Hull and No. 7s

[figgy]

I go by the adage that 28g of 7 shot, 30g of 6 shot, 32g of 5 shot or 4.5 continental, 34-36g of 4 shot this is keep the pellet count up to acceptable levels for a decent kill.

 

I would much rather go with a bit heavier a load than too light a load for the birds presented. I have last season taken some very good distance birds with 25g of 6 shot in a old 30" barrelled SxS choked very tightly. I would never attempt the same with my current 1/4&1/2 choked SxS.

 

Still can't for the life of me understand why a manufacturer would load a 28g 4shot cartridge, surely 5 is the biggest in 28g to get a pattern.

Edited December 27, 2016 by figgy

[wymberley]

I go by the adage that 28g of 7 shot, 30g of 6 shot, 32g of 5 shot or 4.5 continental, 34-36g of 4 shot this is keep the pellet count up to acceptable levels for a decent kill.

 

I would much rather go with a bit heavier a load than too light a load for the birds presented. I have last season taken some very good distance birds with 25g of 6 shot in a old 30" barrelled SxS choked very tightly. I would never attempt the same with my current 1/4&1/2 choked SxS.

 

Still can't for the life of me understand why a manufacturer would load a 28g 4shot cartridge, surely 5 is the biggest in 28g to get a pattern.

Can only agree. Particularly, as if you look at the only cartridge where (as far as I've seen) Hull load No 4s is in the Ultramax HP, having two loads - one of 36 and the other 42 grams.If you transpose their pellet counts given to 1oz you'll come up with 142. Which English size is that - I can hear the pages of the Eley diaries being turned? That is apart from the "Top Secret" High Pheasant Extreme where the average pellet count has been omitted although the specified diameter remains the same - 3.1mm. Depleted uranium, perhaps!

[matone]

I go by the adage that 28g of 7 shot, 30g of 6 shot, 32g of 5 shot or 4.5 continental, 34-36g of 4 shot this is keep the pellet count up to acceptable levels for a decent kill.

 

I would much rather go with a bit heavier a load than too light a load for the birds presented. I have last season taken some very good distance birds with 25g of 6 shot in a old 30" barrelled SxS choked very tightly. I would never attempt the same with my current 1/4&1/2 choked SxS.

 

Still can't for the life of me understand why a manufacturer would load a 28g 4shot cartridge, surely 5 is the biggest in 28g to get a pattern.

Agree with you totally with those loads ! I`m pretty certain the manufacturer will know 28g of 4`s is a daft load,but they are pandering to the demands of daft people .

[TIGHTCHOKE]

It would be very interesting to find out sales figures for some of these niche rounds.

 

In the end though it is all down to personal choice, let them pay over the odds for less useful ammunition.

[dodeer]

28g 4 maybe ok through a tight choked gun but I can't really see the point either.

Their new driven grouse loads in 5.5 are used a lot round here along with the High Pheasant in their thousands

[wymberley]

Just basic and assuming gun/cartridges perform as expected by tables (which is not often) but....

 

 

28g of No 7 @ full choke at 40 yards has 234 pellets @1ftlb

 

32g of No6 @ full choke at 40 yards has 212 pellets @ 1.5ftlbs

 

32g of No 6 @ full choke at 50 yards has 148 pellets @1ftlb

 

32g of No5 @full choke at 50 yards has 121 pellets @ 1.5ftlbs

 

36g of no5 @full choke at 60 yards has 89 pellets @ 1 ftlb

 

50g of No5 @full choke at 60 yards has 124 pellets @1ftlb

 

28g of No4 @full choke at 40 yards has 116 pellets @ 2.85ftlbs

 

28g of No4 @full choke at 50 yards has 81 pellets @ 2.1ftlbs

 

28g of No4 @full choke at 60 yards has 53 pellets @ 1.5ftlbs

 

 

For me personally, I like 150 pellets in 30 inch pattern for duck/pheasants but I know others have cited 90 to 120 pellets (Tom Roster, Eley etc).

 

 

 

Pellets hitting something vital kills, and you need enough pellets striking to on average to get this and what follows is very rough............

