I've never shot a rail nor eaten one either, but the old term 'skinney as a rail' does come to mind .. and I have to wonder if some of them might not have flown through those ill placed patterns of larger shot? ;-);-)wink wink
I whole heartedly agree w/Ted, Zutz, Murph & honorary LEG members on the shot size issue .. use a size adequate to kill the game cleanly. I'm NOT a grouse hunter. My first grouse was killed with a rock. It was NOT flying and I was dogless that afternoon and about ten years old, but the grouse was within range and the rock was of adequate size to get the job done.
References to shot size is relative, relative to the screen used to sort it, for starters. A fair amount of shot is not exactly uniform and may or may not resemble what some chart says. There is a measurable amount of small shot that is 'duplex' by default. Larger sizes tend to be a bit more uniform vs. smaller sizes. That has been my personal observation in any case. I have found shot < #9 sized in bagged shot marked '9' and the same for some marked '8'. Today's high quality 'magnum' shot or better stated, 'better sorted' or screened shot does not tend to exhibit this as much as some of the standard'chilled shot' or older and/or imported shot. At very close range lots of fine shot with no choke in old card type wad ammunition may have provided added confidence to knock the birds down and good dogs probably acted as the underwritters to insure their placement in the bag. I don't know if that applied to the grouse in the original question. I do know that you do not have to shoot a dove twice with #6 shot to bring it down, assuming it is hit. I have seen many dove that took two shots with #7.5's to anchor them at honest long ranges w/very tight chokes. Btw, 'honest long range' translates to about a perceived 'Suburban's worth' of lead, sometimes a bit more.
