I was at a duck camp on the South Platte years ago. Someone went out and put a single 00 shot through the center of a goose at a height no one could estimate. Damn the statistics of a thin pattern, given the evidence at hand most everyone thought that was the load they should be shooting. I've always been bothered by that, the over-reaching, the casual acceptance of a random hit.
Not that I was guilt free. At about that same time I was routinely shooting v speedy 1 3/8 oz loads from my 12s and always stuffed at least an ounce into the 20s.
Decades on, my mindset evolved to where a 12 ga. is supposed to be 1 1/8 oz. and a 20 should have 7/8 oz., and nothing gets pushed faster than 1200 fps. If I want or need more or less payload, that's a different gun. Regardless, I hate to pull the trigger on something that might be out of range.
