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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.

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What will happen to big green ammo? I haven't shot alot of it myself.


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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.

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I've been packing away components for metallic shooting but I need to start putting cases of shotgun shells away, for sure.


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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.

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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.

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anxious to hear what you think


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Originally Posted by George_De_Vries_3rd

Battue,....the thing is..do you have enough? 😊


Maybe not....

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..”

Road trip coming up!!!!

Last edited by battue; 12/22/20.

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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.

Last edited by George_De_Vries_3rd; 12/22/20.
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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 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.

[Linked Image from imagizer.imageshack.com]

Last edited by RimfireArtist; 12/26/20.
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Its the Herter's shells. Go forth with a different brand and kill birds.


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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.

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Originally Posted by whackem_stackem
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.

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Originally Posted by RimfireArtist
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....


Last edited by battue; 03/07/21.

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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!!

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Rimfire artist,

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.

Mearns hunting at its best:
[Linked Image from imagizer.imageshack.com]

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Good post, and nice pic....


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Watched Ben's video on patterning boards.

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.
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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.



Last edited by battue; 02/09/22.

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Originally Posted by Azshooter
Rimfire artist,

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.

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