[Tom Flanigan]

Jeff Christie sent me a personal message recently. He said that he uses the 1 ¼ 12 bore 1200 fps load data that I sent him years ago and was impressed with the results of using that load. I was going to give him the background of my preference for this load in a return pm but decided to make it public because it might be of some interest to a general audience……….

Jeff, my enthusiasm for the 1 ¼ 1200 fps 12 bore loads is because of my experience with them. I have patterned both and the 1200 fps loads were more consistent and patterned better by an appreciable degree.

I decided to run a test on the two loads on one of my annual trips to Saskatchewan. The test was done before the lead ban in Canada which lagged the US ban by a couple of years. It is a great area for a test because of the enormous population of birds. I shot the first week with the 1325 fps loads and the second week with the 1200 fps loads. The birds shot were four different species of geese and mallards. There are many different species of ducks where I shoot, but I decided to only shoot greenheads to keep from limiting out too soon.

I tried hard to keep subjectivity out of my assessment. I truly wanted to see if the 1325 fps loads, despite the more favorable 1200 fps patterns, really did provide a benefit despite the greater recoil. To summarize the results, the 1200 fps loads provided more dead in the air birds to the degree that it was certainly noticeable. My tests were nowhere near scientific or empirical but I believe the results were worthy of consideration based on the number of birds shot.

The recoil reduction of the 1200 fps vs. the 1325 fps loads is very noticeable. Those who say they don’t feel recoil when shooting game have never shot at high incoming overhead birds with a 1325 fps load. A further benefit of the 1200 fps load is the lower pressures and the lower impact on old wood.

I don’t shoot at over 40 yards so it can be argued that beyond 40 yards might be where the 1325 fps load provides benefit, but I truly doubt it. My current load for waterfowl is 1 1/8 oz. of Bismuth at just under 1200 fps. My results are similar to the 1 ¼ 1200 fps loads. It is now my opinion that at 40 yards and under, the 1 ¼ oz. load provides little benefit over the 1 1/8 oz. load. Further, It is my opinion that no gamebirds should be shot at over 40 yards because of the increased risk of loss.