Home Forums Birds & Dogs Waterfowl Loads and choke for 40+ ducks....

You can practice the needed leads with 1200 fps 7 1/2s target loads on a skeet range on stations 3,4&5 by backing up the appropriate distance. Check the ballistics for elapsed time of flight to a given distance for your steel load and then for the target load back up from station 3,4 or 5 so the ET is the same as your steel load at a chosen hunting distance. Our gun club used to have skeet machines on a 100' construction elevator that we could raise the machines from the ground to 100'. The tower machine range was very popular with all of our conscientious wingshots but we were restricted to 7 1/2s or smaller shot so we adjusted.

rost495 Head down, shoot in front and SLAP the trigger..
If you are going to miss miss in front.. Now I have to admit my eyes move independently when waterfowl work the decoys.. I can't help it...
I suggest sheet and regular cheap 9s for shells.. You just need trigger time.. There are exercises you can do to help you to keep your head down.. Brake the target and shoot the largest chip.. That will force you to keep your head down.. The old saw; You can brake 499 targets out of 500.. You could call me on the phone 100 miles away and ask why you missed the 500th target?? I would say you lifted your head.. I would be right 80% of the time..






pullit lol... I am going to use skygawk....

Cigar come on you would be right 90%

You could be right... Wood to Wood is the trick..

Head on the stock, eye on the "rock"....

in rifle that would be a cheek or spot weld required.

I know I"m guilty of lifting my head a lot. AND to totally stopping the follow through on the shot.

Rifle shots... for the reason of so many eveyr year, I follow those through just perfectly it seems...

I'm one of those dumbazzes born every day when it comes to shotguns...

Good thread, I am reading that the experience of others pretty much parallels my my own.I do most of my waterfowling on a small creek outside of town. In the past 4 years I have found that more is not allways better. Imp cyl and mod on the Red Label 12 get most of the action. I find that 3's give me cleaner kills past 30 yds. If they are in your face because of a NW wind the 1 1/16oz 2 3/4" Kent load really works well for me. Out to 40 yds though the 2's in the same load are better, wish Kent would pull their head outta their ass and put 3's in that load. I use it alot in an older 2 3/4" Wingmaster with a Imp cyl choke. Most of my 3" guns use 3" 1 1/8oz loads at over 1500 fps well in 2's.When it comes to steel loads I just can't say brand Y is better than brand x cause none of them are all that good. Kent tungsten Matrix and Heavy -Shot are great though in premium non-toxics. Magnum man

I've made the switch to tungsten. I'm pushing an ounce of #5 tungsten at a smoking 1300fps through a full choke. I'll never shoot steel again. For Geese, I bump it up to 1-1/4oz of #2 at 1200fps. I've said goodbye to recoil and realize that I must have been wounding a lot of birds before.

Regardless, within 40 yards, any common loading of 1-1/8oz #2 steel going over 1400fps with put the bird in the bag. Past that becomes unethical. One can shoot a bigger load, but the pellets lack energy. Choose a larger shot and you lose pattern density. YMMV.

Interesting article I came across (was posted on Shotgunworld) that discusses wound ballistics and waterfowl hunting.

http://www.randywakeman.com/WoundingBallisticsfortheWingshooter.htm

I have watched many hunters not shoot at birds well inside 40yds because they think they are out of range. They think 15yds is 25yds and 25yds is 40yds. My best guess is to them a mallard at 40yds must look like a hummingbird

For the last 30 or so years, I've shot a Beretta A302 with a 26" IC barrel, mostly using Kent FastSteel 4s. That combo has been very, very effective out to 40 or so yards, though I've killed many birds well beyond 40 with that outfit.

This year, I was curious to see at what distance I was really shooting at waterfowl, including geese.. I borrowed a laser range finder from a friend and was shocked to see what geese look like at 100 yards, 200 yards, and the like.. I also figured out that the decoys around our blind, the ones that were set the furthest out, were well within gun range at a mere 35 yards out.

Once I figured out what the birds looked like at the distances they were actually at, it gave me an idea about what kind of lead I should be giving them and my shot effectiveness actually went up. There were few birds that decoyed within range that got away unless I had only enough time for a "snap shot".