12 gauge all round cartridge

[brindle92]

evening people, i know this question has possible been asked before but what cartridges are best, i know its down to preference but what do you guys use?

 

i found lyalvale pigeon a good cartridge yet most people dont like em

 

im looking at buying a 1000's of new carts in the new year espically as just cartridges is down the road from me,

 

what your guys thoughts?

 

 

[rjimmer]

Eley Grand Prix HV 32gm has been a good cartridge for a long time. With all the ant-lead talk, I'm thinking of buying 5,000 cartridges, but can't make up my mind which. I'm leaning toward Gamebore Clear Pigeon, pricewise.

[johnnytheboy]

Rio Royal

[fenboy]

Eley Grand Prix HV 32gm has been a good cartridge for a long time. With all the ant-lead talk, I'm thinking of buying 5,000 cartridges, but can't make up my mind which. I'm leaning toward Gamebore Clear Pigeon, pricewise.

 

But if they ban lead you have no idea how it will be phased out , they will not just bring it in and say its banned once mr smith up the road has run out , so unless you are stock piling so you can break the law (if the ban happens ) surely it is better not to have too many ?

[felly100]

If/when they ban lead,do you think the owners of nice English guns will get a lead ammo ration book?

I don't think it's as daft as it sounds.

[OJW]

If your buying 1000 why not get a cartridge you can use on clays as well if you fancy it? 28g 7s or 8s? I might be wrong but arn't the lyalvale pigeon 30g? Then again you might not be shooting clays, and I guess you could still shoot 30g if you really wanted.

[oldypigeonpopper]

evening people, i know this question has possible been asked before but what cartridges are best, i know its down to preference but what do you guys use?

 

i found lyalvale pigeon a good cartridge yet most people dont like em

 

im looking at buying a 1000's of new carts in the new year espically as just cartridges is down the road from me,

 

what your guys thoughts?

 

 

hello, i bought some eley pigeon cheaper at lovells

[Old farrier]

Hi

If just cartridge is just down the road just pop in and buy there bin end and odds and offer stuf I'm sure they have split cases

No need to stockpile a heap

 

All the best

Of

[motty]

All round cartridge? What do you mean by this?

[littlerob]

I use nsi noble sport 28g 7.5s on clays and pigeons so that cartridge do two jobs fine 32g size 6 covers pigeon crows n pheasant and for duck and geese it's 36g of steel in 1s

[neutron619]

I'll answer your question with a question - do you only have one 12 gauge gun to feed or have you got others for other "jobs"? It's much easier to get to having one cartridge per gun if you have more than one gun - effectively you give up changing cartridge for changing both gun and cartridge together, depending on the application. The advantage though, is that with a short patterning session you know how everything works (and you can work towards what the posh folk call "regulation" of gun and cartridge), whereas with 10 different varieties of cartridge and only one gun, you'll probably never find the motivation to test them all through all of your multichokes and see what they do.

For an all-round cartridge, I shoot Gamebore Traditional Game 29g / #6 at pigeons, pheasant, corvids and clays on the odd occasion I shoot them - it deals with everything I point it at if I do my bit. They're labelled "28g" but I cut a few up and checked and there's over 29g in all of them, so I'm saying 29g - they seem to work. (I think manufacturers have got more stingy these days, so they'd probably be a "30g" load now.) They're not fast either, but they pattern very, very well. It's a good cartridge and I'm currently trying to copy it by rolling my own.

Thing is, that's through a 16 gauge. No doubt because I own that gun, I don't see the point in shooting less than 32g of anything through a 12 gauge (otherwise what's it for?), so if you only have 12 gauge then 32g of #6 or #5 will do everything flying and the odd ground game too. Go with #6 if you shoot clays regularly, or the #5 if, like me, you shoot clays once a year and / or prefer a tightly choked gun. Hell, go for 36g of #5 at moderate velocity if money's no object and you don't mind the recoil; it's not really a clay load though.

