Craig, what distances are you taking these deer at ?

Anymore when I head to the woods in any of my "normal" spots I carry a shotgun and a rifle .

Generally the furthest rifle shot I can get is 75 yards at best .
When I pattern my buckshot loads it's only at 25 yards, so to date I've not fired on one with buckshot at over 30 yards . When I go out I also carry a range finder . But most of my stand sites I know well enough to know when the deer are inside or close to the 25 yard area . I suspect they'll do ok further out but I set that as my limit and so far I've stuck to it . But then if they ease on out a ways and I can find a reason to kill them anyway I'll go on and do it with the rifle .

I suppose you could say I bowhunt with a shotgun .

I am planning to go out Monday and shoot patterns with buckshot and #1 Bismuth in my new to me EH #3 .

I've killed deer with buckshot so far only with 10's and a 16. Used homemade slug in an 1891 GH 12 this past year but so far no 12 buckshot deer .

I have a couple 12's I wanna blood . But the ones that are interesting me most at the moment other then the 10's are a trio of 20's I have . My little VHE 28" , a Philly Sterlingworth 28" and a Philly Sterlingworth 26" . The 26" is IC/M and the 28" guns are both M/F . For some reason the two tighter guns really like my handloaded #2 buck although they don't do bad with handloaded #3 buck .

Again all my buckshot loads are patterned at 25 yards .

Well, I have the 40 cal rifle barrel liner in my 1882 Remington hammer gun sighted in so now all I have left is seeing how well my buckshot loads group. That should give me the best of both worlds.

Sounds like a decent plan . Since we had no DCP's this year I'm a little behind on my usual take . But I have faith in my luck to come from behind lol's 😉 At some point I wanna get a mold cut to closely resemble the Lyman 525 grain 12 gauge sabot mold but large enough to fit the Remington SP-10 wad like the 525 fits the Claybuster knockoff of the WAA12 wad .

paul at what range would your rifle take a deer...what i mean is how far do you think you can kill a deer withthat 40.....that 10 ga buckshot loads will kill a deer at 40 yards real good but will usally go farther before they drop than one shot at 25 yards or less..up that close buckshot are really deadly...charlie

Just finished loading some buckshot for trial in my new to me EH #3 frame gun .

All are in brand new Remington hulls with SP-10 wads and over cards . Also all have 30 grains of SR7625 and CCI209 primers .

For 000 I have eight pellets and six 9mm cases full of Grex .

For 00 I have 12 pellets and four 9mm cases full of Grex .

For 0 I have 12 pellets and five 9mm cases full of Grex .

For 1 I have 16 pellets and five 9mm cases of Grex .

For 2 I have 22 pellets and three 9mm cases of Grex .

For 3 I have 26 pellets and three 9mm cases of Grex .

Plan on trying them in the AM at 25 yards .