Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Choke for buckshot

Modified choke is usually good for buckshot in my experience

You bet JWP, especially with the bigger pellets, i have an old A5 with 30" full choke barrel that's plain nasty with copper plated #4 buck.

A 7" pattern is tight for an HD gun, and I'm sure it suits your needs well. The post however is about hunting loads. Patterns fall off quick as range increases. I would just about bet a 7" 20 yard pattern would be more like a 20+" 40 yard pattern.

No disrespect intended. I would be happy with that pattern too in an HD situation.

The 00 pattern I've been killing deer with for a few years will put all but one flier into 12" @ 40 yards. Every pattern with that load has that one dang flier. This is a hand load of 16 .33 cal 00 that runs right about 1225. This load will still hold a 20" pattern @60 yards.

Next year I'll be switching to a 14 .35 cal pellet load. That one has no fliers. It will hold a nice round 10-12" pattern @40 with a real tight 8 pellet core that will carry a tight pattern a long ways. A friend shooting my loads killed a buck with that load last year @ 68 yards and it broke him down.

All this is with a Buck Kicker full choke.

If I was smarter, I'd post pics.

Great info Buckshot.

Those loads sound like rippers!

Killed a buck with the 00 load last year that was pushing 70 yards. I shot him 3 times. From the back of his ribs to his nose he had close to 20 pellets in him.

I'm not sure of the longest shot I have taken with mine, but I'd bet it was nearly 70. I shot one buck after he slipped through a stander who had already been shot. He was scooting out across the green field and the hounds had not caught up yet, so I gave him a couple shots from the rear. He ended up croaking just inside the woodline. Hard tellin who actually killed him, but we did find some copper plated pellets in him when we skinned him that had broken bones.

I still think it's amazing the power the stuff has when it is shot from a well patterning gun.

Buckshot, good info, no offense taken, i read we were shooting coyotes and crackheads at 50 yards, all good anyway, were i to try to build a longer range load i'd experiment with shot wads and smaller shot, most likely 00 buck, then re-do the choke deal looking for best patterns, i'd still cast them hard with the 22 BHN alloy, you'd just have to see what that load did to a ham wrapped in a long handle shirt wrapped in a carhart coat wrapped with duct tape, very telling, and completely un-survivable within it's effective range.

Is that an endorsement of the load? Or not?

At 70 yards I bet he was just knocking him down. At above 50 I didn’t notice as much impact but they still died just the same.

Plus, buckshot doesn’t shoot up meat real bad from what I’ve seen.

That is bad ass performance from a good patterning shotgun. The pellets that didn't penetrate fully were on the hide on the far side. He died so hard that he cracked a horn running into a tree where he piled up. Distance from first shot to dead was probably less than 40 yards.

I do agree that hard pellets are where it's at. I don't know what hardness mine are. Whatever water dropped whell weights are.

Should be around 22-24

Good info Buckshot.

Trying the pic posting thing

The .35 cal, almost 000 load I been working on. This is @ 40. I about have it where I want it.

https://i.imgur.com/x3XDxJx.jpg

The 00 load I've been hunting with @ 40,50 and 60

https://i.imgur.com/oa086rz.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ujxpRxL.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/TlGV1D3.jpg

And the buck I posted about above

https://i.imgur.com/a2baZet.jpg

AWESOME shooting Buckshot. That’s a killer gun. Nice stuff.

Great buck too.

Which gun is that you’re using?

Thanks!

It's a 24" barreled Benelli SBE 2 with a Buck Kicker full choke.

Wow. Never would’ve guessed a 24”!

Damn that gun shoots. PM me when you’re tired of it.

Nice.

I think it's a myth that longer barrels pattern better. I have a 21" barreled 870 that patterns great.

I looked until I found the 24" SBE. The Benelli has a really long receiver. Between that and the extended tube, it's about as long an the 28" barreled guns it sits beside.

Probably the tightest patterning gun I've ever shot is a funky, off brand 18" barreled bullpup 12 gauge a buddy traded for a few months back. He wanted to shoot it and I has some 3" 00 laying around that my son had graduated from. With the full choke, it put the entire 12 pellet load into 7-8" @ 40 yards. Blew my mind really.

Don't hold your breath waiting on a message. I plan to be buried with it. It just points where I look.

Yeah, that's a gem when you find that one gun. Mine's an SX3 with a 28" barrel and luckily it has been that way for me. I spent alot of time on the target boards patterning both buckshot and turkey loads and got lucky that it prints centermass to where I am aiming.

Those SBE's are and always have been the best of the bunch as far as shotguns go. Unlike rifles, I have a SX3 and got a Franchi Affinity 20 gauge a few years ago for turkeys. I just keep the SX3 ready for deer and use the Franchi for birds now.

I was hoping with the TSS shot coming around I'd see it getting made into buckshot sorta sizes, but I have seen it out there. I'd think that stuff would be amazing since you could increase pattern density and keep the weight up.