Lots of factors at play in shotgun shell effectiveness. Skill, range, choke, size...I think an underrated factor is "how hard/round is the shot?" I think velocity is overrated.
I bought four cases of Herter's 16ga a few years back. Two cases of 6, two cases of 5. The sixes are one ounce, the fives are 1 1/8. Should be deadly, right?
I noticed quite quickly that I wasn't getting enough kills with either of them. They've been sitting on the basement floor. I thought it might be in my head. So I took nothing but the 5's with me on Sunday. Emptied my pockets and replaced all with Herter's fives. Hunted alone so dogs and I could focus on just us. Dogs ended up working their asses off to run down these birds. Something seems amiss with these Made in Italy shells. I suspect it is in the shot. I'll probably get bored and do some more work on it.
The most effective shells I ever bought were Federal Classic Field 16ga from the mid 90's. I had two cases of #6's that I bought at Walmart in Madison Wi on a closeout for $2 a box. They were real slayers. One ounce, not too much velocity, and penetrated like a prom king.
"Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin.'"
Did you try patterning them? I did and they suck. On wild birds I like plated shot. My favorites are Federal Premium or Fiocchi Golden Pheasant. Bang for the buck the Golden Pheasant load holds great patterns in all of my guns and kills. I believe velocity in shot shells is over rated. It blows the pattern up. I stick with around 1200 FPS.
Music washes away the dust of everyday life Some people wait a lifetime to meet their favorite hunting and shooting buddy. Mine calls me dad
I would second that advice..pattern the loads you are using. Using flushing or pointing dogs? I had pointers when I hunted SD...also used hand loaded 1 1/4 oz.5`s., IMP. and MOD. O/U. Always patterned my loads. I also taught myself to focus on the birds head when flushed..far fewer last birds.
I agree that hard lead shot or plated shot is a’ priori for patterns. It’s nothing that wasn’t discovered long ago (Bob Brister) but soft shot deforms and flys erratically out to the edges (or further) of POA.
Over the years, I’ve gone to nickel-plated Fiocchi 1 oz 20’s and and 1 1/8 oz 16’s at 1245 and 1310 respectively. I parted ways with their 12’s however, thinking 1 13/8 oz at 1485 is unnecessary for pheasants in my world.
I use 1oz of lead 6's(B&P High Pheasant) in my 12ga upland sxs's and 7/8oz of ITX 6's and 1 oz of Bismuth 5's in my waterfowl 12ga. In the 16ga 3/4oz ITX 6's for waterfowl and an oz of handloaded lead 5's for upland. These work just fine for me. I will say that the 1oz 2 3/4" 20ga Goldern Pheasant round was stellar the one year I bothered taking a 20ga MT a 5 lb 15 oz 12ga sxs became my goto upland shotgun and all else for gotten.
Lots of factors at play in shotgun shell effectiveness. Skill, range, choke, size...I think an underrated factor is "how hard/round is the shot?" I think velocity is overrated.
I bought four cases of Herter's 16ga a few years back. Two cases of 6, two cases of 5. The sixes are one ounce, the fives are 1 1/8. Should be deadly, right?
I noticed quite quickly that I wasn't getting enough kills with either of them. They've been sitting on the basement floor. I thought it might be in my head. So I took nothing but the 5's with me on Sunday. Emptied my pockets and replaced all with Herter's fives. Hunted alone so dogs and I could focus on just us. Dogs ended up working their asses off to run down these birds. Something seems amiss with these Made in Italy shells. I suspect it is in the shot. I'll probably get bored and do some more work on it.
The most effective shells I ever bought were Federal Classic Field 16ga from the mid 90's. I had two cases of #6's that I bought at Walmart in Madison Wi on a closeout for $2 a box. They were real slayers. One ounce, not too much velocity, and penetrated like a prom king.
I wasn't very happy with the herters shot shells I purchased on sale. Experienced the same lack of knockdown with pheasants and chukars. I patterned them and not very good patterns. I always seem to go back to the Fiocci golden pheasant or prairie storm in the late season. And bismuth in my sxs's hunting waterfowl production areas
Very little since a pattern board is 2 dimensions and a Pheasant flying moves into the realm of 4 dimensions....
