I gave up waterfowl hunting for several years because of the poor performance of steel shot and unproven early non-toxic loads.
A group of us now hunt cranes about 30 days a year and we've tried many different shots sizes and loads as they came on the market.
Most of our shots are long....50 yards is common. We've all settled on 3" Federal steel @ 1550 FPS. At first we tried the larger shot
sizes but eventually settled for mostly #2 steel as any pellet that hits the long wing bones or neck will bring em down.
One member uses the Remington 1700 FPS with great success but the recoil is considerable.
All of use Patternmaster choke tubes.
