An argument for full-power shotgun loads?

[Bart Solo]

The first time I shot cowboy I shot full loads. I didn't know any better. For a week I had a bruise on my aching shoulder. It didn't take me long to find featherlites. Remember a short barreled SxS doesn't weigh as much as your trap gun. It doesn't handle recoil as well either.

[Smuteye John SASS#24774]

With a bigger pattern, you don't have to aim quite so fine.

 

You make my point beautifully...with a bigger pattern you would not miss those clays. And you really should not have to "benchrest" a 10 gauge to be sure the knockdowns go down.

Never said I 'benchrest' aimed. I just hunt up the bead, put it onto the steel and let'er rip. I use 1 5/8 oz of #8's over what a 12 bore shooter would consider a 'reasonable' 12 gauge BP powder charge. I don't get beat black and blue and anything I shoot that's supposed to fall STAYS down (if it don't bounce back up, I've had that happen a couple times).

 

As for missing the clays, I hit a whole lot more than I miss. The biggest reason I miss is when I don't see the clay come off the thrower on vomit targets. Once I get behind like that, I'm pretty much just making noise when I take the shot. Since I'm not much of a wing shooter to begin with, I'm willing to write any misses off as operator error.

[Deadlee Headlee SASS 54317 L]

Howdy Buckshot!

 

I have been loading shot shells for my family to shoot with since about 6 months into the sport. The reason because I can Tailor the load for what I like and cost. I load a Featherlight equivalent for about 4.35 a box if the hulls are free. I also use an 8 petal wad from Clay buster called the Lightning wad. This allows the pattern at 10 yards to be about 4-6 inches bigger than a conventional 4 petal wad. I have confirmed this using pattern boards. With the larger pattern advantage and the lower cost I feel that I have the best of both worlds. A lighter load that doesn't beat my family and my guns up, and a high performance load that is cheap to shoot.

 

Whatever you decide the great thing about this sport is that if you don't really like them you can use them up pretty fast and change to a different load :-)

 

-Deadlee

[Pulp, SASS#28319]

My loads are very light black powder loads, but KD's still fall.

[Go West]

A wider pattern will give you some slop to your game and would likely assist more than using more shot. I use a low recoil reload that takes knockdowns down quickly and follow up shots are quicker as well. I can appreciate using cheap shells and we did that for 2 years or so. Once we tried my reloads, they are preferred and we only shoot factory when I'm too lazy to reload.

[Dubious Don #56333]

Three issues; recoil, knockdown power and function.

 

Not all shells are equal when it comes to functioning. Brass base hulls are usually more reliable but not always, compared to aluminium or steel bases. The "inexpensive" shells don't always work and a good rule of thumb is try'em for proper functioning. I haven't had much luck with my guns and "field" or "Estate" etc, especially in doubles when it comes to ejection. All our guns seem to really like STS or AA hulls so that is what I use.

 

I haven't tried the gun club loads but they appear to be close to STS and probably work. Just haven't tried'em yet. Now that I have the shotgun press up and running, I'll be using LOTS less of those 80-90 bucks a case shells. If I buy components off the shelf locally, my cost per box is around five bucks. If I buy in bulk (you really have to shop around, too) I can get that down to almost 4 bucks. The last hulls I had to buy were .10 cents apiece, seems high but that was the cheapest I found and the hulls were beautifully clean.

 

Knockdown is a function of putting lead on steel. Know where your gun patterns. Depends on the target, but most times, a hit with half the pattern will take the target down (A low hit might not, other things being equal) and shot size and density play a big part. I'm a fan of 1 1/8oz loads. You can be real sloppy and still take'em down compared to a 7/8oz load.

 

Shot size affects this, I think 7 1/2 shot gives about the best of pattern density with pellets just big enough to have enough inertia to them. (but its gonna depend on how the targets are set and how MUCH shot you get on the steel)

 

Recoil is going to be more with a lighter gun, double (lighter) versus 97. Add a recoil reducer to the stock, this will also help with balance. I've even used shot or lead in the stock bolt hole to add weight which will lessen felt recoil and balance the gun better for some. The type of load you use is really going to affect this. Try some field loads after you shoot "target" loads. Ouch. I like featherlights but my preferred load is a bit heavier than that. Even though recoil is more and shot to shot times might be more, I take the targets down better with the heavier load because one re-shot target can add quite a few seconds!

[Noz]

My loads are very light black powder loads, but KD's still fall.

+1

Heavy shot charge, very light Blackpowder charge, modified chokes.

[Carlos El Hombre]

A 3 dram equivelent 1 1/8 12 ga load is not a full power load, it is a trap load. 1 5/8 oz 1150 fps is a full power load and a day of them is hard to enjoy. I shoot the loads you are talking about when I am too lazy to reload, they work just fine.

 

Carlos

[Madd Mike #8595]

I shoot a 12 ga. feather-light clone load I reload on my MEC....

it ALWAYS knocks down the KD's if I aim correctly...I am happy shooting a light load that's cheeper than store-bought bargain loads.

Re-loading shotgun shells is way easy.

 

I once found some of my older re-loads, and didn't realize that the shot had fallen out, and knocked DOWN several fallers with just the wads.

