battue,
I have mentioned exactly that difference in shooting angles and ranges in many of my articles, and at least one book. If I recall correctly, one of the quotes I mentioned somewhere came from a Brit who criticized Americans for "shooting pheasants right up the fundament."
But have found high-antimony #7s VERY effective in killing wild American pheasants at typical "fundament" angles and ranges. And have used them considerably in gauges from 28 to 12. When I do find shot while processing birds, it's usually under the skin on the far side of the bird.
Also have a bunch of Bismuth loads on hand, both factory and handloads, in various gauges, and tend to prefer 6s or 5s there. But as I have mentioned elsewhere, have been using Bismuth since 1996.
Did considerable experimentation recently with hard tungsten shot, in both 20 and 12-gauge, and reported on it in Handloader a couple years ago. It's extremely effective--and extremely expensive.
