10 Ga waterfowl loads.
 

I have been shooting 10 ga 2 7/8 for waterfowl for a number of years now. An older friend suggested I use a cut shot cup over a nitro card for better pattern. I generally just load with circle fly nitro card, lubed wad, shot, overshot and have decent results.

Does anyone here do this with BP? Any thought?

i only do a lot of pattern testing but the shotcup will pattern a little better on the average than not useing it..but justing without it was pretty good on the patterns...my squirl loads in the ten ga are usally without the shot cup and it works mighty well..plus for over a hundred years ducks were shot even at extreme ranges without shotcups... charlie

Thanks Charlie. You answered a long outstanding question. Appreciate it.

what s your favorite duck load consist of and whats is your favorite 10 ga do you shoot these loads in....charlie

Charlie,

I generally use 109 Gn 2F and 1.24 oz nice shot. I generally shoot an under lever or toplever Parker and also have been known to take the following American Arms side opener.

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Ever loose the duck because of the smoke. I lost my hole back yard when I fired one of my 8ga's with black powder.

not yet. ..dogs seem to find them through the cloud.

How many grass fires has that baby started?

That is an interesting gun you have there. Are you using bismuth shot.

Sorry I missed the part about nice shot.

How is your gun choked?

The Parker under lifter is Full/Full.

The 10 gauge D that I use for waterfowl is also choked full/full, with bores of .793, on a #3 frame. The load that I use in my gun is, and loaded in the hull in this order:

brass 2 7/8" hull
4 1/2 drams (by volume) Goex 3F
1/8" 9 gauge nitro card
1/4" waxed felt wad (felt punched out with a 13/16" arch punch)
1/4" dry felt wad
.030 9 gauge over shot card
1 1/2 oz. (by weight) bismuth shot buffered with Precision Reloading's spherical buffer
.030 9 gauge over shot card glued with Duco cement

I pattern 81% out of both barrels at 40 yards with this load.

It might be a bit of a hot load for an under lifter, but use your best judgement on determining it's use in your gun. The load can always be cut back in both powder and payload.

The most important thing I discovered is do not use too much wadding. I used to use a 3/8" lubed felt wad to help fill the case up closer to it's mouth, but by reducing it to a 1/4" thickness on that one wad, my patterns went from 76% to the 81%. If you use brass cases they do not have to be filled right up to the mouth.

Forrest, my old powder/shot measure shows 1 1/2oz of shot and a 3 1/2 dram powder load, and that's with 2F powder. Four and a half drams with 3F IS A HOT LOAD. More power to ya but you could probably back it off a bit with 3F and maybe get even better patterns. JMHO but I'd use around 90 of 3F.