 

If you are shooting 28g of No4 at 50 yards , you have an average of 3 pellets striking the entire bird, if you shoot 32g no6 you have an average of 5 pellets striking the entire bird.

 

Which is more likely to hit something immediately vital, assuming only 50% of bird is vital?

 

You are now down to 1.5 pellets on average for No4, however that is an average and under a normal distribution curve that means roughly , 15% of the time you are hitting the bird and not hitting anything vital (wounding) and 70% of the time you are hitting vitals with 1 pellet and 15% of the time hitting vitals with 2 pellets. - Result is only 85% of dead birds per 100 shots fired (even if you are perfectly on target each time)

 

Compare to the no6, where you are wounding 0.1% of the time and hitting vital with at least 1 pellet 15.9% and, 2 pellets 68% of the time 3 or more multiple times 16% of the time. - Result is 99.9% of dead birds per 100 shots if you are on target each time.

 

And remember this is assuming everything else (choke, cartridge quality, etc etc ) is perfect

With nothing better to do, I've been playing about with this since it was posted but still can't make sense of it. If we assume a 30" circle, then the pellet count is correct and therefore the entire bird for the No 6 will have one size and for the No 4, another. The same thing applies if one looks at the effective pellet numbers in the 20" lethal area, giving 4 different sized birds in all.

 

Assuming that the vital area is half that of the overall, then for one strike in that area you always need 2 hits. If we accept, as BASC does, a 95% chance of a clean kill, 5 pellets on average will suffice. But, here, there's no margin for error. If we make it two strikes to the vitals, 8 overall is necessary. This flies in the face of many years of shooters' experience. As we're talking averages, let's hedge our bets and call it 1&1/2 in the vitals, 3 overall, which requires 6 on average. Although some of the BASC pattern test article is flawed in this respect they've got it right.

 

But, hang on just a minute!

3 strikes?

Where have I heard that before?

Did we really need someone from over the pond to tell us what we've known for well over a century.

 

While the Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) was doing it's work a few years back, the Head, Dr Roger Giblin, who wore two hats, used the info' generated at BRL as a vehicle by which his students at UCL could study the Theory of Probability when it was noted that shotgun pellets coincided nicely with the Theory. Roger kindly sent me this graph which, as ever, one picture...........

 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

"They blinded me with science"

 

[wymberley]

"They blinded me with science"

 

And there was me thinking that many of the posts reflected a good solid amount of common sense. Still, I suppose one man's science is another man's fiction.

[Guest cookoff013]

Most ammunition purchasers are suffering from a variant of the disease "magnumitus pelletus" which is extremely infectious and currently running at epidemic levels brought on by wishing to be able to bring down nuclear bombers as they pass overhead at 40,000ft, ammunition manufacturers have also been infected with a similar enabling strain call "maximus poundius" by encouraging and providing said ammunition, as a result uninfected purchasers and normal ammunition supplies are running scarce.

 

 

Merry Christmas!

Magnumitus, is more associated with speed, 1500fps+ loads are now commonplace with smaller shot.

The issue of high pheasant has the need for higher performing ammunition, just like modern guns are bigger chambers, longer barrels, tighter taper chokes. So it's not entirely shotsizes fault.

 

I dont doubt that a good 1000fps of #4 in 36g or 32g is excellent for many sporting birds. In days of old, cylinder chokes were very commonplace. But then again they used big slow BP shells back then. Never was 1500fps ever discussed. 1500fps can't be achieved without alot of powder, alot of pressure. All that is not good for fibre wads, after all they fireform in the chamber and take a damn good beating, shoved through the forcing cones, then driving through the barrel.

 

So I'll take a slower big shot shell any day. Softer, patterns better, hits harder at longer ranges, only downside, with any slow load patterns right will shred any bird at close range. Even 21g subsonics (pattern tight, even in 7s)

[Stonepark]

Magnumitus, is more associated with speed, 1500fps+ loads are now commonplace with smaller shot.

The issue of high pheasant has the need for higher performing ammunition, just like modern guns are bigger chambers, longer barrels, tighter taper chokes. So it's not entirely shotsizes fault.