POI perhaps...if your field mount on game is exactly the same as your perfect mount on the pattern board....it usually isn't. Most would do better to pattern...gun down....on flying going away clays......
I would second that advice..pattern the loads you are using. Using flushing or pointing dogs? I had pointers when I hunted SD...also used hand loaded 1 1/4 oz.5`s., IMP. and MOD. O/U. Always patterned my loads. I also taught myself to focus on the birds head when flushed..far fewer last birds.
That put more Birds into your vest than the pattern board.....
For me and my style of hunting I find that I put more birds in the bag with smaller shot. I don’t shoot 9s at pheasant but I have killed a ton of them with 7 1/2s. I like 1oz in the 20, 1 1/8 in 16, and 1/4 in the 12.
I read an article years ago that claimed smaller shot gave more consistent results at normal ranges due to the better pattern density increasing the odds of head an neck hits. It made sense to me at the time and happened to coincide with my finding the first box of high brass 7 1/2s I’d ever seen on a shelf at a small store in rural Kansas. Decided to try it and had good results.
A few years ago I bought a box of 1 3/8oz 2s on my way to a week’s pheasant hunting in South Dakota during late December. The common wisdom being that large pellets penetrate late season birds with heavy feathers and longer flushing distances. After a couple days of chasing cripples and having to shoot birds twice I switched back to 6s or 7 1/2s and had much better results. YMMV
Herter's shells were a poor buy for pattern and cycling for me. I may be wrong, but I feel like the improvement in performance for quality shells makes up for the cost because I make more hits using fewer shells.
Living in a world of G17s and 700s, wishing for P7s and 202s
Thought it was me and my 16 with the Herters but now thinking it may be the Herters lol. Going to try some Kent #6 if I get time yet this year. The one day this year I used the Herters in 16 on roosters, had 3 runners. Not good. Was using skeet 2 and IM. May try IM, Full next year as well.
Yes correct, I looked for POI compaired to POA. IME, if your shotgun "fits" you, POI&POA are the same..if not, get another shotgun. ONE reason I have ONE shotgun, many rifles. 2nd reason to patten, consistency of the pattern, full& round, any holes etc. with more than one shot fired. did this with all my reloads, varying components, powder charge, shot cups, crimp pressure. Hulls remained Win AA, low brass.
Shot size was important...went to 4`s, 1 1/4 oz. Killed very well, patterned very well, both in IC and Mod in my gun. I worked over pointing dogs..so many shots were close...20-30 yrds. Gun and load did everything I asked them to do.
Super interesting hardness results. This doesn't surprise me at all. I've had no cycling problems but I've run them through at least four 16ga shotguns with same general results.
Last edited by BKinSD; 12/16/20.
"Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin.'"
In my AYA #2 16 ga I found old Winchester Mark 5 loaded with 1-1/8oz of #6 shot to be the best for me. Did not like Fiocchi Golden Pheasant ammo at all. Remington Express was good too. I like #6 in that load as it broke more wings and legs than #5 did, resulting in most birds hit being recovered, yet most of the shot went through and wasn't residual in the meat. #7-1/2 left too much shot in a pheasant for my tastes...(teeth actually), but is great for smaller birds...quail, chukar and huns.
30338, I use open chokes also. I have a full complement of invector chokes for 16ga and the most used are skeet, and IC. Hell, my cylinder choke gets more use than Modified or Full. With today's shells, I have no use for tighter chokes on these fully feathered wild roosters.
Makes me want to end this by saying "Laffin. HINT" Hahahahaha
"Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin.'"
I've thought several times about relieving some of the choke in my Belgium Sweet 16 but then I just talk myself out of it. I have an 870 with a mid six digt S/N with a Modified VR barrel on it as well. Neither needs changing; I have shotguns with choke tubes for that.
"Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin.'"
