Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Buckshot sizes for social work?

Reading a lot of "thinkin'", thinkin' a lot of guesswork, assumptions and good fashion dogma is runnin' amok on this topic. Question I have is how many here have actually killed a lot of critters with a variety of gauges and different sized buckshot? Trying to separate theory from fact on this.

You do not always get to pick the circumstances, but it stopped him.

No doubt a single pellet or 2 would have done the job..not killed him but incapacitated him for sure. Its just those pellets just deform and spread out so much after 50-60 that it is a crap shoot.

Not as pretty as the Rem, but that Mossberg and tang safety, personally, makes a comforting home defense weapon.

2-4-6-8 (whatever was last put in there from hunting use) alternated with slugs.

I'm wondering if you-all patterned those 00 loads years ago.

The deer hunters ahead of hounds years ago routinely used full choke guns and it was pretty common to use no. 1 Buck back then as many guns patterened it better.

After college my first buy was a Browning Auto 5 FC. Try hunting dove with that. Put a newspaper at 50 yards and a load of 00 would only hit with about 3 pellets, unbelievably strung in a vertical pattern. Alas, it was a deer killer with those #1buck.

I live right next to the Roosevelt National Forest in the Colorado Rockies. Every year between spring and winter we seem to have one or more black bear encounters. Never had a human encounter yet here in Colorado (Florida is another story). So I load the first 3 rounds in bear season with 12 ga Brenneke hard cast slugs with 3-inch 00-buck behind that. In winter I have all 00-buck with 6 slugs in the side saddle. Been thinking about #4 buck in winter for denser patterns. Longest shot inside the house would be 20 yards. Considering having a loaded rifle for more choices. A M1A and 20 round mag would be one possibility.

My uncle was a forester with a timber co. and fed his crew a lot of deer from Polk Co. big thicket country. He had a single shot break open Win. FC that he killed several deer with at over 80 steps. I heard one was at 110. Having habit some buckshot experience, I figure the hounds affected the recovery. I switched to using 23/4 short mags due to poor penetration of buckshot and it seemed to help.

There were a lot of deer lost in those days to bad shots, buckshot, and running deer in timber. Only the hounds made it a viable activity IMO.

Well dog hunting was not allowed statewide where I lived . A lot of of deer were wounded when people did not realize the limitations of a shotgun. For the most part we hunted from the ground , rarely from trees and usually had 30 yard shots if that for the most part.

Have never used 00 buck on living critter (2 or 4 legs), but have used 4 buck with great effect out to 70 yards on coyotes. Currently have 1100 w/extend tude loaded with 10 12ga 2 3/4" 0 buck. If that doesn't take care of business, then I think Darwin has spoken and I didn't deserve to make it.

A child cousin habit gotten into some sky blue paint and partially painted a part pf it. From then on that Winchester 37 was called 'old blue'. As a kid I waded down Sulphur Creek (quiet without the oak leaf duff) one Christmas campout hunt and killed my first squirrel. After that, the creek was too cold for use in squirrel hunting.

"20 bore #3 buck: 2-3/4" will mostly penetrate thru and thru on a 250# hog on a broadside shot inside of 30 yards."

Ive never used a shotgun on hogs, but I'm really surprised by your statement after having killed a LOT of hogs with different rifle and pistol cartridges.I'm surprised to hear of a shotgun pellet penetrating more than a 300 gr. jacketed HP from a 45-70, and they sure as hell don't always exit on a 250 lb. hog.

One of my best friends and deer hunting partners has a helicopter and hog eradication is one of the things he does.

He tried lots of different stuff early on but claims that 00 buck is the only thing worth considering.

That Cur, is good to know. IT usually take s several shots from my 223 with 55gr SP to down a big hog.

Can you guys post some pics of your shotgun patterns at 60,70, and 80 yards?

Dink

Think I'd vote #1 buck. But it's not very easy to find.

00 is easy to find and fine for social work. Dixie Tri-Ball (.60) is very effective if you're anti-social.

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Think a 10 gauge Ithaca Roadblocker with slugs ought to be up to the task.

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Man, that was 40 years ago. Hang a news paper on a fence. It can be educational. I doubt I ever fired at paper other than about at 50 good steps. We were raised tight on our shells. Sometimes as a kid I would walk to town through the woods and only buy 7 or 8 shells from old man Maxey. He owned Maxey's.

Yea, there's a lot of things I wish I habit from long ago. A picture of a lot of fish I caught or deer I killed would fill a big hole. My first big Buck or that bobcat I nailed with my Ben Pearson hunter as it snuck up on the doe and two fawns would be mice. Also, those baseball cards of Roger Maris and Mickey Mantel and Willie Mays would be nice. The 3 point rack on that first Buck that bounced by ahead of someones hounds after I got tired of waiting for him at the gap and moved down on the branch and inserted the high base duck load 4s so I could kill those two big old fox squirrels that had been tempting me for a few hours. Imagine my chagrin (despair) to look 80 yards up the timbered hill to see what would have been my first deer jump the fence I had left 15 min. before after posting all day. But he came my way and at 18 yards he kept high to cross the branch at a run Ann the 4s took him through the front feet and heart and lungs with the first shot and before he touched ground the second shot from the FC monkey Ward pump hit him in the kidneys and loins. He hit and laid with a front hoof up and between his horns. THANK YOU JESUS.

Please forgive iPhone spell check.PS some of those 4 duck shot overpenetrated, exiting the far side. PS many a dog man has ment to pepper his dog at 60 yards with #6 shot and never got the chance to reprimand Fido again.

Last Oct I caught one in the belly from about 85 yards while hunting dove by a waterhole and it brought blood and hurt like hell. I thought it was 6 shot and mentioned it to the kids dad. I can't remembe7r now but he may have told me it was 71/2.

Federal Tactical 00 at just under 1200 FPS is your huckleberry.

MM

I have killed two deer with a shotgun. One crippled doe at 10 yards with a head shot of eights or 7 1/2s and another doe with 16 gauge load of 12 pellets of number ones at 25 yards. Both DRT.

My family house gun is an 870 youth twenty with a load of #8 in the barrel, followed by four buckshot loads of #3 in the magazine.