for discussion

[Drew Hause]

Here you go John
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Teixm6JMw_k

[Kensal Rise]

Digweed breaking a clay is a lot different than the average Joe killing a bird at that distance. No common sportsman should be blazing away at game with a shotgun at this range.

[ed good]

digweed is amazing!

[Ray Masciarella]

You just have to hold high, right? I have not tested my turkey gun at 100 yards. But I do know that the center of the pattern drops 6" from 40 to 70 yards. So if I held it high enough, I think I could hit the target at 100.

[Dean Romig]

The average shooter would stand a better chance with a scoped .22 at that distance.

[MarketHunter]

I've only had luck at extreme range shooting a big bore gun with the heaviest loads possible. Guys that do it with a 12 gauge amaze me, I couldn't do it probably because I think I can't. Kaas and I killed limits of ducks the last day in Quebec this year on a pass shooting venture and I don't believe a single bird was under 50 yards, some were probably as far as 60. That's as far as I feel confident with a 12 bore. I just won't pull the trigger on anything further unless I'm shooting at a flying cripple then figure what the hell it's worth a try. But 60 yards certainly ain't 100, or even 80......


DLH

[Bill Murphy]

I don't shoot waterfowl much, but have used nothing but full choked tens for several years, just because I had the ammunition and like to shoot at everything, because opportunities were scarce. I have made some very long shots at single mallards and one shot on an escaping goose at more than 90 yards. He dropped like a rock, but had been shot at before. I shot another very high goose who dropped straight down at a measured range in the mid eighties. He had the appearance of a 90 plus yard bird in the air. These are all with heavy loads of big steel shot, not the best choice, but they seem to work OK. I would love to try my Eley Bismuth eight gauge shells, but I'm just not able to handle the guns well. They are 2 1/2 ounce loads that I have not patterned.

[Richard Flanders]

Seems like this thread has deviated away from the question a bit. The question was will a shotgun kill a bird at 100yds, not should we be trying to kill birds at 100 yds. Personal experience need not enter into the argument. The ballistics of the pellets is all that is needed. I don't have a chart in front of me but every one I've seen shows the maximum distance a shot load will travel, given the optimum elevation angle to be what? 250 - 400 yds or something like that. Clearly, with a lucky pellet of size 2-4 that hits in the right spot, a shotgun will kill a bird at 100 yds. I killed a pheasant at 70 yds with a single #7-1/2 pellet once, and it was a body hit nowhere near the head, so 100yds doesn't seem a reach to me at all with larger pellets.

[John Farrell, Charter Member #33]

Drew Hause said it all in a previous post here.

What we are out there doing is attempting to harvest game birds and we should all be doing it as well as our tools allow us to do it, not sitting around the fire conjuring up dreams that cannot be fulfilled given the tools and science we work with.

I would like to be able to play the piano. But I will never be called a piano player. So, I concentrate on doing what I do with the tools and ability I have at hand.

[Bill Murphy]

I'll see if I can find the account of an early 1900s chicken shoot where shotgun shooters try to dispatch a chicken at a fairly reasonable range. It was amazing how difficult it seemed to be to kill a standing chicken dead from just a bit more than standard shotgun ranges.