Cheddite 20ga 2 3/4" Hull
CH209 Primer
Lilgun
CSD020 (the slit PR version)
110gr TSS #9 Under Steel
330gr Steel #3
Velocity 1295 fps at 20 F, I think it will be around 1350 fps at 70 F, but will have to wait a couple months to test.
Carlson .621" extended choke
First hunt was jump shooting where shots can be from 10 yards to 50 yards. First jump 2 ducks with 3 shots at about 25 yards, second jump, the birds had moved and it was long jump but hit 3 for 3 on greenheads at 45 yards, one duck needed a second cleanup shot. 3rd Jump was a double on greenheads with 2 shot at about 10-15 yards. 7 ducks for 9 shots, probably my best shooting this season. What was amazing was that the load worked just as well at 10 yards as it did 45 yards. This load also required fewer finishing shots than the 28ga load, probably due to switching to #3 shot vs #4 shot and the increased # of pellets from TSS #8.5 to #9.
Second hunt was an ice decoy hunt with a buddy. Both of us shot 20ga duplex loads. These are very weary birds in large flocks that will circle out of range 3 or 4 times to finally get into range. A single bird will occasionally come right in and you get them feet down. 14 birds took 34 shells. 4 of the 14 were in the blocks at around 20 yards, each of these were 1 shot kills. The other 10 birds ranged from long to "why did we just call that shot?" Started out pretty tough, but by the end of the hunt we were taking better shots and dropped a bird for every 2 shots. My buddy hasn't hunted much and was his first time hunting with a 20ga, took him some time to get use to the change in swing from his 12ga. Only 1 of the birds required a finish shot. I tried the steel hevi shot duplex loads from RSI in the 12ga and didn't have much luck, but these are the real deal. The key is a very open choke so the steel shot spreads fast and covers the close birds. The TSS does not spread out and give adequate pellet count and penetration for longer shots.