 

I shoot lite clones as well with open cylinders with great success

aim down the barrel length, put little round thing on targer, and squeese the trigger

thats what I do, kd's, charcoal, soda cans, clay birds, it dont matter none, it works for me

just like you said above

[Captain Woodrow Cahill, SASS # 54363]

Yep, when ya shoot light loads, ya gotta point the gun where ya mean the shot to go. With hot loads you can get by with a little less precision. Now, that of course means if ya wanna be fast, ya still have to be GOOD.

 

 

Any decently centered load including a buckaroo's 410 should do the job on a knockdown at CAS distances.

 

 

Strange, I noticed that most shotgun misses are caused by the shooter just not aiming .

 

Lots of good advice here. The central theme is aiming and not just pointing.

 

Most of the misses I've observed (and done myself) have been the result of getting in too big a hurry and shooting over the top of the target. Taking that extra 1/10 of a second to sight down the rib and put the bead on the middle or lower third of the target is better than fumbling around on a two second reload.

 

A 3/4 or 7/8 ounce load of shot can be just as effective on a KD as a 1&1/8. It just needs to be put where it'll do the most good. On a grain weight comparison those two loads are as heavy as a mid-range 45-70 bullet. Sent downrange at around 1000 fps (which would be a mild 45-70 loading) even with a spread of about 2" to 4", that's still plenty of power. For that matter, 5/8 ounce (273 grains) would pack as much punch as a heavy 45 pistol load, and still be enough ... which would probably make a nice light 20 gauge loading.

[Cowboy Junky]

I agree.....everyone but me should use full power loads.

[Smuteye John SASS#24774]

Now that the whole 'dram equivalent' thing has come up, let me clarify what my load is.

 

I use slightly less than 3 drams of FFg or Pyrodex RS under around 1 5/8 oz. (2 heaping scoops from a shot scoop set for roughly 3/4 oz.) of shot. That's more of a 'rectangular' BP load than 'square' . I had to do something creative, since there's never been a 10 gauge 'target' load developed that I know of. Since I'm shooting it through a 1906 vintage 10 gauge chambered for 2 7/8" hulls, I use fiber wads, not plastic. (I also feel that if it kept the Full choke for 90 plus years before I got it, I might as well keep it.) I even tried building 'spreader loads' early in my load development due to the concerns that the full choke would be too full for CAS and really couldn't see any discernible benefit of them.

 

What I've found is that if I do my part, the gun does its' part. If I aim, the knockdowns fall like they were hit by Thor's Hammer, standing targets will shake like a willow tree and airborne clays become faint gray smudges on the sky before completely disappearing in the wind.

 

This has devolved into more of a discussion of chokes than loads. Improved and Cylinder Bore give you a better chance of 'hitting' while Modified and Full increase your chances of knocking things down at the expense of taking a finer aim. Personally, I would prefer a slightly more open choke than my turn of the century version of a Full choke. When I get around to setting up the Spanish SXS 10 gauge I picked up as a back up, I figger that either Modified or Improved Modified will be the way to go. I think that this would be the best compromise between the need for a more open choke for flying targets and the need to be able to concentrate the shot load onto a knockdown target to insure it falls.

 

EDIT

 

Capt. Woodrow,

I did some 20 gauge BP development for a pard of mine's nephew (who was very slightly build and recoil shy at the time) several years ago and found that 5/8 to 3/4 oz of shot over about 1.5 drams of powder would take any of the knockdowns used locally- including one ISPC style pistol KD that was set in a window with only the head and shoulders visible. True, they sometimes looked like a tree trying to fall up wind if the hit was slightly low of dead center but they fell down. These were shot from a 20 inch Stoeger Coach gun with Cylinder Bore chokes. Had it been from a longer barrelled gun or with a more constrictive choke, I do believe that performance would have improved.

[Captain Woodrow Cahill, SASS # 54363]

Smuteye John - thanx for the hint on the 20 gauge loads with BP.

 

I've been working out the math, and I figured around 1.5 to 1.75 drams pushing 5/8 would be about right. Good starter loading for my wife, and it may be my load if I have to go in for rotator cuff work.

 

Now to modify a couple of Lee LoadAll bushings to get the right powder & shot throws.

 

In the meantime, I'll continue with my 2.2 dram + 7/8 oz. shot 12 gauge load. Haven't met a KD yet that will stand up to it.

[Driftwood Johnson, SASS #38283]

A 3 dram equivelent 1 1/8 12 ga load is not a full power load, it is a trap load. 1 5/8 oz 1150 fps is a full power load and a day of them is hard to enjoy. I shoot the loads you are talking about when I am too lazy to reload, they work just fine.

 

Howdy

 

With all due respect, I shoot a lot of Trap, and I don't know anybody who regularly shoots 3 dram loads for 16 yard Trap. As I said before, for Trap I shoot a 2 3/4 dram load with 1 1/8 ounces of either #7 1/2 or #8 shot. I know a lot of other regular Trap shooters who use the same load, or else 2 3/4 drams with only 1 ounce of shot. I do not know any AA shooters who shoot 3 dram loads, and I shoot informally with AA shooters all the time. Some guys use 3 dram loads for handicap Trap, but nobody I know uses them for regular 16 yard singles.