Extreme pheasant shooting

[B725]

I was talking to someone yesterday who had been shooting driven pheasant at up to 80 yards high, just under 2000 shots for 350 birds they were using 35g 4s as they wasn't allowed anything less. I'm just wondering what others think. 

[Konnie]

Not saying they aren't available, but how many shooters know what a bird at 80yrds looks like.  Have seen people try to judge distance of a pigeon decoy and are miles out, now surround it with sky and it's even harder. 

[Old farrier]

5 to 1 seems fairly good shooting to me 🤭

seen plenty of guns doing worse on 30 yard birds 🙄

[marsh man]

9 minutes ago, B725 said:

I was talking to someone yesterday who had been shooting driven pheasant at up to 80 yards high, just under 2000 shots for 350 birds they were using 35g 4s as they wasn't allowed anything less. I'm just wondering what others think. 

The team that were shooting must have been very good shots to get 350 birds , my only concern would be if they were that good at shooting birds at that range , how many more were hit that didn't come down with the other 1650 shots ?

[dipper]

Field sports did a page on high bird shooting..April 2017. A picture of a pheasant at approximately 43 yards high.They picked 100 shooters asked them how high the bird was.35%said 61 to 7o yd’s  .25% said 70 to 80 yds.20% said over 90 yards.So the guns who talk about shooting 90yd birds😁.

[Stonepark]

66ish pellets in a 30 inch circle with full choke ............ @ 1.2ftlbs.......  even if they are on target, pattern suggests only 50% of birds will be killed.

[Perazzishot]

Won't comment where we have been this season, but 5:1 ration on an extreme shoot if the full team are being selective is awesome shooting.

I've been taking my laser range finder this year and pinging so certainly can confirm heights at flush points or at the tops of trees they are flying over.

[Docleo]

I think that very few guns (if any) can consistently hit (and more importantly drop) a pheasant at 80 yds. I'd really like to see something like that one day.

[Perazzishot]

I have taken a few non believers with me this season and last as loaders, they were shocked at the height that pheasants and partridges were being killed cleanly.

They were also impressed how far the pickers up were behind the line sweeping back towards the gun line in some cases over 500m behind to ensure pricked and bleed out birds were recovered.

[Diver One]

Well 80 yds is approximately the same height as a 25 storey building. Have a look up,at one tomorrow it's a looooooongbway up!

[B725]

40 minutes ago, marsh man said:

The team that were shooting must have been very good shots to get 350 birds , my only concern would be if they were that good at shooting birds at that range , how many more were hit that didn't come down with the other 1650 shots ?

That's what I thought as he was telling me, but I didn't want to start an argument 

[dipper]

Bolton town hall is 200 feet stand underneath and look up .Thats 67 yards .put another 15 to 20 yards on top of that.Then tell me you would shoot at a pheasant at that range.

[Dave at kelton]

Yes I pick up on an estate that presents partridge and pheasant at these ranges and that is pretty much the cartridge used in most of the ou’s. Some teams, like the one I picked up behind on Saturday, killed pretty consistently. Other teams who think they can kill high birds really do struggle. Height is relative to the competence of the gun and the estate. In my experience some teams that ask for high birds clearly do not realise quite what they will get on this estate. Fortunately there are enough drives to offer a range to suit all abilities.

[Perazzishot]

12 minutes ago, Dave at kelton said:

Yes I pick up on an estate that presents partridge and pheasant at these ranges and that is pretty much the cartridge used in most of the ou’s. Some teams, like the one I picked up behind on Saturday, killed pretty consistently. Other teams who think they can kill high birds really do struggle. Height is relative to the competence of the gun and the estate. In my experience some teams that ask for high birds clearly do not realise quite what they will get on this estate. Fortunately there are enough drives to offer a range to suit all abilities.

Think I have met you then Dave if you are part of Rab's team, and back in a weeks time. You will know most of the team that I shoot with also!

[ditchman]

here we go again................there is a long and fractous thread about all of this a couple of years ago...........even worse than the Brexit thread...

[WelshAndy]

🤣

 

 

[Dave at kelton]

19 minutes ago, Perazzishot said:

Think I have met you then Dave if you are part of Rab's team, and back in a weeks time. You will know most of the team that I shoot with also!

Yes we have met then. I work the yellow labs. Not sure what days I will be picking up when you are booked in but would be pleased to say “Hello” if I am about. Have a great time nonetheless.

[Perazzishot]

1 minute ago, Dave at kelton said:

Yes we have met then. I work the yellow labs. Not sure what days I will be picking up when you are booked in but would be pleased to say “Hello” if I am about. Have a great time nonetheless.

Yes I know who you are and you were there last year when your team picked up 34 of our partridge on Clugh 😉

[Stonepark]

24 minutes ago, WelshAndy said:

🤣

 

 

5 sec from shot to impact on deck at 30ft drop a second is 50 yards.

[wymberley]

Many shooters will recognise this quote:

The maximum range of a gun in relation to a given kind of game is the greatest range at which it is reasonably certain that a clean kill will be made by a truly aimed shot.

