a lot of it also on the leading fuzzy part of it

oh well small, issue with the plastc fouling

but I think Winchester should look at the wad or retool the machine to scive that wad cup assembly for the 4 petals evenly and not have 3 wide petals and 1 small petal

but im not a ballistic engineer at olin
that is just my opinon on what cause pattern density shift in the shell



but it is a excellent shell overall much better by leaps and bounds than any other lead based turket shell on the narket

I also have heard they are now making the long beard magnum

with 2 1/4thoz loadings with a slightly reduced velocity

anyone run across any of these yet????????

those might push the 265-280 mark with #6?????????

that might be a he!! of a load to try out also when they start appearing on the shelves

im thinking about trying some#5 LB also after the season and see if I can get in the 180-195 range with those

that would be a kick ass heavy hitting pattern for sure