Cleaning / de breasting birds

[Acerforestry]

Still being a relative novice to pigeon shooting compared to most of you, anyway i have query - a bloke i know sometimes supplies me with lead shot birds in feather (work is getting in the way of doing much myself at present) and when de breasting them I don't always see much in the way of shot? Surely the law of averages means the body area has sustained most of the impact of the cartridge. Where is all the shot??

[stockybasher]

32 minutes ago, Acerforestry said:

Still being a relative novice to pigeon shooting compared to most of you, anyway i have query - a bloke i know sometimes supplies me with lead shot birds in feather (work is getting in the way of doing much myself at present) and when de breasting them I don't always see much in the way of shot? Surely the law of averages means the body area has sustained most of the impact of the cartridge. Where is all the shot??

Birds shot at ranges out to 40-50 yds the pellets usually go straight through the bird.  Sometimes shot lodges next to major bones and doesn't exit, but its fairly normal to find shot has gone through.

[Acerforestry]

Thanks, that gives a bit of clarity

[Fellside]

Often with dark meat the wound channel isn’t that obvious - unless feathers are drawn into it. Sometimes there’s a little bit of blood, but often not much. Equally, it only takes 3 or 4 pellets to penetrate the bird (on average) for a vital organ to be hit. In other words you don’t need the bird to be peppered for lethal effect. Not seeing a lot of shot holes is normal.

In fact, if they’ve got the legs and wings hanging loose, and are full of shot, they’re just ferret food anyway. I would say your friend is doing a good job. 👍 

[Krico woodcock]

 1 Pellet in the head,  is better than 5 in the body.