doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com RST Shotshells #10 Shot - Opinions?

When I began buying vintager type loads from Polywad, they came loose 250+/- to the flat. A few would misfire and I discovered on dove shoots that the spreader (double-wide) loads were useless beyond 15 yards. Their Vintager (non-spreader)loads on the other hand shot too tight a pattern in the old tightly choked sxs guns I owned at the time.

I switched to RST and lo and behold they came packaged in actual boxes. I addition their low pressure loads did not pattern so tightly. Of course now Polywads are boxed also.

Now, I suppose they are about the same and Polywad is great since they can get a flat of shells to me from Macon very quickly. I shoot both. I guess the real answer is an early bias against the Polywads...Geo

I've hunted quail a lot and don't even use #9 shot, let alone #10. Really, I'd rather use #7 1/2 shot than #8's. IMHO, #10 shot is way too small for wild quail.

Season before last, I acquired a 28ga during the grouse/woodcock season. Wanted to try it out; was given a box of the 10's. I don't recall what, but I had a handful of something else I was using in the 2nd barrel. I hit 2 woodcock with the 10's, put them down, had them fly off again. Got one of them on the 2nd flush, never found the other. Hit one on a crossing shot at relatively close range--with no choke in the R barrel--and it had a LOT of little pellets in it.

I really like small shot for woodcock, and even grouse early in the season. I have no problem with 8 1/2 or even 9, especially in the 28ga. And I really like RST shells. But the 10's are too small for me.

That being said, if you read "classic" woodcock literature--like John Alden Knight's woodcock book--you will find references to hunters shooting woodcock with 10's.

I am not a Bob White quail hunter. We don't have that type here in AZ. But I do hunt Gambels, and Scaled quail. My experience on these hardy wild birds is the best shot size is 7s and 71/2s if you can't get 7 shot. Both these birds hit the ground, bounce once and come up running. I want enough penetration to get into the vital areas so they are dead in the air. When I switched from 8s and 9s to 7s the numbers of hit but lost birds went way down. I wouldn't even consider 10 shot and smaller for game birds. Might be okay for those who participate in starling shooting.

around here that early in the season - mosquitoes

I think 10 shot might be a snipe load in old times. Too dense and too small for quail or dove to my way of thinking.

Another idiom. Open mouth insert foot. Ha.

I have hunted quite a lot of Wild Quail. I have gone to 7 1/2s instead of eights because they are hard to kill. 10's would be a wounder on those birds.

Actually, IMO, no.

The topic of small(ish) shot for gamebirds always entails observations of birds killed with the little shot. No doubt, every bird brought to bag counts as success. But what about the flip side? Birds hit and lost? Grouse and woodcock (probably the most frequent victims of little shot) are particularly succeptible to escaping wounded with the gunner having no clue, likely convinced he missed cleanly. I once had the rare opportunity to watch a "missed" ruffed grouse fly 200+ yds and fall dead.

For a few summers I spent a lot of time shooting starlings at a dairy farm. Wide open pass shooting at any distance I wanted from 10 yards to infinity. I don't recall using 9's, perhaps because I tried them and gave them up almost immediately. I did shoot a fair number with #8 before switching to #7.5 permanently. I've never fired at a live bird with anything smaller than #7.5 since.

Birds hit with #8 often fell dead at the shot but many of them didn't visibly react to the shot only to fall dead 30, 40 or 50 yds beyond the shot.....distances far in excess of what I can typically see in the grouse woods. And rarely, if ever, did I see a feather pulled from a bird hit with #8. I found #7.5 to be better in every regard. There were often feathers in the air, birds fell dead, fell obviously crippled (seldom) or flew forever.

I can't comment on the #10 shot from experience but have avoided it for the reasons stated. I have used RST #8s and 7.5s to hunt quail in GA several times and my experience was that they performed very well on both ends of the gun. I tested some RST spreaders against Polywads last year and found the RSTs threw slightly tighter patterns that had less variation between shots and fewer holes in the patterns (at least out of a 12 ga. Vernon-Carron sxs).