doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Soft recoiling loads

It's called junk science.

What I've learned, as a writer, is that you always take the extra step to make sure your readers understand. I've been fortunate enough to have some very good editors who've pounded that into my head. We have people here who understand that pressure does not relate directly to recoil--at least not to "measureable" recoil. (What people "feel" is . . . well, what people feel. And difficult to quantify, objectively.) We also have people here whose level of understanding hasn't reached that point. So, when a thread on recoil wanders off into the pressure swamp--without clearly stating that the "pressure" part of the discussion has to do with whether the shells are appropriate for vintage shotguns--I feel it's very appropriate to make sure no one gets lost in said swamp.

As for pressure curves, the ones I've seen--produced relatively recently by Sherman Bell, and produced back before WWII by Dupont--don't show a whole lot of difference, even between smokeless and black. Pressure ALWAYS peaks inside the chamber, and it always declines very rapidly. So whether any difference the shooter feels is due to a different pressure curve, or whether it's due to a difference of several grains of powder, from faster to slower-burning . . . I don't know. The late British shotgun guru Gough Thomas, in one of his articles, expounded on a theory attempting to explain the "push vs hit" difference in the way two different loads feel. He also reports on a blind test conducted in England, in which the shooters of two otherwise identical loads (shot charge and velocity) unanimously chose the one with faster-burning powder as having less recoil. Waters in this part of the swamp remain muddy.

As for American factory shells at 13,900 psi . . . probably worth pointing out that that would be about 2,400 psi above the SAAMI service pressure standard.

On stated pressures for any given load, it is like using an engine dyno ... you only have a real base line when using the same pressure bbl or strain gauge set-up or 'dyno', they are not the same otherwise, meaning that you should expect and will receive difs in readings from dif sources. Recall that there are also crushers, strain gauges, LUP's & PSI w/each of those standards of measurement also resulting in expected variances as will individual operators of said equipment.

Velocity difs alone are routinely above 25 fps in the same box of factory loaded rounds and pressure difs are routinely well above that level of difference. This has been written up and reported by professional ballisticians time & again.

I find it very hard to buy into the idea that Remington would have sold even one of those 'black beauty thumpers' if they were over the industry's standard pressure specification. However, those black hulled rounds did have some thump because they were loaded to 3&1/4dram eq. w/1oz of shot. I bought over 7000 of them some years ago and I was quite happy to reach the end of that pile, my perception being that the shooter was being hit at least as hard as the target. There were also some black hulled high brass Remington hulls that had a copper colored wash on their heads and if I recall correctly those were loaded to 3 & 3/4 dram eq. w/1.125 oz of shot! I found neither pleasant to shoot from a standing breech gun.

On soft shooting, it is hard to beat any 3/4oz. load of lead shot at velocities below 1200 fps. Move the velocities up to bunker speed [1350 fps +] and you get noticable recoil.

7/8 oz. or even 24 or 25 grams of shot is quite adequate for dove, if the shot size is appropriate to the task. Keep the velocities within reason and you will enjoy shooting more as other here have stated.

BTW, I'd hope all going out for the dove opener have a great time & in particular the youngsters, like Stan's grandson with his new double and the dogs .. old, four legged or not once again afield to frolic or simply sit & enjoy it.

There are dove loads and there are dove loads. Opening day/week birds are stupid and "soft". A 7/8 oz. load of 8's at 1200 fps through impr. cyl./light mod. chokes is just the ticket for these.

Fast forward 8 or 10 weeks with a few frosts on the ground and catch those same seasoned, battle-hardened birds riding a cold north wind and you better have at least an ounce of 7 1/2's whistling out the muzzle at 1250/1300 fps.

I'm not saying, I'm just saying...
JR

Well said, John. To add to that, there are venues for doves that differ hugely from others. An opening day sunflower field with doves floating in bears no resemblance to pass shooting them 45 yds. high. You just can't make blanket statements about something like this.

I can kill early September doves reliably with 1/2 oz. loads in my .410 S x S, but I would go hungry trying to knock down those purple-necked rockets in the late season with 1/2 oz. That's when I like to bring out that 32" 16 ga. with full choked 1 oz. loads of 7 1/2s. In between, the 7/8 oz. 20 ga. loads are perfect.

SRH

Re pressure testing, I've had Tom Armbrust--the same chap who worked with Sherman Bell on his "Finding Out For Myself" series in DGJ--pressure test several reloads for me, and a couple of factory loads. On the factory loads (Eley Blue 12ga, Gamebore Traditional Game 16ga), they were very consistent: 20 fps max spread between high and low on the Eleys, 3 fps on the Gamebores. Pressure varied 200 psi high to low on the Eleys, 400 on the Gamebores. Some of my reloads did as well as the Eleys in terms of velocity spread, but a couple were in the 50+ fps range, max spread. Pressure variations on those with the 50+ fps spread were as great as 1,000 psi--which is why it's good to build in a "cushion" when you're working for low pressure reloads.