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I was reading an article recently where he stated he'd recently gone to no. 5 shot for most of his game shooting with great success. Apparently he made the deceision based on some BASC ballistic research into game cartridges and shot sizes - anyone know where I can find a copy of this research?

 

:welcomeani:

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The article I was reading was in this month's Shooting Gazette. I remember some research into chokes published in BASC magazine a while ago (the main point being that anything over half choke didn't result in tighter patterns). Don't remember seeing anything on shot size though??

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I have a mild interest - I like to sprout random ballistic facts on a shoot day more than anything! I also like to put some thought into what cartridges I buy so I feel confident with them and will probably look to home load in the future. Yeh it was that article I read in the Shooting Gazette - I think he starts off by trying to defend that rediculous article about Peter Schwerty :rolleyes: (don't know if you read that a couple of issues back). I also remember the research about chokes in the BASC magazine but they have not mentioned anything further.

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The Hull Cartridge website has some good information on the velocities and power of their cartridges at different ranges plotted on graphs. If you click on a cartridge type the graphs are visible below, you can change the load to see a different graph.

 

Not sure how accurate it is but I found it quite interesting for comparing different shot sizes / loads.

 

http://www.hullcartridge.co.uk/

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Moring all,

 

There is no formal research project / paper in the offing. What we have seen was information coming back from the USA from shooters who have been experimenting with larger than traditional shot sizes, typically trying what we know as No5's for live quarry shooting.

 

The reports that came out - all be they pretty anecdotal, was that No 5's were much more effective on live quarry.

 

 

We are certainly seeing a significant increase in No5’s being used for home loading.

 

Hope that helps, but let me know if there is anything more I can do.

 

David

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5's will of course work better but then 3's probably would as well, though I did shoot a few pigeons with old alfamax bb's and they knocked them down about 70 yards up :rolleyes:

 

but at some point especially with game you have to be careful about knocking birds about too much, certainly start shooting low partridges with 5's and you won't be popular so guess its still a game of selecting the right artridge for the type of game and height you expect them to be at.

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But american number 5's will be "steel" wot they ?As lead shot is banned in most if not all states.

 

So is that equivelent to our 6's in lead :rolleyes:

 

 

Lead is only banned for waterfowl (all over, federal ban) and some places for all game/birds (certain states wetlands and upland areas). So when David is referring to UK 5's, he means US 6's, which would be about the minimum size that anyone uses there. More commonly guys shooting wild birds in the prarie areas, especially later in the season when birds are flushing at 40+ yards, will be shooting US5's and US 4's (UK 4's and 3's).

 

If you are going to steel, there is good evidence that going to 2's will be the best bet.

 

Thanks,

Rick

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Lead is only banned for waterfowl (all over, federal ban) and some places for all game/birds (certain states wetlands and upland areas). So when David is referring to UK 5's, he means US 6's, which would be about the minimum size that anyone uses there. More commonly guys shooting wild birds in the prarie areas, especially later in the season when birds are flushing at 40+ yards, will be shooting US5's and US 4's (UK 4's and 3's).

 

If you are going to steel, there is good evidence that going to 2's will be the best bet.

 

Thanks,

Rick

 

My friend who lives in minnesota just uses steel for everything and even his 2 nearest clay shooting grounds are steel only :blink: So i dont know if minnesota is a lead free state,but anyway he uses 4's for most things if i remember correctly.

 

When he was over here it was all new to him as he hadnt used lead in years,but he had one thing in common with most uk shooters in that he didnt think steel,tin etc gave the same stopping power or downrange energy of lead.

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Babka, hi,

With a bit of luck you WILL have a PM. I'm not very good with computors. When I tried to retrieve the piece from "my documents" the options I got from "insert special item" were meaningless to me and I hadn't a clue what else to do. Hopefully, son will sort it after work.

Cheers

 

Edit: OK sent. However, could not get the graph to transmit even though it was contained in the text but all it does really is graphically show what is verbally described. If you are interested, I could probably do it on a direct e-mail.

Edited by wymberley
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Al4x,

 

Can you expand that a bit more? What do you mean by knocking them about too much? A dead bird is a dead bird.

 

Thanks,

Rick

 

 

it is but shoot a 20 yard partridge with a full load of 5's and you'll have feathers everywhere and you really won't want to eat it. High birds are another matter but driven shoots vary hugely in quality of birds shown. We're not really talking about overkill more what will do the job properly without imparting too much energy to bruise and damage the meat to the point you wouldn't want to eat it. Were it vermin control its another matter but generally 6's or 5's on most pheasants its where you point the gun makes more difference than the size of lead.

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Thanks for sending that wymberley, I'll get back to you when I've had a chance to read through it all - although a quick scan through suggested it's right up my street :blink: I agree with henry c about the hull cartridge website - it's one of the reasons I buy Hull Cartridge over the others!

Edited by babka3487
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Thanks for sending that wymberley, I'll get back to you when I've had a chance to read through it all - although a quick scan through suggested it's right up my street :blink: I agree with henry c about the hull cartridge website - it's one of the reasons I buy Hull Cartridge over the others!

 

You're welcome. Sorry if it didn't print out too well. We've had trouble before on this site's system with tabulation - trying to layout ballistic tables is a nightmare.

Cheers

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My friend who lives in minnesota just uses steel for everything and even his 2 nearest clay shooting grounds are steel only :hmm: So i dont know if minnesota is a lead free state,but anyway he uses 4's for most things if i remember correctly.

 

When he was over here it was all new to him as he hadnt used lead in years,but he had one thing in common with most uk shooters in that he didnt think steel,tin etc gave the same stopping power or downrange energy of lead.

 

 

 

Yes, MN is one of the quirky ones. They have banned lead on (I think) all public land. At the least it is any public land with a wetland on it, which in MN is everything. I think WI, right next door, has done the same. CA is another one. Most of the east coast, southern US, and plains states have no problems with lead aside from the waterfowl regs.

 

It is absolutely true that for the same size shot you don't get the knockdown or momentum of lead with steel. But, if you upsize by 2 sizes and make sure you're upping the speed (to 1350+) you can recoup what you've lost. In my experience and from the data I've seen, properly sized steel works just fine for most everyone's common shooting.

 

Thanks

Rick

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Moring all,

 

There is no formal research project / paper in the offing. What we have seen was information coming back from the USA from shooters who have been experimenting with larger than traditional shot sizes, typically trying what we know as No5's for live quarry shooting.

 

The reports that came out - all be they pretty anecdotal, was that No 5's were much more effective on live quarry.

 

 

We are certainly seeing a significant increase in No5’s being used for home loading.

 

Hope that helps, but let me know if there is anything more I can do.

 

David

 

 

 

 

David that is not correct. John Harradine commissioned some research that was carried out in Devon and was in collaboration with the Royal Military College in Shrivenham. You will need to look deeper into the BASC annals or ask John. The research dealt with shot size, choke, fibre versus plastic wad. One of the conclusions was that modern fibre wad outperformed plastic wad on nearly all but extreme instances of choke and/or shot size. That 5 shot was a better choice on pheasant than 6 shot. I would estimate this research was done about 10 years ago.

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