Home Forums Birds & Dogs Waterfowl Help! WF ammo

Haven't done any duck or geese for some time; was wondering what factory stuff folks use or recommend? Kent, Blackcloud or?
I would be only going a couple of times in Dec. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks guys.
Oh; 12qa pump[870]

Buy a box or two and pattern your gun until you get consistent pattern coverage for the range you intend most of your shots to be,then rock on.

I like Kents and they like my gun. The ducks don't like Kents so much!

rif..,

Buy a box of everything and start patterning. Steel suks and it can be a chore to find the right fodder for your shooter. At least that's my take.

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Better yet buy a flat of everything, use one box for testing find the one you get the best results from and give me the rest. I will make it work.

Now I would also like to know When shooting steel what choke you are using and if you go with Kent . What is the guide line for ammo to choke for waterfowl Thanx

I use Briley's hunting chokes. I have two the Duck choke which is .015 and the other is the Goose which is .025. I use the Duck choke for most all my duck and goose hunting. I use the Goose choke for Sea ducks and late season goose.

With that said I wouldn't get caught up in the name game. Any good choke from the major manufactures will work just fine as will the factory chokes. I won a gift certificate at a sporting clays shoot for Briley chokes so I got those two chokes mentioned above. Other wise I would still be shooting the factory chokes.

AS a rule I'm shooting a modified choke for both ducks and geese with steel.I have a couple of small sloughs I shoot with an improved choke as most shots are under 30 yds.I only hunt over decoys,no pass shooting so I don't bother with the long range chokes.I prefer Kent loads but have had good success with Winchester Hi velocity.I always look for the fast loads,1450 or 1550fps.#3s for ducks,BBs for local geese and #1s when I hunt geese on the Prairies.Monashee

I use Kent Fasteel and shoot Briley chokes for all of my duck and goose hunting. This combo patterns very well in my Benelli SBE.

I usually shoot 3" #3's for puddle ducks and 3" #1's for sea ducks and geese.
The Briley duck choke is essentially a light mod and the goose choke is improved mod.

I do prefer a extended choke with steel shot as I feel the extra length helps patterning due the speed of the current steel loads. That and it being non malleable and thus has more tendency to have patterning issues versus lead

I run the base line federal steel in 2 3/4 in a 4 shot out of my 870 with a modified choke and it does the trick

Using a 12 gauge Benelli/Trulock Decoy tube and Winchester 3" Drylok #3 steel for ducks and 3" Drylok BB for geese and Tundra swan; close second is the Kent Fasteel 3" BB, all shot in a Benelli M-2.

All good recommendations - most importantly don't be a sky buster and be ON the front half of the bird. The rest is mostly details.

This is pretty much as I do except I use "T" shot for late geese! It has surprising range!

Winchester XPERT steel shot is economical and works quite well.....no reason to pay more!

I got away from waterfowling for a few years as the steel shot sucked. Improvements in loads and chokes have gotten me back and I'm making longer shots than I ever did with lead.

I do well with Federal Premium Ultra Shok through a Patternmaster Extended Range tube. The PM tube does not work as well with Black Cloud as the wad design isn't compatible. Hypervelocity loads also don't work as well in that tube. I've settled on 1550 FPS and am taking cranes and small geese at incredible range.

My partner tried the Remington Hypers and the recoil soon discouraged him.

With tubes that constrict, we find that we need to replace them after 5 cases [half cases in my day] as the steel shot has taken a toll.