Just purchased a reloading setup and looking for a good starting point. Want a load that burns clean and recoils mildly for a light 12 bore double. Targets would be grouse and woodcock in the woods, tight patterns not helpful. 7/8 oz. or 1oz. of shot I imagine.

thanks

How is a tight pattern not helpful? Holes in your pattern are surely not going to help you put birds in the bag.

Nobody said anything about holes in the pattern. Just looking for widest pattern that is still dense enough to reliably kill grouse and woodcock at close ranges. Too dense a pattern can chew up a grouse or woodcock on very close shots, which are often the only shot we have in my stomping grounds. And a larger pattern is easier to hit with in this fast, close shooting.

I understand that harder shot tends to hold tighter patterns, all else being equal, due to less pellet deformation. And that higher velocities can cause more spread, at least with soft shot?

Here's a 1-ounce load I've used quite a bit in light 12's. It gets around 1200 fps and is deadly on all sorts of woods birds, from blue grouse down:

Rem. Premier case
R209P primer
18.0 grain Ramshot Competition
F12S0 wad

I load mostly 7/8 oz in 12 gauge these days, some 1 oz. My favorite powder, bar none, is Alliant E3. It's cheaper too, as the charges I throw to get about 1175 fps are only 16.8 gr and 16.2 gr respectively (the odd decimals are where the charge bushings wound up to get closest to 1175 fps). Savings are not in the cost per pound, but cost per load. Clean burning also.

Other stuff:

Rem STS hulls
Claybuster WAASLs clones, gray for 7/8, pink for 1 oz.
Win 209 primer

A tight pattern to me would mean a nice evenly spread pattern with no holes in it. I realize you can somewhat open the spread by loading with diferent types of wads. But in reality your choke is going to dictate how open or tight your pattern is going to be.

I just realized that I've been loading the same load since I started reloading. Just put fifty together to go shoot clays tomorrow morning. I started in Win cardboard cases and the old 57* RP shur shots plastics, both with card wads. It is 1 1/8 ounce shot and 18.5 grains of Red Dot. There have been a bunch of other loads, but I've been going back to that one since the sixties. I did switch to Windjammer wads a number of years back.
I'm gonna watch this thread. The old shoulder needs work, I tore a retina a year to two ago, and... you get the idea. I need to try some lighter stuff that shoots loose in a tight tube. It should be that magical load that can track a grouse or woodcock thru timber or zone in on a clay bird. I don't care if there are holes in the pattern as long as the nice even part of the pattern finds my targets.
Bfly

Blackfly1 I like my chokes like I like my ladies, TIGHT. But every once in a while its not bad to have a loose one to remind you just how good the tight ones are!

Montana,
Nicely put!
Bfly

My favorite powders for 7/8ths loads are American Select and Tightwad. Tightwad does better in Fitasc type loads (i.e. fast; 1350 or so fps). American Select is just so flexible, it's easy to go down into the 1150 range and still have consistent loads.

My experience is that any quality wad with a sensible load in the 1200 fps range gives good patterns. HHT, Dutch.

Go to the Winchester or Remington website and duplicate their light target load formula. Time proven and tested. You probably can't do any better. At Ruffed Grouse/Woodcock distance pointing means more than choke. Seen a lot of Grouse come to rest in the leaves. Few have been blown up irrespective of choke.

I've just started making this load for my boys for shooting clays with a 12 gauge. Very soft shooting and still busts clays with authority. 16 g Clays Win Waa12 SL wad (pink) Win 209 primer with Win AA hulls. This load shoots around 1125 fps.

Cowman , how much shot?

Shoulder,
I have loaded a pile of 7\8 oz loads and they break close targets well.
It started when lead price went from 16 to 18 a bag to OMG its how much?
I have had the best luck with the winchester gray wad WAA12L, but the SL will crimp in the AA hulls or the STS.
I am trying to get thru a 4 pound jug of Red Dot that I bought during the powder shortage. It is just not as clean as the Clays.
I am loading a very mild load that is cycling a pair of Rem, 1100's with cut down stocks. My objective is a very soft shooting load that will give minimal recoil for new shooters.
We shoot both guns with a skeet choke and stay on targets that are not far out. The kids have been crushing them. It is amazing how many more shells they will shoot with the light stuff. Our goal is easy to break targets with kids having a good time to start.
Montana is right if the range is longer. But we just limit the distance.
Hodgden has a very good site with data for just about any wad/hull combo you can think of. They give a range of speeds. The loads are vary easy to shoot out of a fixed breach gun.
Remington has a 7\8 1100 fps factory load if you want to try it.

7/8 and 1 oz. loads have worked very well on singles and first shot on doubles (talking trap here). I've used my fox sterlingworth (old double made in 1910) with light loads with great success. Here are some of the loads that have worked well for me in both the game fields and money fields , sorry I meant trap fields:






Hope you guys are having a hell of a father's day

Spot on brother, that is a good load.

My bad, that is a one ounce load. I thought about going to a 7/8 oz load, but my nine year old has no problem shooting this through my Benelli. Last night my boys (12 and 9) played Annie Oakley with a twelve vs a twenty and ended up in a dead heat. May do that again this evening with a few neighbor boys, hard to top that for a Father's day

BSA
that second Fox Gun looks like mine. I love shooting that one. My brother in law sold it to me a while back. I think he is still thinking he should have kept it.
Mine is 30" and the chokes are tight. But it sure is a fun shooter.
Do you shoot trap with yours?

