Premium cartridges - are they worth it?

[Newbie to this]

3 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

 

Weird that, what were they? 

I found the dark cases clear pigeons awful, swapped to the newer ones with the clear case again and a lot better.

 

If only you could get them in 🟥

[Lloyd90]

1 minute ago, Newbie to this said:

If only you could get them in 🟥

 

I ended up buying some different ones in Red thank god.

I also bought some 20g ones, but made sure they were yellow! 

[Fellside]

5 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

 

Weird that, what were they? 

I found the dark cases clear pigeons awful, swapped to the newer ones with the clear case again and a lot better.

 

Yes weird - but that’s not the word I used on my driven day…?! They were Express ‘Supreme Game’. It was a well known failure at the time. Lots of customers got caught out in the UK. 

Agreed - the black ‘clear pigeon’ were awful. Lots of people on PW seemed to observe similar. I think Gamebore became embroiled in the pigeon cart’ price war - cut corners. I’ve been using the new revamped ‘clear pigeon’ recently. Slightly more £ than other cheapies - but like them a lot. 
 

 

[Fellside]

30 minutes ago, Newbie to this said:

If only you could get them in 🟥

Ha ha - yes red look cool. Black cart’s are so passé…..🙂

[zipdog]

A shotgun is a discretionary tool. Premium cartridges will always make a bit of difference but not much. 

 

[Townie]

Sorry to resurrect, but a funny thing happened at the gunshop recently. 
 

The had only the £12 a box premium stuff in fibre wad in the load I was after, so I asked what they had in the cupboard behind the counter that all good gunshops have. After much ferreting, three boxes of Lyalvale Pigeon Somethings appeared, priced at £2.99! Gunshop chap expressed surprise and didn't know how long they'd been there.
 

Used a box at clays and they were fine. Took a box to a driven day and pheasants were dead in the air. Mixed in my pocket for subsequent drives, couldn't distinguish them from the Lyalvale Ultimate and Fiocchi F3s.

Couple of points occurred:

When do properly stored cartridges become too old to use?

Why do pheasants need more special cartridges than pigeons?

BTW, I'm not as tight as I sound, but I do like a bargain.

[Stonepark]

6 minutes ago, Townie said:

Couple of points occurred:

1)When do properly stored cartridges become too old to use?

2)Why do pheasants need more special cartridges than pigeons?

1)Cartridges, kept in a dry moisture free warm environment will effectively keep for 25 years reliably, and longer with some deterioration. There is still WWII surplus ammo being found and fired.

 

2)They don't but using the quality components in cartridges (high antimony round shot) but not necessarily the most expensive cartridges gives better patterns, especially as you push the edges of the envelope for any given gun\choke\cartridge combination.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

RED cartridges don't normally stay around long enough to get anywhere near deteriorating!   

[grahamch]

Used to use Hull High Pheasant fibre 30g no 6 all of the time until they cost silly money.

Now use Clear Pigeon in same load which are much cheaper.

They still go bang and things fall out of the sky!!

[Townie]

1 hour ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

RED cartridges don't normally stay around long enough to get anywhere near deteriorating!   

This is completely true. They're green.

[London Best]

20 hours ago, Townie said:

This is completely true. They're green.

If they’ve gone green, don’t use them.

[Lever357]

A good friend of mine always used to say "If you are on target, then you are on target. Doesn't matter if you use 8s on pheasants or 4s on clays, if you are on target, the cartridge will do its job!" He used to shoot everything with 7.5s, clays, game, pigeons, etc but I can't remember what brand - but they would not have been top end of the price scale.

[Agriv8]

Clear pigeon extreme I have had some fun with these on walked up days  and in a short case for you SxS lot. Strongly suspect the same as the black ones but clear case !

I always believed cartridges getting hot then cold and humidity cased problems ! Dry and constant temperature is important.

Agriv8 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Just now, Agriv8 said:

Clear pigeon extreme I have had some fun with these on walked up days  and in a short case for you SxS lot. Strongly suspect the same as the black ones but clear case !

I always believed cartridges getting hot then cold and humidity cased problems ! Dry and constant temperature is important.

Agriv8 

Yes in winter having the cartridges ina belt inside your jacket can make all the difference.

Used to know a chap that loaded his car the night before, all except his gun. Never shot very well in the winter as his carts were cold and slow.

[Agriv8]

2 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Yes in winter having the cartridges ina belt inside your jacket can make all the difference.

Used to know a chap that loaded his car the night before, all except his gun. Never shot very well in the winter as his carts were cold and slow.

Just be careful now TC don’t be adding the cartridge temperature and relative humidity to the calculation I have to do before I pull the trigger!

