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Cartridges Suitable For Pigeon


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2 minutes ago, rbrowning2 said:

Good point, but if money was truly not important because you won the euro millions what then?

 

He would most probably be not shooting pigeons .

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A man on a budget is different to a man with copious amounts of money for the purpose of shooting woodpigeon.

So, play your own game and don't say another man is wrong. It's up to him isn't it?

I'm guilty for sure. I've shot 'em with trap loads, light loads, high end game loads, really over the top high pheasant loads and some more.

Pigeon can decoy easily and offer 20 -30 yard shots, one after another. They can also flight at 40 plus yards in a hurricane.

So pick your shells for the birds on the day. Put a few difference bricks in your motor car and get on with it.

I don't really care what everyone else uses but for me you can't go wrong with  Lyalvale Express Pigeon Power : 

  On the more difficult days then shoot at few of these:

Pigeon-Extreme-Web.jpg

             

   

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For what it is worth here is my view. I does not matter one bit what cartridge  you use. The most important factor is that it throws a good pattern from your gun and you are confident of consistently putting it in the right place. This comes with practice and experience. If you kill the head the **** will die as well, but less likely the other way around. Just my take on it, there are probably otherwith far more knowledge than me.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 22/01/2018 at 13:32, wymberley said:

Yep, I'm now of the opinion that that is increasingly the in vogue opinion. To me, the humble woodpigeon is arguably our finest sporting quarry and as such deserves better. As I'm in a very small minority on here, I think I'll leave it there.

Cheers.

Certainly with you on that point. After 40 years of shooting I enjoy a day on the pigeons more than anything else. A major influence on clean "dead in the air" kills seems to be a dense pattern delivering multiple hits. I only use fibre, so for pure decoying Just Cartridges CSP Comp clay load of 6.5 28gr works very well out to around 40 yards. For general stuff I use RC SIPE or NSI SIPE 32gr 6 shot.  For my favourite activity of flighting a few over the deep North Yorkshire valleys I use 35gr or 36gr English 5 shot by Gamebore or Express, both of which throw great patterns out of my tight choke Miroku guns. Cartridge cost is not a consideration.

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I tend to use a 28g no7 when shooting over decoys and recently I have been using LA joker cartridges, before that it was prima. I have used no 5 & 6 shot over decoys, and don’t think they perform any better than no 7s, with the right choke combination.

32g of No 7 shot would be a great pigeon shell, in my humble opinion.

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Ha. You ******* need to read up on your history a bit more.

100 years ago, 36g/#7 at 1050fps at the muzzle was de rigeur for wood pigeon. The same quantity of #6 was also available. Nobody back then ever had any problem bringing the birds down - and that was usually with black powder, meaning that you could only take about one shot every 5 minutes unless it was windy.

All this faffing over 1-2 grams of lead is a load of cobblers frankly but the point I always find interesting is that history teaches us that pigeon need a lot more pattern than pheasant, even if the shot sizes are the same.

You should all stop arguing about commercial loads (at silly speeds) and recognise the current, ludicrous situation for what it is.

The only reason most of the manufacturers want us to consider shooting woefully under-loaded guns is because shooting the traditional shot charge for pigeon at 1500fps muzzle velocity would end up snapping your clavicles after about four goes, and putting less lead into the cartridge improves their margins. Not to mention they can sell "speed" better than they can sell "traditional [boring] cartridge we all used routinely 100 years ago".

If you don't believe me, how many of us use paper cases on a regular basis? How many of us save them for "special days"? Well they must work then, surely!?

Reload. Try 36g of #6 at 1150fps, get lucky with the components and you'll probably still have 150 in the circle at 50, 55 yards. Shoot 100 of them in a morning and you'll barely notice you've fired a gun at all compared to your usual 26-32g/#6 load at stupid velocity. Oh - and it'll be £6/box instead of £14/box or - in the case of my local shop - completely unobtainable.

What's not to like?

And before anyone says anything, if we're all aiming for those important 5 or 6 pellets to end up going through the bird, isn't about 95% of all the lead we shoot really going to waste? Who cares if it's 32g, 36g or 500g in the cartridge to start with? It's only money. Spend it if it makes you feel good about your cartridge.

In short: "King Edward VII shot game." Geddit?

Christ - I'm starting to sound like cooky...

Oh - and whilst we're on the subject, here's 32g of #4, fibre wad, at sensible speed, at 40 yards:

image.png.a1278a0d0afc3d9e9c7c5e4ed341e76a.png

The attentive will see that 150 pellets landed in the circle, of the original 163 in the case, for a 92% pattern. Muzzle velocity is in the region of 1000fps, but since they're #4, they'll keep going well past 40 yards. Again I ask: do you really need 1500fps to kill birds - or is it just to distract you from the fact that quarter of the shot charge appears to have gone missing, before it even made it into the case...?

Edited by neutron619
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hello, i do not understand what all the fuss is about back in the good old days we used eley impax, grand prix and a rake of those cheapy russian/. chech/ and others i cannot remember, not so much different today when game shooters use a reputable cartridge and i use whats cheapest at the time, although i am now more of a relaxing pigeon shooter a few shots and long lunch:lol:

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10 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

hello, i do not understand what all the fuss is about back in the good old days we used eley impax, grand prix and a rake of those cheapy russian/. chech/ and others i cannot remember, not so much different today when game shooters use a reputable cartridge and i use whats cheapest at the time, although i am now more of a relaxing pigeon shooter a few shots and long lunch

no one has mentioned georges cartridges and have not seen him on PW for some time ?

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For years my choice of cartridge was the old ,'Clear Pigeon' 65mm  shot size 6 which were ideal for my Classic British guns.  Now I cannot find a supplier locally who stocks pigeon shells in anything other than 70mm so now resort to pigeon shooting with 28 gram clay loads in 65mm.  I think owners of classic guns are badly served by cartridge manufacturers who seem to be under the impression that all pigeon shooting takes place with semi auto shotguns which only work with 70mm shells.

 

Blackpowder

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I use Hull Imperial for all my game shooting, relatively few cartridges fired.  Cartridges which say ,'Pigeon' on the side are mostly easier on the purse as with me  they are fireds in greater numbers than game loads are.  As said in my post above I used the old brand Clear Pigeon for all my shooting, pheasants did not know the difference.

 

Blackpowder

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