Jakearoo:
Fred KImble shot ducks at 80 yds. with 1 1/2oz of big shot. This took place over 100 yrs. ago, and still much of the shotgunning wizards have not accepted this documented fact. Then came fellow Idahoan Elmer Kieth and he shot both ducks and pheasnts at 90 yards with his Ithaca 10 mag.(2 oz. #3 Shot and fast.) He wrote about this often. In the 1950s Rudy Etchen came along and he shot the ducks at 100 yds. with a Neuman 10 magnum, yes, he may have been one of the best shotgun shots in the country at the time, but none the less he did it. In the 1920s LC Smith advertised that the long range Smith was an 80 yd. shotgun, ducks or Pheasants. All of this shooting was done with large lead shot and high velocities.
Jakearoo, the wild 75 yd. pheasants are still here, and yes a lot of the locals still shoot 3" mag. shotguns at them. I bought my first 10 mag. fifty years ago this year it was an AYA We mail orderd two of them from Kliens (Back page of Outdoor Life). By 1960 the AYA was gone and I had settled in with a 8lb+ Parker with 3" chambers and 10 lb 1 oz. Ithaca #500422 mag. ten. I have spent the last 47 years hunting these same wild pheasants with magnum shotguns. "Hell yes" I have killed 75 yd. pheasants. I like # 3 hard lead shot or winchester lubaloy #2. I shoot a lot of hand loads. I have two sons and they grew up shooting mag. style shotguns at long ranges. We live less than 10 miles from the start of the pheasant hunting area , and with A 60+ day season both boys became good long range pheasant shooters. "What you never learn you never know".
Yes Jakearoo, if you know your POI.at 75 yds, and you have some of the heart and soul of Fred Kimble in the muzzle of your shot gun, big shot, and high velocity, you can kill pheasants at 75 yards and futher.
Good Shooting David Lien