Don’t think modern flake is as susceptible to sweating but many a shooter I know will hang his cartridges somewhere warm ready for packing in the morning!

Agriv8

[TIGHTCHOKE]

But allowances must be made, angle of dangle, distance, speed of target, size of target, how strong the feathers are, choke in barrel, size and composition of payload, wind direction, temperature, humidity, day of the week and even how many days until your birthday!

ALL must be considered.

[London Best]

9 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Yes in winter having the cartridges ina belt inside your jacket can make all the difference.

Used to know a chap that loaded his car the night before, all except his gun. Never shot very well in the winter as his carts were cold and slow.

I think this one belongs in the playpen now!

II always load my car the night before and can detect no difference in the performance of any cartridges. If there is any difference it must be a very tiny percentage.

[Newbie to this]

1 hour ago, London Best said:

I think this one belongs in the playpen now!

II always load my car the night before and can detect no difference in the performance of any cartridges. If there is any difference it must be a very tiny percentage.

Ahh, but they are probably all red, so coldness doesn't effect them like other coloured cartridges. Blue being the worst effected.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Newbie to this

[TIGHTCHOKE]

4 hours ago, Newbie to this said:

Ahh, but they are probably all red, so coldness doesn't effect them like other coloured cartridges. Blue being the worst effected.

You see, it isn't that difficult to understand the Way of the RED Cartridge.

 

And as a side note, ALWAYS take a whole gun when going shooting"

Edited January 25, 2022 by TIGHTCHOKE
Spellage!

[enfieldspares]

The most important components are IMHO in this order....shot, then primer, the wad, then powder.

Shot:

The rounder the shot the better it flies, the less it loses velocity for even though "round" is a very poor ballistic shape something shaped like Mr Blobby of the contents of a bag of kids' "runt" sweets is even worse.

Hardness of shot and/or plated shot. This is where shot can be too soft so it deforms and is no longer round and whilst for clays it can never be too hard they reckon that 3% antimomy is best for game.

The more consistently sorted the shot also the better it patterns. That's to say a cartridge of a mix of shot sizes even though all may be perfectly round and perfectly formed won't produce a good pattern but a pattern with a long tail.

Primer:

Poor primers give a quite alarming variation on velocity. It's only when you chronograph handloads that you realise that primer X gives an extreme spred of many more feet per second than primer Y.

Wad:

Better wads give better patterns. Plaswads give the best pattern of all. Fibre wads if quality will leave the bore of the gun clean. If poor the bore will look awful. Wads from Eley used to be like cheap builder's plastering board. The best wads back in the day were lubricated white felt....the ones often called "pinks" as the lubricant stained the sides pink.

Powder:

Powder today is as good as it gets. Burning speed may affect recoil and pressure but most all will still give a muzzle velocity of between 1200 fps to 1400 fps and any point in between.

Last but not least crimp closure or roll turn over affects pattern. But saving for Two Inch cartridges and buckshot I know of no modern cartridges loaded with a roll turnover say the odd bespoke loader's offerings.

[wymberley]

On 23/01/2022 at 20:37, grahamch said:

Used to use Hull High Pheasant fibre 30g no 6 all of the time until they cost silly money.

Now use Clear Pigeon in same load which are much cheaper.

They still go bang and things fall out of the sky!!

and stopped doing them in 7s.

[Poor Shot]

Previously I would have said that finding a cartridge with shot that contains a good level of antimony would have been the only requirement but now I'm not so sure.

I legged and breasted a few pheasants from this weekend and some of the shot I found whilst doing so seemed to have been halved. Most likely due to contact with the barrel walls on firing as it was shiny and not oxidised. It seemed strange that although a half spherical piece of shot should of zinged off into the distance well outside of the pattern a lot ended up in the bird along with the perfectly round pieces. I very much doubt that the shot would have sheared on contact with the bird as bone and flesh is relatively soft.

[grahamch]

8 minutes ago, wymberley said:

and stopped doing them in 7s.

Quite agree, used to use nothing but 7/8 no 7 in 20 bore High Pheasants through my Alex Martin 20 for everything. 

[Vince Green]

When I used to help out in my mates gunshop the commonest question you were ever asked was " how much are your cheapest cartridges ?"

Cartridge manufacturers are always having to find ways of cutting corners to drive down prices because that's where the sales are.

So I would say the question would be the other way round. Would you pay a lot for a day's shooting, drive miles to get there and then risk using budget cartridges because they are a pound or two cheaper  ?

Edited February 18, 2022 by Vince Green

[8 shot]

On 18/02/2022 at 07:53, Vince Green said:

Cartridge manufacturers are always having to find ways of cutting corners to drive down prices because that's where the sales are.

Gamebore did this with the Original Clear Pigeon, brillant back in the 90s utter garbage now