doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com # 10 shot for Grouse??

While reading an old book on grouse hunting, I read that the author's favorite load was 1/2 ounce of #10 shot, with 3 drams of black powder in the right barrel.(muzzle loader)
With 1 ounce of 8s in the left.
He was a sportsman who only would shoot flying birds.
How far away could he reliably kill a grouse with #10 shot?
Why did He use only 1/2 ounce? Why would He use #10 shot in the first place.
Pete

Doubt you could kill a grouse very far away with 10's, but then a lot of grouse shots are pretty close. Expect he used only 1/2 oz because if he used more than that, there'd be a whole lot of little pellets in the bird. I've read about 10's being used for woodcock, but never grouse.

Mr. Brown,
That answer seems reasonable, but why would He use #10 in the first place?
Maybe such a light charge of small shot with such a heavy charge of powder would make a very large pattern?
Pete

Because there was a time (1920s-1940s) when people believed that the fine shot produced an almost "electric shock" type death from so many pellets hitting the target at once.

I am not making this up. Zutz wrote about reading it when he was a kid, and about finding out it was basic BS when he got older-one of those theorys like tight chokes (shoots like a rifle) short barrels, baby magnums, long barrels or whatever, that writers of the day (not you, Larry) tried to sell folks on.

Most of the time, writers are salesman. They are trying to get you to buy something. While O'Conner was waxing poetic about the .270 Winchester, he was shooting his game with a 30-06. He usually didn't write about that, though. The examples are legion since the turn of the century, and most of them are pure garbage.

Zutz, as far as I have been able to tell, never tried to sell anybody anything, and while he has been called a writer of simple tomes, his experiences usually land pretty close to mine. He didn't typically use a dog for hunting, and his favorite load for ruffed grouse (not difficult birds to kill) was a stout load of #6s. He liked to find them dead where they came down.

I couldn't agree more.
Best,
Ted

I grew up in a fishing village where good men believed in outlandish things and it doesn't surprise me that one would use No. 10 on grouse---and a half-ounce to keep the pellet-count and cost down.

They also believed that a 12 gauge would kill anything flying and that .270 and 30-06 calibres for deer were for city sports who wanted to keep up with what they were reading in the sports magazines.

They were right more than they were wrong.

I grew up in KY, where quail were shot over pointing dogs, at fairly close range. It was a common belief by many hunters that smaller shot, usually #9, would kill better than #7-1/2 because being smaller the pellets slipped in between the feathers and penetrated deeper. While millions of bob white quail have been killed with #9 shot at close range, the reasoning was not correct.

I've shot a lot of grouse and quail with #9 shot and I've never heard a complaint from any of them that the shot was too small!

#10s might be okay if you don't have to clean and eat the grouse afterward. But I can't see any particular advantage to such fine shot; #8s are plenty good enough, and a lot easier to find.

Do you think that the old bugger was potting them off the branch with the 1/2 ounce load of 10 shot? Who says that he was a sportsman, the writer? What use to be the norm is not consider unsportsman like. Baiting, ground swatting, live birds for decoys and calling, high bags and the like are all considered non sportsman like now, but were the norm 75-100 years ago.

Thought I recalled that John Alden Knight talked about 10's for woodcock in his book on the birds. (9's being the other size he recommends--but then he also wrote that a 26" barrel will lose 15% of its muzzle velocity in comparison to a 28". Not sure where that came from.) I checked and found my memory wasn't deceiving me. But I can't recall any mention of 10's for grouse, from any writer in any of the books I have.

Zutz always tended to recommend tighter chokes and larger pellets than most people who hunt over dogs. (As Ted pointed out, Zutz hunted dogless unless he was with someone who had a pooch.) But Zutz also had pretty fair shooting credentials, as a Wisconsin state skeet champ (multiple times, I think). On the other end of the spectrum, you've got George Bird Evans, a dog man to the core. From his writings, I'd say he wasn't a much above average shot, which may explain why he favored quite open chokes and an ounce of 8's. Coupled, of course, with assistance from very good dogs.