Effectiveness of fibre wadded cartridges at distance

[Ultrastu]

I have a .177 pistol (old webley) that makes 2.8 fpe and the muzzle .and thought it would be good for dispatching dog returned pigeons in the hide ,with a head shot .

It isnt .i tried a few times before deciding 2.8 fpe isnt enough for a 100 % spot on perfect placed head shot .

So i cant for the life of me see how 0.8 fpe some where on the body is gonna kill a pigeon .?? 

I limit my shots to 40 yds to keep it humane and out of respect.  

Ps i do now have a co2 pistol that makes 5 fpe that does kill pigeon with a direct. head shot. 

[motty]

1 hour ago, The Burpster said:

Having just run a quick calculation using generic weights for #4 shot and standard velocity tests for a 4shot cartridge giving 1475 FPS muzzle energy. 

A single #4 shot at 70 yds will 0.61ft/lbs of energy left. 

I’ll leave that there. 

Just a calculation, and no real 'evidence '.

 

13 minutes ago, Ultrastu said:

I have a .177 pistol (old webley) that makes 2.8 fpe and the muzzle .and thought it would be good for dispatching dog returned pigeons in the hide ,with a head shot .

It isnt .i tried a few times before deciding 2.8 fpe isnt enough for a 100 % spot on perfect placed head shot .

So i cant for the life of me see how 0.8 fpe some where on the body is gonna kill a pigeon .?? 

I limit my shots to 40 yds to keep it humane and out of respect.  

Ps i do now have a co2 pistol that makes 5 fpe that does kill pigeon with a direct. head shot. 

Wrong! Just how much energy do you really think it takes to kill a pigeon?

What is your method of marking out 40 yards?

[Ultrastu]

Not wrong .

Spot on correct you will find actually .

I like for a single projectile to the head 5 fpe min .and for multiple shots to the body at least 4 x this so 20 fpe total 

This is how shotguns kill .

Individual pellets have very little energy even at the muzzle and as such rely on multiple strikes to kill cleanly .

I place my furthest decoys at 30 yds. And try to shoot birds as they enter the pattern  this gives me a 10 yd extra error so 40 yds. 

How do you mark 40 yds motty ?

[JJsDad]

39 minutes ago, Salopian said:

I will eventually (soon) be doing some pattern tests at this range .

Perhaps having completed this excercise you would be good enough to give us doubters some feed-back. I have in the past been critical of what I consider out-of-range shooting in our syndicate by inexperienced members. Always prepared to modify my views if you can re-assure me that 70 yrd plus birds are consistently achievable.

The book `High Pheasants` by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey covered a lot of practical work on killing high Pheasants and despite his work being being carried out over a 100 years ago, nothing much has changed. One could argue we now have super-duper after market chokes, plastic wads with high velocity loads, over-bored barrels and 3.5in. chambered 12 bores. But I doubt these advances have doubled the effective range of the 12 bore shotgun, despite the marketing hype that the manufacturers put out.

[Ultrastu]

A 2.6 mm no6 shot, has fired at 1350 fps. 6.5 fpe at the muzzle. And around 1.3 fpe at 30 yds (presuming the pellet isnt  badly deformed ) this means a single shot to the head isnt gonna reliably kill a pigeon (VERY  far from it ) 

You need a combined effect of multiple strikes to get the energy delivered up to humane /effective level .

The further you are away the less energy each pellet has and the fewer hits on the bird take place .so you see how a shot bird at say 20 yds can puff in a cloud of feathers but the same bird at 30 yds Drops with no feathers out .and a bird at 40 yds (although probably hit ) flys on and you think you have missed . Where what actually happened was you hit it in the body with 3 pellets carrying 3 fpe total and had no immediate effect .

As for 70 yds. 🤣

Edited October 17, 2018 by Ultrastu

[wymberley]

32 minutes ago, Ultrastu said:

I have a .177 pistol (old webley) that makes 2.8 fpe and the muzzle .and thought it would be good for dispatching dog returned pigeons in the hide ,with a head shot .

It isnt .i tried a few times before deciding 2.8 fpe isnt enough for a 100 % spot on perfect placed head shot .

So i cant for the life of me see how 0.8 fpe some where on the body is gonna kill a pigeon .?? 

I limit my shots to 40 yds to keep it humane and out of respect.  

Ps i do now have a co2 pistol that makes 5 fpe that does kill pigeon with a direct. head shot. 