I'll keep the skeet 2 and IM screwed in while trying the new Kent stuff. Tough to find many options in ammo these days but maybe these will do better than the Herters. I use IC exclusively in my 12 ga Franchi with excellent results. Hoping schedule works out to go a few more times this year.
If given a choice it would be Mod in a single and as the Brits say: modeefied and modeefied in a two barrel. I always have been not all that astute when it comes to hints....😀
I have been having a terrible time with shooting this year. I feel like my accuracy is off, and when I do hit a bird, nothing dies solidly. I have had to ring more necks this year than ever before. I have been using Herters this year as well. I wonder if that is part of the problem?
Battue, how did you do through that nor’easter? It looks like you got some significant snow.
Not the worst here or even close....about 10 inches total, roads were nasty for most of the night when it hit, but they got ahead of it quickly...and not bitter cold with little wind...A good old time snow fall....digging it...literally.....Just finished skimming off another inch that came down during the day....three hours total shoveling went easier than the same three in the gym....no need for an arm day this week.
Addition: Merlot thinks it is a blast....plowing and jumping thru 10 inches and will just keep at it...then stops and digs down, snorting and sucking air at something he smells...Comes back with his balls encased in a snowball....tail wagging and not wanting to come in...
This is what we got...the front yard actually looks a lot better....
The deer will soon be ringing the doorbell for something to munch on besides the shrubs........They have me trained...they leave footprints...I leave apples....
Sorry about your snow, Battue. Will it likely melt before spring? Hope so.
Originally Posted by Oakster
I have been having a terrible time with shooting this year. I feel like my accuracy is off, and when I do hit a bird, nothing dies solidly. I have had to ring more necks this year than ever before. I have been using Herters this year as well. I wonder if that is part of the problem?
It has been my problem, I can tell you that, for sure. The chart posted earlier which shows the lack of antimony in their shot confirms the matter for me.
"Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin.'"
The snow is just fine....It's the season for it, was very normal not all that long ago... and lately it has not been around all that much. I'm rather enjoying it...
Oh yea, getting ready to leave to drive an hour in this recent snow dump.... to pick up 50 flats of shotgun shells for the upcoming summer, before they may become hard to get.....Thinking others may want to stock up for their next years hunting needs may be a wise idea...
I don’t know where they’d wind up on the chart for shot hardness but I’ve had much better luck with the Academy house brand Monarch pheasant loads than the Herters. They look like they took the old higher the brass the more powerful the shell thing to the extreme, bras comes nearly halfway up a 2 3/4 12ga. But they’ve functioned well in all my guns and killed pheasants really well on a couple trips to SD.
Who knows if they’re in stock or if you have an Academy nearby. Just a heads up in case you run across some.
Some of Kent’s non-toxic 12 shot shells have the same. Makes one look twice. 🙂
Battue, I agree about the snow; however we rarely get wha I call a “Colorado snow” or what you describe. Ours is usually sideways accompanied by > 25 mph winds and lowww temps. Takes some of the fun out it and I agree as to past winters — I remember as a kid (oh boy, here we go...) walking in thigh-deep snow uphill both ways to school and back.
Ok, really, we did get more decades ago. Just a change in weather patterns like has occurred frequently in the past five thousand years or so...😳😉.
Road trip over, the roads were clear....Azzz end was drooping more than usual on the ride home....The guy who runs this place says they are selling shells and shotgun components about as fast as they come in...Rifle components are practically non-existent....
These should be effective on clays if I can point good enough.......
Road trip over, the roads were clear....Azzz end was drooping more than usual on the ride home....The guy who runs this place says they are selling shells and shotgun components about as fast as they come in...Rifle components are practically non-existent....
These should be effective on clays if I can point good enough.......
A most excellent way to mitigate any treacherous icy roads.
