Number 10 birdshot

[Dean Romig]

Old habits die hard. I have a friend who will not use anything smaller than #6 shot for grouse. I use #8 in the early season while the leaves are still on and change to #7 or #7.5 when the leaves are down and longer shots are the norm.

A lot of Parkers as well as other SXS guns were choked F/F and i fail to understand why my 28 gauge VHE was choked that way with 26" barrels. It was made in 1922 so the days of market hunting were over but it sure wouldn't surprise me if the original owner might have shot a good many of his birds from a tree branch or on the ground. As I said, old habits die hard.





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[Big D]

Sorry - IMHO this is beginning to sound like the debate about how many angels dance on the head of a pin

[Southpaw]

Sorry not trying to belabor the discussion but I have been following this thread with great interest as well as the one with Jerry Harlowe and his #9 turkey tungsten shot reloads on a different thread (still blown away that size #9 anything could kill a turkey at 50+ yards from a shotgun). Have also yet to see first hand an atom split in a fission process but understand it can make a hell of an explosion and willing to take someones first hand experience word on it. Hats off to Todd Allen and his partner to tinker with it and tell us what they find. Its like that old show Mythbusters that I enjoyed.

I almost mentioned this the other day. Technically speaking person can probably throw a 1 ounce hunk of lead and hit a bird and kill it at about 10 to 15 feet away, maybe further. Apply that same logic to a single grain of sand and at same distance and that projectile would need to probably go 10,000 mph(pure guess) to kill the same bird. With that being said there are obvious limits on what smaller shot can do given the velocities and the mass of it fired from a shotgun. Also amazed table salt can kill flies using a table salt gun.

Obviously there are things that work well and don't work well depending on the specific performance and intended uses and given circumstances. Like Dean mentioned and maybe paraphrasing, but sometimes just because they did certain things back then doesn't mean it was the best practice but through trial and error found it worked for them in a limited capacity and they regularly employed it. Dare say it would even be hard to argue with them. However history is fraught with good thoughts, bad ideas and learned this one from a man with a PHD in Medieval Literature from Edinburgh and his hometown is Tullahoma Tennessee. Go figure.

Tom's old timer market hunters as described used small shot for close birds in dense cover, as gathered, so that shot would not tear up the game for sale as opposed to larger shot. They were hunting for a different pot. They also weren't gambling but were probably reasonably minded and confident in looking to get best result given parameters they had to work with. Is it the best practice today, maybe and maybe not but it met their needs and demands back then, right, wrong or indifferent. Does it make sense now, keeping an open mind, but probably not, unless they also used tungsten filings.

Sure I am probably getting this wrong but recall a handgun shooting instructor telling me years ago it takes about 600 to 800 foot pounds of energy in center mass to stop an average built man. Most handguns produce about between 200 to 500 feet pounds of energy per round, excluding 44 magnum that produces 850 lbs per round. Thinking is that unless your really good at shooting that 44 and handle recoil and are accurate, then its better to shoot a smaller caliber weapon accurately with less recoil with ability to place rounds close to same spot for more devastating impact. Getting two to three rounds in close proximity at 300 ft pounds of energy combined is proven to be more devastating an injury than say just one round from 44 magnum. Would hate to try an live on the difference but that is according to experts.

I think shotgun pellets work the same except your just need a lot more of their combined energy released. Again how many foot pounds of energy in one or more pellets does it take to harvest a bird and what is the energy difference per se between a #10 shot and #7.5 shot and at what distance does typical game load lead shot per size start losing effectiveness. Guessing but think Todd Allen maybe telling us, or not.

[10 bore]

Originally Posted by Chad Hefflinger

I was told by an old timer long ago, the small shot (9, 10 &12) was never intended for penetration, but rather for knock down capibility on smaller sized birds. Like swatting them with a lead racket. Even at closer ranges you would not destroy or make a bird inedible like a load of 6's or even 7 1/2 would. I know I had had great success with the RST woodcock loads.