Not on a regular basis but it is fun to take them out every once in a while. The one on the top (previous picture) is my fox model B and the one on the bottom is the sterlingworth. The sterlingworth is my favorite field gun though, it is light handles awesome and fits me like a glove. It also carries great which is a plus on a long day of bird hunting . My regular trap guns are my BT-99 and yes a remington 870 wingmaster field grade with a trap barrel on it (it is also a left hander and handles like a dream).






When I have to run steel on waterfall I use the old el-cheapo rem 870 express

On a side note for my sterlingworth, I have even taken some nice turkey out there a long way with it (with 2 3/4" turkey loads of course). It's laid down every turkey I've pointed it at and I love the old girl. It was my great grandfather's who was also left handed. One I'll never get rid of.

Haha. Quite possibly the best quote I have read on this site.

A 7/8oz load out of a 12ga. will break clay targets further and with more authority than many realize. They all essentially get there together with minimal shot string.

You're right about that. When my boy was young (around 10-12) he was using a 12 loaded "light" (7/8 oz. loads) and nailing them way out. Even surprised and shocked myself with the damn things . Funny though you could hear the shot and it took a second or 2 to get to the bird , he really had to lead them though.

Thanks to those who answered my original request for specific loads

My favorite load for singles and first shot on doubles is:

Win hull
Win 209 Primer
17.2 grains of Alliant clay dot powder
winjammer XL-1
1 oz of shot.

Works wonders on the trap line with little to no recoil at all. Hodgdon Clays is another favorite for light and fast loads as well.

Jack

Check both Alliant and Hodgdon's web-site for full recipes of course.

I shot a sh*t load of quail back in the day with a mod 26" Rem 1100 in 12ga. My pet load was over max. I used plastic wads over 21gr of Red Dot with 1 1/8 of #8 shot.

Gee's I must be lazy, I just buy Remington Sure Shot!

Not exactly a light load that I was seeking

Clays is a clean powder. For your hunting, I would suggest 7/8 oz of no. 7 1/2.

Winchester components, except powder. AA hull, Winchester 209 primer, 18.0 grain Clays, WAA12SL wad. Runs at 8,000 psi, 1245 fps according the the Lyman manual I got it from. (Lyman 4th ed., p. 197). For a denser pattern you can load an ounce and cut the powder to 17.5 gr. Clays, and still get 1200 fps. But 300 pellets is all you need, so why deal with the recoil?

I love those light doubles. I have an LC Smith 12 ga that weighs an honest 6.5 pounds. It's rough as a cob in appearance, but it shoots great and I love it.

My most used 12 gauge load is pretty nearly identical to BSA's: AA hull, W-209 primer, 16.7 gr. Clays, Win. Grey wad, 7/8 ounce shot (9's for skeet, 8's for 16 yard trap, doves, grouse). Thousands of dead skeets will attest to the efficiency of this load!

Since I too mostly use classic doubles anymore (L.C.Smiths in my case) the load is light enough to not cause worrying about cracking tangs and shooting loose while firing thousands of shots.

Also, since chokes are fixed, in order to get more open patterns for skeet and certain hunting applications, I switch to a AA 1 oz. wad (or a clone) and 7/8 oz. shot, with a Ballistics Products X-Stream spreader appliance stuck in. The bigger wad is necessary because of the space the X spreader takes up.

I just loaded 500 of my favorite 1 oz loads for 16 yard trap.
I use to shoot 1 1/8 oz loads but found it really made no difference in my scores.
Any Remington hull (STS, Gun Club, Game Load)
Fiocchi 616 primer
Downrange XL1 (lime green)
17gr's Alliant Claydot
1oz of #8 shot
1180 fps.
I shoot this load through an IM choke, (.25)
It's a great round for woodcock and grouse up here also, but I prefer to hunt those with my 16ga or 20ga. Don't really need a 12 for those birds.

You received alot of good advice on quality handloads others spent time and money researching and testing that gave good results for them. If you don't load ,pickup a couple of boxes of Federal Game Loads with 1 oz of 6's and some with 7 1/2 or 8's and do alittle clay birding and some patterns too. Not very fancy at 5-6 bucks a box ,but Federal has been selling them since the beginning of time and they do work fairly well without alot of recoil at a inexpensive price. for ordinary shooting and the 1 st shot in a 2 barrel gun. Obviously premium shotshells are the way to go for 35+ yd shots but how big a % are 35+yd shots?They are a pleasant surprize and easy on the shoulder. Magnum Man

WAA 12L wad
7/8 oz shot
AA hull
WW209
Clays, forget the charge but it's in the Hodgdon manual.

Very similar to cowboy action loads. I use the STS and AA hulls. The STS are slicker for easy extraction in CAS shooting and seem to get a few more loads before cracking around the crimp. I love Clays and use it with my CAS rifle and pistol. I use AA to duplicate the Winchester Featherlite low recoil loads. AA is very fine grained and with the MEC I need the powder baffle device for spring tension on the charge bar to keep powder from drifting out on top of the bar. That doesn't happen with Bullseye and Clays.

DF