Grins
😎🦫
Curiosity Killed the Cat & The Prairie Dog “Molon Labe”
When I started pheasant hunting my dad broke out an old box of Peters baby mag 4s with the high copper bases on them. They were either 1 3/8 or 1 1/2 oz loads and we split the box between us. I know that one cold sleet blown day I killed a 4 bird KS limit with 4 shots while I was trying not to freeze to death as my dad and uncles pushed a waterway towards me. I’d stay hunkered behind a big tuft of grass until they were right on top of me before standing up and giving them what for with a 30” Stevens 530 SxS choked tight and tighter. I remember them looking like they’d ran into an invisible wall when I’d swat them. Good memories as a 9 year old.
Beav-George-WCH I was riding on a fairly flattened tire patch, all the tread was doing it’s job....maybe....working puts me ahead of the game vs reloading. 👍👍👍
In 16 gauge, I'm a big fan of Remington Express no. 6s for pheasants, wild flushing blue quail and from my limited experience with them, Hungarian Partridge. I've used that load for a long time and they pattern well in my Model 12s. That combo will knock birds down farther than I should shoot.
Your point is well taken with the current political climate and what may well be....the first thing I see will be not only an uptick in MSRP (per more regulations and/or perhaps a manufacturer tax) but jumps in some kind of state of federal ammo taxes also, probably the first anti-gun initiative to take place.
It will be to begin to weed out casual middle-class shooters and dissuade others from beginning.
Not being a competitive shooter, I go through far fewer shotshells than you do but do have more 20’s, 16’s, and 12’s, especially Kent 12’s in non-steel, non-toxics, than I could use for my hunting in the foreseeable future.
But, there is no accounting for every future occurrence.
Trying out some 1 ounce 1220 fps Kent loads this weekend in the 16. Got enough birds in the freezer and will pass any long shots. Looking forward to some walks again soon.
And after looking around the internet a bit last night, glad that I have enough 12 ga pheasant loads to last for a few years. Hoping they come back next summer.
Just found some Kent 12 ga loads. 1 1/4 of 6 shot, supposedly hard shot at 1220 fps. Seems like that would be a good load though perhaps 80 feet slower than I have been shooting. Maybe I need to snag a flat of those to test out too.
Just received a text from a shooting Bud who was talking with another friend who is a range owner....the range owner said if I can get more I should and right now. He can’t get any Fiocchi and neither can one of the Fiocchi sponsored shooters he knows.
“Talked to Baily, he said buy all the Ficocchi ammo you can get! He can’t even smell it! & Christina is sponsored by them..”
Yeah, that was tongue-in-cheek firmly planted.. I have another post where I speculate on what’s to come.
I was in Walmart today and picked up the last of the Remington Upland Express 16’s. 3 boxes.
I presume, but don’t know for sure, that this was a what-if buy-up of all things brass, powder, and projectile. It will be interesting to see how manufacturers respond in light of what’s coming January 2021 if I’m correct.
I have been having a terrible time with shooting this year. I feel like my accuracy is off, and when I do hit a bird, nothing dies solidly. I have had to ring more necks this year than ever before. I have been using Herters this year as well. I wonder if that is part of the problem?
It is highly unlikely to have anything to do with your shells unless you are using small shot (7.5's or smaller) and you are shooting birds out farther than 35 yards.
Lots of misconceptions here. First off, shot hardness is important only for the way it affects patterns at long distances. If your shot is soft you will get more setback deformation of the rear-most pellets in the shell, and deformation produces flyers. However, not every flyer leaves the pattern. Some move from the left to the right side, or from the bottom to the top, but remain in the pattern. And it is only the rear-most pellets that get deformed.
At anything out to 30 - 35 yards, you will lose very few pellets as "flyers" caused by setback deformation. Not many people shoot pheasants beyond 35 yards.
Soft shot penetrates the birds nearly as well as hard shot. Take away: shot hardness is not your problem.
7.5's, whether hard or plated or blessed by a bishop, will not penetrate a pheasant's feathers well, and especially not at 30 yards. Sure, guiding I have seen guys with 28-gauges loaded with 7.5's just slaughter pheasant after pheasant, but they were expert shots capable of "head-shooting," and they were passing on any shot over about 25 yards.