 

I dont doubt that a good 1000fps of #4 in 36g or 32g is excellent for many sporting birds. In days of old, cylinder chokes were very commonplace. But then again they used big slow BP shells back then. Never was 1500fps ever discussed. 1500fps can't be achieved without alot of powder, alot of pressure. All that is not good for fibre wads, after all they fireform in the chamber and take a damn good beating, shoved through the forcing cones, then driving through the barrel.

 

So I'll take a slower big shot shell any day. Softer, patterns better, hits harder at longer ranges, only downside, with any slow load patterns right will shred any bird at close range. Even 21g subsonics (pattern tight, even in 7s)

 

Magnumitus is mainly to do with pressure (which has the nasty side effect of deforming pellets and bullets alike), and unless Hull have dropped the powder load (which is normally reflected in a drop in muzzle velocity) significantly in their Imperial 28g No4 experimental load compared to the normal 5, 6 and (7's), I doubt they will be getting patterns as good as your low velocity loads and that is why I am not keen on large size shot and small payload numbers in high pressure loadings. What sort of pressure are your subsonics running at.... 5000 to 6000 psi?.... less pellet deformation and therefore tighter patterns.

 

Cartridge manufacturers concentrate on advertising pushing 'velocity' and 'killing power' seemingly ignoring to a large extent pressure (pellet deformation) and therefore pattern and it shows on a number of cartridges I have tested with fibre wads, consistently pattern 10-15% below what they should for any given choke, in different guns and chokes.

 

I won't give the manufacturers name (as they are very well known) but in my reference gun and chokes, instead of giving 60% (IC) to 84%FC at 35 yards they gave 37% to 58% which was one of the worst performing and they were advertised as being a premium load for high pheasants. Tight after market chokes could hold a hot core, at the expense of the outer ring and fliers were extensive, so a good shot (think Digweed) would still be able to drop birds at range but for normal shooters who aren't quite as accurate would suffer from a lot of pricked birds due to the patchy outer ring.

 

I'll second you on a low pressure, low recoil, big shot, big load shell as a long range killer but manufacturers appear to be going down the high speed route as a rule.

[Alycidon]

I have shot driven pheasants for over 50 years, in my youth using Eley GP 6 and 7 and White Gold 7.5s through a series of Miroku 12s. Then I graduated to a proper game gun, AYA No 2, 30s were to heavy on the shoulder but Impax 6s (28gr) were ideal and placed well forward would kill out to over 50 yards through 1/2 choke.

 

Since 1992 I have used a 12 gauge 687 Lightweight game gun initially with 6s then I moved to 30gr of 5s about 20 years ago. These kill as far as I can reach and I get far less runners with 5s than smaller shot, hit birds going on are usually picked dead where they land.

 

I have used Imperials ( 26gr 6s) on a guest day, we were in a steep quarry with trees on the top, Partridges over the top of the trees, most were 50 yards plus. When I did my bit they birds were dead but the lighter load did not have the authority of 30gr of 5s. They were however very sweet on the shoulder.

 

I did see these Imperials in 5 and 4 and may try a box or two but I still have plenty of Impax in stock for the SBS. A friend uses 28gr of 4s and 5s in his 20 bore Browning and has a fantastic reach with them, he is though a very skilled shot.

 

To sum up if using a light SBS then they might be worth looking at but if like 90% of game shots these days you are using an O/U then I can see no benefits to be had as the load is to light. I would like to see some 30gr 4s though, might try a slab when I next buy cartridges,

A

A

[wymberley]

 

Magnumitus is mainly to do with pressure (which has the nasty side effect of deforming pellets and bullets alike), and unless Hull have dropped the powder load (which is normally reflected in a drop in muzzle velocity) significantly in their Imperial 28g No4 experimental load compared to the normal 5, 6 and (7's), I doubt they will be getting patterns as good as your low velocity loads and that is why I am not keen on large size shot and small payload numbers in high pressure loadings. What sort of pressure are your subsonics running at.... 5000 to 6000 psi?.... less pellet deformation and therefore tighter patterns.

 

Cartridge manufacturers concentrate on advertising pushing 'velocity' and 'killing power' seemingly ignoring to a large extent pressure (pellet deformation) and therefore pattern and it shows on a number of cartridges I have tested with fibre wads, consistently pattern 10-15% below what they should for any given choke, in different guns and chokes.

