Home Forums Reloading Shotshells 16 gauge shot weight

Looking like a 1 Oz. load and adjust shot size according to game hunted.

I have used the 1oz NP BB like erich said, only in 23/4 on a couple coyotes and never needed a followup

Somebody wanna tell me what NP is?

Nickel plated

👍

I don’t reload shot shells and hunt wild pheasants in SD and Iowa. I’ve maybe seen only a couple of boxes of 16’s in my source stores that weren’t 1 1/8oz at 1295 to 1310 FPS ( Rem, Win, or Fiocchi, etc). 12 ga loads are almost invariably 1 1/4 oz or 1 3/8 oz and 20’s 1 oz or 1 1/4 oz in the 3”.

These are the standard and default loads here for pheasant hunters. Those 16 loads seem to give up nothing to the 12’s, except recoil.

I load 1 1/8 oz of magnum #6 for pheasants, at about 1200 fps. Very efficient and effective load; also a great chukar load, though my real preference for them is an ounce of #7s.

d

A short shot string is primarily the result of using hard shot that doesn't get deformed on setback, while traveling down the barrel and combined with a good wad...Good wads have made the square load principle a thing of the past...And no credible ballistic expert would make conclusions based on visual appearance of shooting at water. What effect would a couple degree variance in shotgun position have on results.....and the visual practically disappears in fractions of a second.

Some also believe you can see shot string difference, by shooting at water with a slow vs fast swing...another fallacy.


This fellow...who knows his way around shotguns, mentions Bob Brister and his book..

https://www.fieldandstream.com/10-tips-for-patterning-your-shotgun-for-hunting-season/

A corollary to load weight is the old saw that for an ounce of shot, one needed 6 lbs of gun weight; therefore for the typical load of 1 1/8 oz of the 16, the gun need be no more than 6 lbs, 2 oz. Of course, those in the clay sports would prob find recoil too much with hundreds of shots a day.

But, for me that is right on for the uplands. Very few guns meet this quasi standard as we all know.

Another....Extreme FPS loadings are mostly good for recoil and little else....

https://www.shotgunlife.com/shotguns/tom-roster/does-speed-kill.html