Funny thing ballistics. You can't start to penetrate anything until you've punched through fur or feather. Striking the quarry you will do so with impact energy and the energy expended getting through the fur/feather is called the threshold energy. The residual energy - the former less the latter is the lethal energy. If you have 2 pellets having the same energy, then the smaller one is more lethally effective. This is shown by the lead/steel comparison. A far better indicator of lethal potential is energy density which is a relationship between pellet energy and its diameter and specifically the energy divided by its diameter squared. As you're whacking a pigeon in the head, we could assume that the threshold energy is nil so you retain the 0.85 ftlbs as the lethal energy. We know the characteristics of your airgun pellet which let's say has a round nose and the 0.85 is provided by a 7 shot. Which one has the greater energy density?

[Hamster]

Everything else on this thread aside, we've had this discussion before regarding the theoretical (read arbitrary assumption) of ft lbs needed to kill fur and feather 😏  I believe it's something like 3 ft lbs for a head shot rabbit and some 3 pellets carrying approx 1 ft lbs of energy each for pheasants. 👎 

It's all whimsical nonsense because writing something down because it sounds plausible to you or because you felt like it sounds good is not the same as scientifically carrying out tests which would have to be species specific for a start.  

FWIW I have sadly seen dozens of head shot wood pigeon in a state of undead sometimes an hour after the event. 

[Ultrastu]

Im liking your approach 😁

If 2 pellets arrive at the same energy but are different sizes (and hence weight). 

Then the smaller will have to be going faster. To make up the energy difference .The larger heavier pellet WILL penetrate deeper into the flesh as it carries more momentum and deliver more energy deeper into the vital organs .making it the more effect of the 2 (on a body shot ) 

[wymberley]

7 minutes ago, Ultrastu said:

Im liking your approach 😁

If 2 pellets arrive at the same energy but are different sizes (and hence weight). 

Then the smaller will have to be going faster. To make up the energy difference .The larger heavier pellet WILL penetrate deeper into the flesh as it carries more momentum and deliver more energy deeper into the vital organs .making it the more effect of the 2 (on a body shot ) 

Why has the smaller pellet got to make up the energy difference as as stated they have equal energy. You're making assumptions - the larger pellet may well not be heavier if it is of a different material.

[wymberley]

1 hour ago, Ultrastu said:

Not wrong .

Spot on correct you will find actually .

I like for a single projectile to the head 5 fpe min .and for multiple shots to the body at least 4 x this so 20 fpe total 

This is how shotguns kill .

Individual pellets have very little energy even at the muzzle and as such rely on multiple strikes to kill cleanly .

I place my furthest decoys at 30 yds. And try to shoot birds as they enter the pattern  this gives me a 10 yd extra error so 40 yds. 

How do you mark 40 yds motty ?

If I've read the above correctly, your very sensible maximum range is 40 yards. Your shotgun kills by striking the quarry with 4 pellets each carrying  5 ftlbs. No 5 shot can supply this up to about 10 yards. What shot size are you using?

[GingerCat]

Pattern will fail before power so if the "expert" can pattern sufficiently at 70 yards than 3 or 4 shot would do it. 

I doubt any plastic let alone fibre was will produce said pattern but I'm open minded and would like to see the results of your tests. 

Personally a 50m limit is plenty fine for me on pigeons and 70 is just silly. 

[Ultrastu]

Just now, wymberley said:

Why has the smaller pellet got to make up the energy difference as as stated they have equal energy. You're making assumptions - the larger pellet may well not be heavier if it is of a different material.

I was presuming both pellets were of lead .not steel and lead. 

But if they are both of the same material then the smaller of the 2 MUST be going faster for them to both strike with the same energy .

Your correct again 4 x5 fpe is 20 fpe and with a no 6 shot this would be about 10 yds.  So to get the same energy at 30 yds your gonna need about 13 pellets. 

[Ultrastu]

A single  no 3 shot English is 3 grns in weight and at 1350 fps gives 12 fpe at the muzzle this equates to around 2.3 fpe at 30 yds. Or 0.4 fpe at 70 yds. 

Hardley impressive numbers. 

[wymberley]

6 minutes ago, Ultrastu said:

A single  no 3 shot English is 3 grns in weight and at 1350 fps gives 12 fpe at the muzzle this equates to around 2.3 fpe at 30 yds. Or 0.4 fpe at 70 yds. 

Hardley impressive numbers. 

Hi,

There's something wrong. What are you referring to or if you're calculating, what BC are you using? Your first two figures above are correct, but the last two are 4.3 and 1.9 respectively. I only use S1 so my figures will not be spot on but good enough for all practical purposes.

[JJsDad]

18 minutes ago, Ultrastu said:

this equates to around 2.3 fpe at 30 yds

I dont know where you are getting your figures from. Your figure for No 3 shot at 30 yrds is approx half the energy quoted by Eley !

