solway gunner said:
BT Justice said:
Elvis Kiwi said:
ho hum here we go again.... :lol:
my take on it...get a saucer from under mums cup of tea or a clay bird and put it on your shot pattern you shouldnt be able to place it on board without covering holes...a mallards vital area is about the same as your fist with thumb sticking out being head/neck.
some loads pattern nice some no so even. its a balancing act. too tight and you risk missing altogether in close/to loose and no good out a bit as not enough hits to ensure a clean kill.
:lol3: :lol3: :lol3:
Yeah they'll argue about this for another 10 pages and still get nowhere.
Use what kills the birds
"use what kills the birds" ..prescisely,what works best for you-end of!!!
The problem with this line of thinking is that on an open forum, someone is going to come along and tell everyone that they've killed mallard ducks at 60 yards with a 3/4oz load of #4 shot (see the #7 steel thread for a real life example.) And while they may have, in fact, killed large ducks at that range with that load, it should be filed under the heading that even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and again.
Put it another way, using Roster's or Burrard's recommendation of 85 well distributed pellets in a 30 inch circle as an example, what happens if you've only got 75 pellets in the patter? Will the pattern kill the bird or not? It will certainly more than likely kill the bird in question, but in reality the kill ratio of centered birds will invariably go down. When the kill ratio goes down, the wounding ration goes up, and that's something that should be avoided at all costs.
This is not an admonition of light loads. It doesn't matter what you start with, it's what you end up with that matters here. If you're shooting a 3/4oz load of #2 steel at large ducks and can keep a 90% pattern at 40 yards, you have all that's needed to be statistically reliable.
It isn't really enough to
"use what you think kills", you need to know what is going on in order to make an informed decision.
Frank