6's penetrate pheasants okay and I have killed a jillion of them with 6's, some in very long shots. HOWEVER, I try to avoid 6's any more because too many of them get left in the meat and then bitten by someone's teeth at dinner. 5's are a much better choice in this regard because nearly every #5 will go completely through a pheasant. Some #5's will be trapped by the elastic skin on the far side of the bird, but those fall away during skinning. Very few get left in the meat.
However, there is ZERO point in shooting pellets bigger than #5's, because, as noted, nearly every #5 pellet is going clean through the bird already. Going to a larger pellet gains nothing, energy-wise per pellet, and reduces your pellet-count.
If you are not a good wing shot, use very open chokes and #6's, and limit your shots to 30 yards. If you are good, use #5's, tighter chokes and the sky is the limit.
So what is your problem? Well, it is one of three things:
1. Your gun does not fit you; 2. You are simply not a good shot. Nothing to be ashamed of, very few people who do not shoot at least 20K sporting clays targets every year are good wing shots, and not all of the ones who do are. 3. I miss some birds every season to pure bad luck -- I was pivoting into a shot and stepped in a hole or branch hidden by the grass. I miss some because the lucky bird just happened to zig left or right just as I was shooting.
Some lessons will help with #2, and seeing a good gun-fitter will help with #1. Ben Hustwaite is right -- avoid any instructor who would have you shoot a pattern plate. Instead find one who can see where you are missing when you shoot clays. If you are consistently high or low, your comb may need to be lowered or raised. If you are missing left or right, you are probably doing something wrong with your eyes just before and when you pull the trigger.
But my first thought upon reading your post was, your gunfit needs can change over time! I realized mine had last month when my trusty old 20-ga. O/U was not working well during my annual SD pheasant hunt. Cleaning the birds revealed that I was consistently fringing them with the top of my pattern, IOW, shooting low (not just on rising birds, on crossers, too). I brought the gun home and raised the comb by bending the stock up about 1/2" at the heel, and now it is spot on again. I don't know why my fit needs changed, I just know they did, and when that happens, you need to change the gun -- you cannot change your body.
Good luck!
P.S. Don't try to bend your stock yourself, hire a professional. There are many good ones around the country. The photo below is not of my 20-ga, it is a friend's O/U getting a bunch of cast removed.
And by the way, while I do not hunt with Herters I do shoot a lot of them on clays, where they work as well there as any other shell out to at least 40 yards.
And that is typical. While shot size matters, beyond that the quality of your projectile material does not matter at all within the ranges people typically shoot pheasants at, which is 40 yards or less. You can manipulate your patterns at whatever distance you wish to optimize for with CHOKE far better. Thinking you can fix a problem hitting pheasants solidly by changing shells is a prescription for accumulating frustration that I have seen play out many times.
Did you try patterning them? I did and they suck. On wild birds I like plated shot. My favorites are Federal Premium or Fiocchi Golden Pheasant. Bang for the buck the Golden Pheasant load holds great patterns in all of my guns and kills. I believe velocity in shot shells is over rated. It blows the pattern up. I stick with around 1200 FPS.
Federal Premium and Fiocchi Golden Pheasant have always been solid performers.
And by the way, while I do not hunt with Herters I do shoot a lot of them on clays, where they work as well there as any other shell out to at least 40 yards.
And that is typical. While shot size matters, beyond that the quality of your projectile material does not matter at all within the ranges people typically shoot pheasants at, which is 40 yards or less. You can manipulate your patterns at whatever distance you wish to optimize for with CHOKE far better. Thinking you can fix a problem hitting pheasants solidly by changing shells is a prescription for accumulating frustration that I have seen play out many times.
It is not only the quality of shot used....the powder used also plays a role. Especially powder that produces the advertised FPS in the cold. I've seen enough half hearted, low recoil "bloopers" from the cheap shells in the cold, to know you get what is advertised on the box when you go with top quality shells. You get 1200FPS and not 1050FPS on a cold day.
And you can add in wads that have been tested to consistently seal the bore.
