Hmmmm .............

[Stan Hillis]

I'm surprised you get any kind of decent patterns out of buckshot that big. I could never even get satisfied with 000 when I hunted deer with shotguns and hounds.

Last thing I saw shot at with 000 was a coyote at about 35 yards with my old 32" truck double. He was standing still when my son took the shot. I saw buckshot hit the ground on both sides of him, above, and below him. IOW, there was a coyote sized hole in the pattern. Never touched him.

You must not be using any choke at all with the six oughts.

SRH

[Mike of the Mountain]

That there is funny!! Coyote sized pattern!! Stan, I'm laughing with you, not at you. I can imagine the look on your son's face when that dog ran off unscathed.

[6pt-Sika]

Originally Posted by Stan Hillis

I'm surprised you get any kind of decent patterns out of buckshot that big. I could never even get satisfied with 000 when I hunted deer with shotguns and hounds.

You must not be using any choke at all with the six oughts.

SRH

Rule of thumb is tighter the choke the smaller the buckshot . Over the last ten to twelve years I’ve found that isn’t necissarily the case . I’ve patterned a bunch of 10 gauge guns that are choked quite tight and my 8 gauge which also has plenty choke . Anyway using my 10 gauge loads in the tight choked guns I’ve killed deer with every size buckshot from #3 up to and including 00000 . 00000 is about .400” mine after rolling are usually .396-.398” . Strangely the rule of thumb for this stuff isn’t as rule of thumb as you might expect . But you need to take in account a persons parameters . I’m typically after a decent pattern at 25 yards . Don’t think I’ve plunked a deer with buckshot much of any over thirty yards . I never used buckshot until about 2008 when I inherited my grandfathers W&C Scott crystal indicator 10 gauge and I started loading 10 2 7/8” , in the past id loaded 10 3 1/2” but this short stuff was kinda new . The Ross Seyfried article in Handloader back in the mid 90’s that I’d saved got me started . He used a 1 1/4 ounce load with 30 grs of SR7625 and I’ve modified it some for bismuth buck and slugs . Anyway the long and the short of it is you can sometimes you may think unlikely if you try and work a little out of the box .