In spite of the fact that they say the man with one gun shoots best, I have one cartridge per gun and I take a different gun depending on what I'm doing. Close-in decoying, I use a 28 gauge with 21g/#6. General field work sees the 16 gauge come out with 29g/#6. I keep the 12 gauge semi for wildfowling - 32g/#4 or 42g/#1 depending on whether it's ducks or geese. If I use lead in it, it'll either be from a stock of 32g/#5 I've got left on the shelf, or the 38g/#5 cartridge I'm currently talking to the other chaps here about loading. I plan to buy a big, heavy Baikal SxS in the new year to feed with that new 38g load too, though I doubt it'll see as much use as my "sweet 16". And no - I don't mind a bit of recoil!

In short, aiming for one cartridge is a very good plan, but only if you know that all of your shooting will be of one type that the gun / cartridge are suited to. Otherwise, allow yourself the possibility of buying another gun at some point, if, for example, you suddenly get the urge to take up wildfowling (and banging away at geese with steel super magnums) one day.

Edited December 17, 2015 by neutron619

[Dekers]

All round cartridge? What do you mean by this?

 

 

Indeed, what exactly does the OP actually want to do with these cartridges?

[Penelope]

If you are not shooting wildfowl or extreme height driven game, 1 1/16oz of 6's will cover you for everything else.

[Browning725:)]

For clays I like white gold 28g 7.5shot plastic £210-1000 and for woodies I've allways used black gold 32g 6shot fibre I think slightly more at £250ish 1000

[Monkey Nuts]

Hull Superfast 27g 7 1/2's. A bit punchy but IMO a great fast clay cartridge. I get them for around £160 per 1000. If I had to choose one vermin cartridge for all my shooting it would be Gamebore Clear Pigeon 30g 6. (Crows, pigeons, magpies, grey squirrels etc)

Edited December 17, 2015 by Monkey Nuts

[dougall]

evening people, i know this question has possible been asked before but what cartridges are best, i know its down to preference but what do you guys use?

 

i found lyalvale pigeon a good cartridge yet most people dont like em

 

im looking at buying a 1000's of new carts in the new year espically as just cartridges is down the road from me,

 

what your guys thoughts?

 

 

if you are going to Just Cartridges then try just cartridges own shells,all excellent,made by gamebore. called CSPs.....28g 6.5.or they do a game cartridge called game extreme....30/32g in 6..The former work well on clays too........btw if you have found a shell you like 'lyevale' dont worry about what everyone else says about them...its boring to state but there ain't many bad cartridges these days the only thing I avoid is D&Js but all the main manufacturers Hull/Gamebore/Eley etc make better shells than any of us can do justice to!

[B25Modelman]

if you are going to Just Cartridges then try just cartridges own shells,all excellent,made by gamebore. called CSPs.....28g 6.5.or they do a game cartridge called game extreme....30/32g in 6..The former work well on clays too........btw if you have found a shell you like 'lyevale' dont worry about what everyone else says about them...its boring to state but there ain't many bad cartridges these days the only thing I avoid is D&Js but all the main manufacturers Hull/Gamebore/Eley etc make better shells than any of us can do justice to!

I second that, and use CSP #8 28g fibre for all clay work.

 

UNBELIEVABLE...out this morning and had a couple of cartridges jam in the breach. Both had swollen bumps on their leading edges. I put 120 through the Maxus.

Edited December 18, 2015 by B25Modelman

[lksopener]

Okay so I thought I'd try and find a cartridge for all my live quarry shooting a couple of years ago.

 

I have tried various loads from 28 grams up to the super jazzy black gold in 35 grams.

 

For me I stuck with gamebore velocity in 29 grams of 6 shot and I have killed plenty of pheasants partridge and pigeon over the last couple of years, at the time I only paid a shade over £40 a slab and I've been quite happy.

 

I would be interested to hear from the older members how many people shot much more than an ounce 20/30 years ago, I have seen no benefit to the heavier loads other than lining a cartridge manufacturers pockets.

 

Find something your happy with buy a few thousand and forget the hype.

 

Shoot straight and good luck.

[neutron619]

I would be interested to hear from the older members how many people shot much more than an ounce 20/30 years ago, I have seen no benefit to the heavier loads other than lining a cartridge manufacturers pockets.

 

Seconded.