As we're talking pheasant here, we'll give the shooters in question the benefit of the doubt and assume cocks only (larger vulnerable area). In view of the above quote, we're going to need c1.5 ftlbs of energy for penetration and 93 pellets in the 30" for a  sufficient strike rate within the central effective area. It might be worth pausing at this point. 35g is a somewhat unusual load weight. 36 would up the ante on pellet count a tad. An advantage. However, many of the "extreme" load shot sizes are over size and 3 & 1/2 for 4s is more usual. Another advantage here for energy but also a loss of strike rate.

But, we'll stay with what we've been given. No 4 loses it (1.5) at 68 yards and at 80 is down to 1.1. Not looking good. Full choke will give the required pellet density out to c52 yards. Up against it now and super duper full plus+ is not going to stretch another 30 yards.

One thing that I've always appreciated is skill no matter what form it takes and would be delighted to watch the shooters cleanly killing pheasant at the specified height. All I would ask is that if someone could explain how these sportsmen are able to do it in view of the figures just given while remaining within the sporting definition given above ( - by Gough Thomas for those who didn't know or weren't quite sure ).

[Perazzishot]

22 minutes ago, Stonepark said:

5 sec from shot to impact on deck at 30ft drop a second is 50 yards.

Really you have measured the speed a pheasant falls from the sky at 30-80yds? With wings open, closed, head first, tail first, in low pressure, high pressure?

Meaning from a video you can accurately tell the height? 😂😂🙈

[Old farrier]

2 hours ago, B725 said:

I was talking to someone yesterday who had been shooting driven pheasant at up to 80 yards high, just under 2000 shots for 350 birds they were using 35g 4s as they wasn't allowed anything less. I'm just wondering what others think. 

Was it lead shot ?

[Perazzishot]

13 minutes ago, wymberley said:

Many shooters will recognise this quote:

The maximum range of a gun in relation to a given kind of game is the greatest range at which it is reasonably certain that a clean kill will be made by a truly aimed shot.

As we're talking pheasant here, we'll give the shooters in question the benefit of the doubt and assume cocks only (larger vulnerable area). In view of the above quote, we're going to need c1.5 ftlbs of energy for penetration and 93 pellets in the 30" for a  sufficient strike rate within the central effective area. It might be worth pausing at this point. 35g is a somewhat unusual load weight. 36 would up the ante on pellet count a tad. An advantage. However, many of the "extreme" load shot sizes are over size and 3 & 1/2 for 4s is more usual. Another advantage here for energy but also a loss of strike rate.

But, we'll stay with what we've been given. No 4 loses it (1.5) at 68 yards and at 80 is down to 1.1. Not looking good. Full choke will give the required pellet density out to c52 yards. Up against it now and super duper full plus+ is not going to stretch another 30 yards.

One thing that I've always appreciated is skill no matter what form it takes and would be delighted to watch the shooters cleanly killing pheasant at the specified height. All I would ask is that if someone could explain how these sportsmen are able to do it in view of the figures just given while remaining within the sporting definition given above ( - by Gough Thomas for those who didn't know or weren't quite sure ).

Wymberly, if you can, speak to Robert Everett at Hull about his most recent developments and his 70yd patterning/impacting of his HPE. Choke and pattern have come together resulting the best pattern and impact using 34/4 fibre in 18.4 barrels is 5/8ths.

[B725]

8 hours ago, Old farrier said:

Was it lead shot ?

It was. 

[Hamster]

10 hours ago, Stonepark said:

5 sec from shot to impact on deck at 30ft drop a second is 50 yards.

It actually looks more like a 45 yarder, great kill no doubt but an “extreme” shot no way.

The lovely thing about this Ground hog Day subject is that the exponents are steadfast in their refusal to believe the science of it all, i.e, the sparsity of the pattern and of course the puny energy levels of individual pellets at those kinds of ranges.

Place a 5’ wide cardboard at 80 yards and see how many pellets make it inside the magic 30” - then offer up a pheasant silhouette around that 30” circle and see how likely it is that in a given position it would have received multiple strikes to vulnerable areas of the body, not many you’ll find hence “kills” at REAL 80-100 yard ranges are nothing but lucky strikes. Someone shoot at a fresh but dead pheasant and see how far these no.4 shots make it into the body, I’ve always believed a great number of tumbling lightly injured birds are actually killed (or dazed long enough for a retrieve) by the fall itself.

The unlovely (read tragic, immoral, detestable, abhorrent) thing is that these “countrymen” will in time be responsible for our sports collective demise. I pity souls who need to test their luck so desperately that they’re prepared to accept the inevitable price of hundreds if not thousands of pricked and injured birds - and NO I don’t believe you get the same proportion of peppered birds with more ordinary ranges such as 30 yards, for a start you’re more likely to kill it with a follow up than the random luck needed on a 85 yarder.

I’m no doubter just a sciencer.

Edited November 11, 2019 by Hamster