Federal and the top brand game loads are tested for consistency over a wide range of temps...Herters and the like, obviously load the case with whatever they can get at the lowest price point....
One thing you can be certain of, Bass Pro didn’t buy Cabelas (and the Herters name/trademark) to lose money. Those shells are examples of price point goods in the marketplace. Not saying that they won’t work ok for certain tasks, like clays, smaller less tough birds, etc, but you re not buying plated, hard shot, even hard shot and not premium wads.
If you want top performance it comes at a cost; as always!!
Liked what you had to say on pellet penetration and shotgun shooting in general. Liked the explanation on non plated lead shot setback and fliers.
One comment had me grinning: "very few people who do not shoot at least 20K sporting clays targets every year are good wing shots"
I have several friends and myself that are excellent wing shots and we don't shoot at clays at all. I suppose one could say "well you don't have pheasants in Az so this is different". We do have several species of doves, pigeons and three species of quail and all are much faster than pheasants.
I have been shooting game birds for over 40 years and I do quite well for a guy who doesn't shoot clay birds. Anyone who has hunted Gambels quail will tell you they are very fast and don't give you the transitional mode from rise to flight like a pheasant. Gambels don't rise they blast off.
I will say to field shooters that they need to try different chokes, shot sizes and shot weights to get a handle on what works for the type of bird hunted with their particular shotgun.
FYI for those that may be interested, through trial and error I only use a cylinder choke with 1 oz of #8s from a 20 gauge for mearns quail hunted with pointing dogs. I get doubles on the covey rise frequently, not bad for a guy who doesn't shoot clay birds AT ALL.
I've always fitted my guns by shooting the board. Low gun, focus on the dot and only the dot, mount the gun and shoot when the stock hits your cheek
Repeat until a consistent black mark pummels the board
If your gun mount sucks, then your impacts will be all over the place, so it's important to have perfected your mount with practice.
I can see this working on perfectly incoming or outgoing targets as well but what if the gun being used fits so poorly that spotting the misses is a problem?
Use the board first then go to targets
Originally Posted by Bristoe
The people wringing their hands over Trump's rhetoric don't know what time it is in America.
Most don’t realize the importance of a good mount. On the board or straight away clays, the mount is perfected out there somewhere in space, and not by mounting with the eyes closed and seeing if the beads line up. A parallel hands move to a point in space.
Next, and the hard part for myself is insertion and timing the mount to the speed of the bird. When it all comes together, slow motion pictures are being taken, things slow down and you seem to have all the time in the world to hit the trigger and the brain knows this one is mine.
Liked what you had to say on pellet penetration and shotgun shooting in general. Liked the explanation on non plated lead shot setback and fliers.
One comment had me grinning: "very few people who do not shoot at least 20K sporting clays targets every year are good wing shots"
I have several friends and myself that are excellent wing shots and we don't shoot at clays at all. I suppose one could say "well you don't have pheasants in Az so this is different". We do have several species of doves, pigeons and three species of quail and all are much faster than pheasants.
I have been shooting game birds for over 40 years and I do quite well for a guy who doesn't shoot clay birds.
AZ, note that I did not say "none," I said "very few." It is not that shooting clays is better practice for birds than shooting birds is -- it isn't nearly as good. But very few people have access to the number of wild birds, and the time to chase them, necessary to become a good shot on them. Their only option for becoming a good shot is to shoot a lot of clays (but you certainly don't have to shoot 20,000 EVERY year.)
The best wild-bird wingshot I ever saw almost never shot a clay. However, he has fired an awful lot of shells at game birds in his lifetime. The guy shooting birds for a week or two each year (and few clays) will never even get close to being that good.
Let me rephrase -- I shoot a lot of Herters in Alaska throughout the winter, and have for years. I have never once had one "go bloop," indicating cold-affected powder, and I shoot clays in colder temps than I will hunt in.
I would say what is obvious is that their wads and powder are just fine.
I do like copper- or nickel-plated shot for minimizing feather-drag, so that is what I use hunting, but if Herters were all I had I would not blink.
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