 

I'm guessing that the answer may come back as something like "when you didn't have to compete the with the modern desire for higher and higher muzzle velocities, you could comfortably launch much more shot at more moderate velocities" (and make a better cartridge).

 

I seem to remember that a wiser person than I once remarked to me that the fad for lighter-loaded high velocity cartridges only really started when the price of lead started rising and significantly impacting mass production costs. Perhaps he was being cynical. Perhaps not.

Edited December 18, 2015 by neutron619

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Unfortunately the initial question was so vague it seems to have lead to a lot of answers that do not address the point properly through not knowing what the OP wants to achieve!

 

Neutron goes about things differently by tuning one cartridge to one gun and has several different weapons for different purposes.

 

I am aiming at a 28 gramme 12 guage load of true English 6.5s in a plastic wad that will allow me to shoot vermin, game and clays through substantial choking in all of my guns.

[Smokersmith]

Interesting debate ...

 

A quote I often hear is "it's hard to find a bad cartridge nowadays" ....

 

I don't recall that there was that level of confidence in the market as a whole 30 years ago ... perhaps progress isn't always bad.

[neutron619]

I don't recall that there was that level of confidence in the market as a whole 30 years ago ... perhaps progress isn't always bad.

 

Indeed - more reliable and therefore safer cartridges can only be a good thing.

 

That said, whenever I think I've got it all sussed, I look at the Fiocchi website. Remember that this tradition of lighter loads and higher muzzle velocities seems to be a peculiarly English (and to some degree, American) thing.

 

Take the Fiocchi JK6, for example:

 

http://www.fiocchigfl.it/site/index.php?pag=807&linea=6&titolo_prod=JK6

 

34 or 38 grams of shot a​t mid-range velocity (with slightly questionable pressure). That's a reasonably ordinary hunting load. Elsewhere you'll find loads like 33 grams of #13 (!!! - for migratory bird shooting) and even their "Classic" range - probably equivalent to Hull's Imperial Game or Gamebore's Black Gold starts​ a​t 32 grams of shot, rather than the 26 or 28 grams we'd expect over here for a light game load.

 

Again - this light-loads-shot-fast thing has by no means convinced the hunting world as a whole. Rather, it's a local fashion, probably encouraged by economic considerations, and one that I think will not last​, unless we perhaps lose lead altogether and end up relying on steel.

Edited December 18, 2015 by neutron619

[OJW]

 

Indeed - more reliable and therefore safer cartridges can only be a good thing.

 

That said, whenever I think I've got it all sussed, I look at the Fiocchi website. Remember that this tradition of lighter loads and higher muzzle velocities seems to be a peculiarly English (and to some degree, American) thing.

 

Take the Fiocchi JK6, for example:

 

http://www.fiocchigfl.it/site/index.php?pag=807&linea=6&titolo_prod=JK6

 

34 or 38 grams of shot a​t mid-range velocity (with slightly questionable pressure). That's a reasonably ordinary hunting load. Elsewhere you'll find loads like 33 grams of #13 (!!! - for migratory bird shooting) and even their "Classic" range - probably equivalent to Hull's Imperial Game or Gamebore's Black Gold starts​ a​t 32 grams of shot, rather than the 26 or 28 grams we'd expect over here for a light game load.

 

Again - this light-loads-shot-fast thing has by no means convinced the hunting world as a whole. Rather, it's a local fashion, probably encouraged by economic considerations, and one that I think will not last​, unless we perhaps lose lead altogether and end up relying on steel.

 

I really rate RAC JK6s, not tried Fiocchi's though.

[Farma Geddon]

If its lead ,then 1 1/8th 6 or 5 shot , needs to pattern at 70% at 40 yards or better with full choke .

[Stonepark]

I am aiming at a 28 gramme 12 guage load of true English 6.5s in a plastic wad that will allow me to shoot vermin, game and clays through substantial choking in all of my guns.

White Gold or Black Gold Clay are 7.5it, 6.5 English, 28g available plaswad or fibre.

 

Before switching to 410, i did several game seasons on White Gold without any issues.

 

White Gold count was 308 pellets for 28g weighed.