doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Shot size for 100 yard birds? revisited

Back in the day when there was no steel shot, we would periodically use 3" #4 Buck for Geese. This was always field shooting for Whitefronts. As I recall, there were 41 pellets to the load and this was a kill or miss type of affair. All it would take is one pellet to kill a Goose out to 100 yards. We would usually have a box of 5 in the bag for those windless days late in the season when the Geese were on oxygen. Otherwise, I would never shoot past 60 yards, even with BB's.

300846,

50 honest yards is a VERY long shot, for anyone.

On crossing dove in following winds, that's about a Suburban, the Chevrolet kind, in forward allowance/lead.

The 50 (ish) yard shot discussion reminded me of the last dove openner. We had already shot our whitewing limits and were under a cluster of tall cottonwoods in the middle of a large plowed field. The Eurasian dove were flying over at high altitude. Me and a friend only had our 410s. I started shooting 3" #6 shells while he stuck with 2 1/2" #8 1/2s . I started whacking them dead at extreme distances while his shots seemed to miss. After a couple hours of this, I let him in on my secret. He switched and joined the fun.