 

I won't give the manufacturers name (as they are very well known) but in my reference gun and chokes, instead of giving 60% (IC) to 84%FC at 35 yards they gave 37% to 58% which was one of the worst performing and they were advertised as being a premium load for high pheasants. Tight after market chokes could hold a hot core, at the expense of the outer ring and fliers were extensive, so a good shot (think Digweed) would still be able to drop birds at range but for normal shooters who aren't quite as accurate would suffer from a lot of pricked birds due to the patchy outer ring.

 

I'll second you on a low pressure, low recoil, big shot, big load shell as a long range killer but manufacturers appear to be going down the high speed route as a rule.

Yep,

 

Those who think pattern testing is a waste of time and not worth the paper they're printed on, should look away now. For the more open minded, here's the evidence:

 

 

This 1/2 choke pattern was fired with a fibre wadded cartridge through a full choke barrel. As above, there is a hot core more applicable to 3/4.

 

If you're not sure what it's telling you, in Chapter 7 of Shotguns & Cartridges for game and clays, Gough Thomas explains it in full. It will be noted that the above photo' bears a marked resemblance to the one in the book.

[Guest stevo]

Yep,

 

Those who think pattern testing is a waste of time and not worth the paper they're printed on, should look away now. For the more open minded, here's the evidence:

 

 

This 1/2 choke pattern was fired with a fibre wadded cartridge through a full choke barrel. As above, there is a hot core more applicable to 3/4.

 

If you're not sure what it's telling you, in Chapter 7 of Shotguns & Cartridges for game and clays, Gough Thomas explains it in full. It will be noted that the above photo' bears a marked resemblance to the one in the book.

 

what range was that ?

[wymberley]

 

what range was that ?

40 yards.

[Guest stevo]

40 yards.

 

am I right in thinking that's 30" across

[wymberley]

 

am I right in thinking that's 30" across

yep. If you look closely you can see the pencil line around the edge and also that of the 20" circle.

[Guest stevo]

yep. If you look closely you can see the pencil line around the edge and also that of the 20" circle.

 

yeah I can see it now I have just switched over to the laptop , its not too shabby , would like to see what its like at 50 yrds , I'm betting it wont be quite so pretty

[wymberley]

 

yeah I can see it now I have just switched over to the laptop , its not too shabby , would like to see what its like at 50 yrds , I'm betting it wont be quite so pretty

No, not too bad at all, but it's not the overall density we're looking at. Remember this was posted in response to Stonepark's Post and his first two paragraphs in particular.

[Guest stevo]

No, not too bad at all, but it's not the overall density we're looking at. Remember this was posted in response to Stonepark's Post and his first two paragraphs in particular.

 

sorry , yes I'm just catching up with the thread , , I can see what your getting at . and I see your point .

 

id still be very happy with that pattern though , what shell was it

[Guest cookoff013]

I bet 10 minutes and some homeloads could show up some secrets, say loaded in 1 grain increments. And patterned at 25.

See how hard lead can be pushed before it opens up and degrades in pattern.

X grain should be true to choke

[EdSolomons]

Brief update was instructing at Warter today and client used the 28g 4s, was actually pleasantly surprised, through half chokes they killed pretty well. Nothing past 50 yards was taken on but some good solid kills nontheless.

Higher stuff tomorrow and the big boys will be out!

[Stonepark]

You don't see much on Youtube ,where they shoot 1193 shots for 82 birds on a single drive do you?

But to watch it is not good, sporting , or a pleasure.

Also noted but not widely reported is they are using 42g no4 and 50g no3 on the high stuff, not 28g. Edited January 4, 2017 by Stonepark

[Guest cookoff013]

Also noted but not widely reported is they are using 42g no4 and 50g no3 on the high stuff, not 28g.

 

oh my.

[figgy]

Look forward to reading your report Ed. Wonder if Dave Carrie is among them using his big loads.

Edited January 4, 2017 by figgy

[rbrowning2]

If the high birds are truly 70 or 80yards like some claim these days you are going need 42gm or 50gm in 4 shot to have any sort of pattern to kill reliably and energy to give effective kills.