Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Patterning pheasant loads

Well here is my first post, again. I actually join the forum a couple of years ago under a similar user name but for some reason my account was flagged a spam. So I finally decided to give it another go since many people here love the 28ga and seem to be able to remain civil about things that go against what is commonly held. I can think of only a few forums where you could post about using the 22-250 or 223 on deer outside of the southern states and have it not turn into a complete mess.

Now to my actual reason for this post. As I said I am a fan of the 28ga and I have been reading posts and articles written by Mule Deer and others on the subject of pheasant hunting. As a result I have a couple of questions. Many talk about using w,y,and z with the 28ga for pheasant but as we all know different guns and chokes pattern differently. So I was wondering what criteria you guys use to determine if a load/choke gives an lethal pattern on pheasant?

My second question is more of John Barsness. I came across an article of yours from 2010 in which you recommend a Winchester AA-HS 28ga hull, Winchester 209 primer, 24 grains of Hodgdon's Lil'Gun powder, B.P.I. HV28 wad, and 7/8oz of B.P.I. #7 nickel plated lead with a fold crimp for uppland hunting with the 28ga. I have looked in two B.P.I manuals, their load of the week archive, and Hodgdon's website and I can not find this load. I wanted to ask where you got that recipe and what is the velocity and pressure for it?

Thanks for the help guys.

I pattern alot of shotguns and the best method for me has been shooting at 3'x3' paper at various ranges. I made a PVC target stand that holds a 140'x35" wide roll of contractors paper($10 at your local build mart or hdwr store). Pick the loads and choke you want to test and shoot them at a set yardage. Circles are a good way to evaluate the pattern to determine the flyers, gaps, and core density. You can make your notes as to load, choke, etc. Then you can evaulate each pattern. It helps to fire more than just one shell obviously. This also helps you see your POI as different loads and diff chokes can have differing POI. It's also a good way to determine POI/POA/Stock fit issues.

A friend of mine uses a grease board for basically the same thing, you just don't get the added advantage of being able to look back at the pattern unless you take pics.

loder

Thanks loder but I was asking more about how you evaluate patterns and what you are looking for in a pattern.

That's personal preference. I personally use percentage of hits and eveness. IE what percentage of the shot is inside X dia circle. For the shot contained there in, you want to see an even dispersement with no large holes in the pattern. The load components effect the outcome as well as the bbl condition and the choke.

You can get real anal with this stuff by having forcing cone work done, polishing barrels, custom chokes etc.

If you want to get into penetration comparisons, KPY makes a great program for such.

Have a good one,

loder

I've often found it interesting that folks ask questions pertaining to shotgun shell loads. Also found it interesting that many actually pattern loads, count pellet strikes, etc.

I've shot shotguns for 40 years; hunting and the highest level of competition. I've never even once shot at a paper and counted pellets in or out of a 30" circle.

As a young reloader, I chose loads out of the free Winchester pamphlet for the shot charge I wanted suited to the game and velocity, used the components listed, and pulled the handle on my MEC. Never had any issues killing anything with any load I put together from Geese to Quail.

If you use high antimony shot and proper wads, you shouldn't have any issues with patterns.

If guys spent more time learning how to steer their shotgun and delivering shot, and less time stressing over the minutia of loads (which are meaningless in my book), they'd see much better results in the back of their vest or on their scorecard

It's a hobby rc. I'd rather mess with guns and loads than play golf. Different strokes....

You remind me of my Dad's way of thinking. He just takes his trusty 7mm Wby or Browning shotgun and kills stuff, lots of stuff. He never messes with loads or target shoots, yet he piles up critters with unbelievable success.

Loading for accuracy in a rifle is not the same thing; it's actually necessary and actually makes a difference

There is far more energy going toward minuta than learning to be a very good shot with a shotgun. I will say one thing for sure, that the 28 and 410 are both gauges for people that are excellent shots. If you fit into that category, just follow the directions above about good hard shot and good quality wads. I shot a case of the B&P nickel plated 7's in 20 ga. and they are absolute killers on upland game.

ksfowler,

That 7/8 ounce load was apparently in a much earlier edition of THE SMALLBORE MANUAL, since my notes on it date to 2007. Can�t find that edition, as I generally toss �em when new editions appear. They list the SG28-II wad with the same components, for 1225 fps at 9700 psi.

I didn't call for nickel-plated shot in the article, but instead hard, 6% antimony #7's.

My late friend Michael McIntosh, the great shotgun writer, once analyzed how many shot it took to kill pheasants cleanly. After cleaning a bunch of birds he concluded at least 5 hits were required to consistently drop pheasants. I really can�t argue with his conclusion, and have found the above load capable of that out to 40 yards with most modified chokes.

Unless forced to by some magazine, I don�t analyze pattern percentages, which can easily ruin the fun of wingshooting. Instead I just put a bird-size circle on various parts of the pattern core, and see how many shot hit the circle.

