A bird sitting/standing/swimming with his wings folded up on his back is tough to kill (think duck cripple) because his wing feathers are folded up like shingles on his vital area, and shot is more easily deflected

Yes it is possible to effectively kill ducks to 100 yds and beyond, but not with guns that are legal in the US today. Testing was done to prove both pattern and penetration was sufficient along with live shooting of ducks. This was accomplished with both 8 and 4 bore guns.

This is according to the book, "The gun and it's development" by H.H. Greener.

See page 396, "Killing range of large calibres"

This is some great stuff in here, the book is HUGE 838 pages so downloading takes a bit of time.

http://archive.org/details/gunitsdevelopmen00greerich

i have read this articule PETE and its a very interesting read...these fellows went through a lot of tests on this...thanks for the info... ive always thought the large bores were capable of killing cleanly at a 100 yards its surprizeing as to what a load of lead bbs will do to a 5 gallon can at a 100 yards... charlie

Here's a direct link
http://books.google.com/books?id=3HM...g=PA382&source

As Richard said, the question was could a bird be killed at a 100yds, not do we try to harvest game at that range. It seems the answer is yes. If George Digweed can break clay birds at over 100 yards with 71/2's or smaller, then with enough large shot a bird could be killed at 100 yards. JMHO - Paul

IF one can drive a pellet, or pellets, into a vital area at 100 yards game can be taken, I suppose. Watching Annie Oakley events at my gun club from time to time it is common to see how often the target gets to the 4th or 5th gun before it is sometimes broken. Not saying it had not been hit by pellets from earlier guns before it broke. I agree the deed could be done at 100 yards, but at what cost to the population of game birds punctured with wounding pellets and never harvested.

Please don't take 100 yard shots at game birds on my hunting spots with any bore shotgun.

75 yds
 

My son and I were goose hunting on the eastern shore of Maryland about 1990 and he crippled a goose from a field blind. We killed a couple of other geese at the same time and by the time we got around to the cripple(we didn,t have a dog), he had a real head start. We chased him for about 100 yards before I stopped and pointed my 10ga BPS with 3 1/2 in "t" shot with a Imp cyl. choke and fired. The load cut off the gooses' head and sent it about 12 ft beyond the body which did not move. We walked it off and it was 75 yards.
I was just trying to get one shot in him to slow him down. I would never shoot a goose over 40 yds flying, but I never was worried about a cripple getting away if I could see him. I guess the steel shot all stuck together.
Well, that's my long killing story Berk

I fully agree with not taking a shot at game unless you are reasonably certain of a clean kill. I have passed on many, many shots, for that reason. However, there is nothing more fun than taking a long shot at a clay and having it disintegrate way in the distance. The clays don't care if you just wound them. Even more fun with a 10 gauge . . .

I know this is not directly answering the OP, but I remember an article in the NSCA magazine probably 15 years ago about two guys that could supposedly consistently kill doves past 75 yards. If my memory serves me correctly, one of them was a using a long barreled Beretta 303 with a turkey choke and AA Super Handicaps.

I could believe that. Turkey chokes are awful tight.