[Ultrastu]

Im using chair gun and the gs (round ball ) drag law .and a bc of 0.014 (which really is too high the bc of a 3 grn lead ball should be around 0.009 or lower .So my calculations above for retained energy are probably too high not too low.

The above always assumes a perfect sphere .and as we know a lot of pellets get damaged in the bore .so the bc of these is even lower still 

[matone]

5 hours ago, ditchman said:

thats not game shooting ...its a willy waving day out.......

people who feel the need to cough up for 70 yard plus pheasants have lost the plot as far as im concerned..........

Exactly ! Well said .

[wymberley]

12 minutes ago, Ultrastu said:

Im using chair gun and the gs (round ball ) drag law .and a bc of 0.014 (which really is too high the bc of a 3 grn lead ball should be around 0.009 or lower .So my calculations above for retained energy are probably too high not too low.

The above always assumes a perfect sphere .and as we know a lot of pellets get damaged in the bore .so the bc of these is even lower still 

OK, nothing more I can add.

[Ultrastu]

Ok taking gamebores figures for retained velocity  and crunching the numbers to figure out the energy they reckon a diamond shot  no 6 . At 1350 fps will retain 2 fpe at 30 yds .

Using the gs drag law for round balls and a bc of 0.023 .

This will probably be a bit over estimated by gamebore (so it looks good ) and also for perfect undamaged shot . 

This is  higher than my previous numbers but still not huge  .

If these are to be believed then the bc i was using earlier   (0.014 ) was too low. 

 

Although last year mate and i chronoed some carts and the numbers at 30 yds and beyond were silly low .so i would guess for most no6  pellets out of a gun at 30 yds 1.5 fpe per pellet would be about correct. 

[Old farrier]

1 hour ago, Ultrastu said:

sorry wrong quote 

This is great 

few questions if I may 

have any Of you considered the speed of the birds 

according to my calculations as long as you take the birds in front the speed of the bird throws your calculations out of the door 

high birds are a challenge and require a lot of practice and skill 

Some can do the 60/70 yard birds consistently this is why the high bird shoots are fully booked however unless you’re practiced and profisiant at the 30/40 yards and then the 40/50 yard birds don’t bother 

for the op yes a fibre wad Cartrige is capable 

for confermation phone the shoot and ask them what they recommend 

All the best 

Of

[wymberley]

45 minutes ago, Ultrastu said:

Ok taking gamebores figures for retained velocity  and crunching the numbers to figure out the energy they reckon a diamond shot  no 6 . At 1350 fps will retain 2 fpe at 30 yds .

Using the gs drag law for round balls and a bc of 0.023 .

This will probably be a bit over estimated by gamebore (so it looks good ) and also for perfect undamaged shot . 

This is  higher than my previous numbers but still not huge  .

If these are to be believed then the bc i was using earlier   (0.014 ) was too low. 

 

Although last year mate and i chronoed some carts and the numbers at 30 yds and beyond were silly low .so i would guess for most no6  pellets out of a gun at 30 yds 1.5 fpe per pellet would be about correct. 

All I can also say is that I'm getting a strong sense of deja vu in as much as I'm sure we've seen silly BC figures from Chair gun before on here. The .014 that you used earlier is far too high and the .023 for No6 lead is positively stratospheric.

[Westley]

I am still waiting for the "Do it every Saturday, no problem AND.......................................with a .410" "  Guy, to come along   !       

'Hit em in the head at 70 yards'    !                   

At 70 yards, I can't even see the bloody EAD  !           

[Walker570]

7 hours ago, ditchman said:

thats not game shooting ...its a willy waving day out.......

people who feel the need to cough up for 70 yard plus pheasants have lost the plot as far as im concerned..........

100% Ditchy ..one wonders just how many pricked injured birds fly on apparently missed to suffer a slow painful death.

[yickdaz]

you can knock a bird down at 70 yards  you will fire a box of carts and maybe bring 2 down but try doing it consistently well maybe not  you will ***** more than you bring down for 2 reasons   not enough  pattern no matter what choke you have in  and  lack of skill 

[motty]

4 hours ago, Ultrastu said:

Im liking your approach 😁

If 2 pellets arrive at the same energy but are different sizes (and hence weight). 

Then the smaller will have to be going faster. To make up the energy difference .The larger heavier pellet WILL penetrate deeper into the flesh as it carries more momentum and deliver more energy deeper into the vital organs .making it the more effect of the 2 (on a body shot ) 

Wrong again! If two pellets of the same energy arrive on target, the smallest should penetrate more. This is one of the reasons I like high density shot for geese.