I used a 20" circle, pattern at 30 and 40 yards, you will be shocked to say the least.

In the 80's, we hunted the Pigeon that migrates down from Oregon to Mexico along the Ca. coast line. It is some of the hardest wing shooting you can imagine, a 12ga sport.

There are massive differences in loads in how they pattern, and with different chokes. Gunfit is of a major importance as it will relate to how far left, right, up or down your shotgun may pattern.

KSfowler, we hunted pheasants around Dodge City for years. If you opt of a 12ga, let me know. You know that shots can be 40-60 yards when walking in the fields driving the birds into a draw.

John, I hadn't heard Michael McIntosh had passed. He couldn't have been that old; at least by my standard. IIRC, he was an Iowa boy.

Grin, finally someone who makes sense after reading rcamuglia on pp1. I too went through the whole ceremony of exhaustive shotgun load testing and eventually gave up. See it more as a bit of a hobby or for fun and curiosity. Agree with rcamuglia, Use quality components and concentrate on good shotgunning techniques to deliver the pay load where it counts.
Like riflemen say, shot placement, shot placement, in our case centre the bird in your pattern.
For patterning,I used a large square steel tubular frame, in which I attached with large report clips ( purchased at staples), sheets of 2-3 mil. Poly plastic from rolls available at Home Depot and various home improvement shops. Much easier to work with, specially in a breeze, then paper rolls or sheets, much faster too.

George... yes, Michael passed in 2010. There was a very nice obituary in Shooting Sportsman magazine. He was 66, I believe. I have several of his books, Shotguns and Shooting being his best work, in my view.

I can't argue with McIntosh's 5-pellet rule, although I've never done an exhaustive necropsy series on dead birds to prove or disprove it. And I have to admit my passion for radiusing out 30-inch circles on pattern boards and counting pellets fizzled out some time in the late 70's. Since I've done 95% or more of my bird hunting with the same shotguns and loads since the late 70', I've had little need to get out a pattern board again. However, the few times I've changed loads (most notably, when I had to switch to Hevi-Shot and then ITX for waterfowl loads) I used the same method as John describes... make an acetate cutout the same size as the bird I plan to hunt, and move it around in the pattern to see how many holes I can find that don't put at least 4-5 pellet strikes in the body of the silhouette. It's much faster than counting percentages, and when you think of it, far more meaningful in a practical sense.

I just heard. I don't know how I didn't pick up on this earlier but I only pick up SS irregularly.

I have several books of his also and always enjoyed them.

George, I googled it and it was actually in Shotgun Life magazine, and written by Terry Wieland. You can access it online here:

http://www.shotgunlife.com/shotgun-lives/biographies-and-stories/remembering-michael.html

Need to smile about McIntosh and his book Shotgun and Shooting. Was just thinking about him and his work the other day and have that book open on my desk right now.

Thanks for the replies, I also did not realize McIntosh had passed. I have not read his books but I liked his articles in Shooting Sportsman.

I am a believer in putting patterns on paper.

Having patterned hundreds of combinations of loads and chokes I am loath to generalize about what any combination will give you.

What I can say is that straight cylinder bore is the most consistent. You can make it shoot a little tighter, but it's hard. Next most consistent is full chokes, but they're not even close in terms of consistency. They can and do vary wildly. Some loads can cover the side of a garage at 30 yards which may leave holes big enough to fit large birds through at 30 feet. Some can be virtually 100% at 40 yards which will reliably shred bird at 30 yards.

Anything between can and usually does vary as much with the ammunition as swapping choke tubes.

A choke (barrel) will produce the same pattern with the same ammunition in almost all cases. But... expecting two identical chokes (barrels) to shoot the same load the same way is foolish. IC or skeet chokes are not at all difficult to get to shoot tight full choke patterns. Changing shot sizes can drastically affect patterns. Some shooting requires very open patterns, like grouse and woodcock in aspen cuttings. Some pheasant hunting over flushing dogs requires tight loads of bigger shot. Pheasants over pointing dogs can be done quite well with 7-1/2s and a gun producing cylinder to IC patterns.

If I were shooting pheasants with less than an ounce of shot and not over pointing dogs, I'd be trying hard plated shot in a couple of sizes on paper to see which was dense and consistent, and restrict shots to a max of 35 yards.

These days my "patterning" with a new-to-me shotgun is taking a few shots at a dry hillside to see where the pattern lands. Have also killed a bunch of wild pheasants at 35-40 yards with less than an ounce of shot, using non-plated by high-antimony shot. If you put the pattern on 'em, they fall.

One of the other old stories about the 28 is that it's only suitable for smaller birds. Don't know why that would be so, because bigger birds "catch" more shot. Have killed a number of sage grouse out to 45 yards with an ounce of 6's from the 28, though that shot was indeed plated. (In reality, the hardness of shot is far more important than plating, since plated soft shot is still soft.)