I was more concerned with eating the small pellets. when I hit a bird I always hit it center of pattern, so with 1500 pellets that would tell me it would have 700 to 800 hits a lot of you see how I shoot, so you know I am wright
scott

[todd allen]

We're going to take what we learn, and add it to what we already know. As I stated before, I use nothing smaller than number 7 1/2s on game birds, with the caveat that I hunt (mostly) Western locales. I have killed plenty of grouse, but my preferred load has been an ounce of 7s.
Though my bird hunting experience spans about 50 years, the vast majority of birds I have killed have been box birds in the ring. That's where I met Chuck, some 30 plus years ago. Chuck, has made a life time study on what it takes to put a bird down, and can tell you with certainty, what size pellet will break a wing, at what yardage, and what any of the mainstream shot sizes are doing at whatever yardages they are still in the air. Despite what we already know, our collective knowledge on down range ballistics stops at shot size number 9.
My first reaction was to pooh-pooh the use of 10s on anything larger than dragon flies, but based on what I have learned here, 10s have been used quite successfully by some here, and evidently by enough old timers, that we just have to take a look, and see what we can learn.
I'd like to say thanks, to those who support our efforts.

[Tom Flanigan]

Although I have enjoyed all the responses and comments, I don’t want to belabor the conversation and repeat myself. But I will make a few comments before I back out of the conversation.

I have no experience using #10 shot on close cover grouse. Everything I have said about their use is secondhand from my grandfather and others who spent lifetimes in grouse coverts. I respect their opinions. I’m sure their grouse bags were far beyond anything I or other modern hunters have experienced. They had a wealth of experience on which to base their choice of loads.

All of these gentlemen, to a man, had an almost reverential respect for their partridge. They didn’t express themselves the way writers such as Spiller, Schaldach, Foster and others did, but they all shared the same love for arguably the finest of all game birds.

None of those gentlemen, or I, would use loads that we didn’t feel were effective killers. Lost birds are the nightmare of every caring hunter. They are a regrettable fact of life. It will happen occasionally despite our best efforts. But I am highly confident that my loads did not did not equate to a higher number of birds lost. I would have known it and I would have modified my approach if it did.

[Southpaw]

Thanks for your efforts and sharing Todd. I think its interesting. Typically the smallest I like to go is 8 shot on quail and dove.

I still remember one cold day trying to break some cold clay targets stored in the barn when trying out a new 28 gauge and all I could find was #9 shot for it. Pretty frustrating knowing your hitting the target solid at about 15 yards and nothing breaking but seeing dust fly off. Then to pick up a 20 gauge with 7.5 shot at same distance and powder them. I know live game is not a clay target but at the time felt like I was shooting sawdust and that was 9 shot. 10 or smaller shot sounds almost like shooting talcum powder, but hey like most trying to keep open mind and indifferent and let your scientific approach playout.

BTW Tom I think you sharing what those old timers did is neat and appreciate your comments as well as many others do. They obviously used what they thinked worked for them and the given parameters and conditions of supply, demand and pricing. Hard to argue with their results. I am sure they maybe had to balance it in their thought process of which to use. Use 8 shot and kill the bird but not be able to sell it at premium price because shot up some, or shoot smaller shot and get em quick not have meat torn up. Like I said different pot they were hunting for maybe.

[Southpaw]

oops

[Heff]

To clarify my earlier post. I do use RST 10 shot spreader loads in the right barrel early in the season and 8's in either standard or spreader in the left depending on the gun and choke of the left barrel. If I'm in one of our known woodcock haunts I will run 10 spreaders in both barrels. 90% of the woodcock shots are at 12-15 yards or less on the first shot and 20 yards max on the second. These #10 spreaders are absolutly the ticket for me at those ranges on woodcock or a grouse if I get the opportunity. As the leaves fall and the hunting becomes more of a grouse game with the odd chance at a woodcock, I switch to spreader #8's in the right and 7 1/2 or 7's in the left. That said depending on the info we get on the testing of 10 shot, I may look closer at a combination of 9's and 8's in the later season. Even later in the year when I think I have pulled off a longer shot on grouse, I bet I could count on one hand the number of times It took me more than 35 paces to get to where the bird fell. These birds are pretty easy to bring down, nothing like the wild pheasants I use to hunt out in Iowa. For those birds hunting with flushing dogs, I used nothing less than 6's and typically used a combination of 5's and 4's

[Jean Swanson]

Todd

Several years ago, Morris Baker and I were have a drink, a I brought up the subject of "mist " shot. I told him of my experience as a young woodcock and partridge hunter using, as I recalled ,number 11 shot. We loaded 2 inch shell, of which we cut & trimmed, to fit into his Purdey 12 & Parker 20 . I up to this conversation was using 8's & 9's.

Well the next time Morris and I got together , I was presented with a case of #10's ,two half inch, 28 bore shells----they fit my PHE 24"----I can only say DEADLY on woodcock & grouse---both these birds have small bones and my dogs did the rest to find the downed birds.