doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 5/8 ounce #10 shot for grouse?

While reading a book written by a grouse hunter in 1898 New England,"Hitting Vs Missing With the Shotgun" The author mentioned that his favorite load was as follows:

"The charges that I have used for many years in a 12-gauge seven pound cylinder bored gun, with entirely satisfactory results, are, for the right barrel-which I nearly always use first-three drams of good black powder with five-eighths of an ounce of No. 10 shot, and for the left barrel the same amount of powder with seven-eighths of an ounce of No. 8 shot. These charges give good penetration and pattern, while the recoil is scarcely
noticeable."

I mentioned this before, (a couple of years back) and the general opinion was that the author was most likely a market hunter that shot the bird on the sit.
I have found out since that He (S.T. Hammond) was a very well known and respected sportsman.
I would not have thought that #10 shot would be enough to kill a grouse, but it did.
Was the #10 shot of 1898 the same size as the #10 shot of today?
Maybe the birds flushed much closer and a fast shot could hit them at 10 or 15 yards.
The three-dram load of a very light shot charge and very small shot, must have opened very quickly.
What do you experienced grouse hunters think of this?

In some parts of the country ruffed grouse haven't seen many people and when flushed will fly to a branch (Nova Scocia l970's) weren't hunted much, went there for woodcock only in the early parts of October. Here in eastern Pa. they when you do hear/see them they are gone.
So shooting them on the ground back then in Novia Scocia wouldn't be hard, shooting them here on the ground in Pa. would be harder than shooting them in the air. So shot that small, why not, I have shot many pen raised pheasant and chucker with #8 and #9 over dogs using a 28 ga. 3/4 oz.
I'm not an experienced grouse hunter, too many hours and hardly any birds here.

I think it's absurd.

The only hint as to "why" he favored such a load is that "the recoil is scarcely noticeable."

I know a lot of 90lb people who would say the recoil from 200 rounds of 1 ounce loads in a day is scarcely noticeable.

IMO, people who put such emphasis on "hitting" rather than "killing" that they employ pray-n-spray in pursuit of live game are at best misguided. I can think of much worse things to call them.

I think it's absurd, too---on the ground or in the air. I wouldn't think of anything smaller than 7 1/2 on birds unless you like the flavour of lead.

As for pen-raised pheasants, I went to one of those places once and the dogs picked the birds out of he air. A slingshot would have made it sport.

That would depend somewhat upon whose shot he was using. I have a copy of a shot chart from the 1890's which lists 9 diferent towers & each had their own sizes. #10 shot varied from a low of 822/oz to a high of 1130/oz. Eventually the sizes of Tateham Bros, New York was settled upon as standard. With this system a size "0" was .170" in diameter & each full size dropped by .010", thus a size 10 would be .070" in dia. In "Drop" shot this would give 848/oz for #10 size.
In the above chart only two towers produced #10 shot larger than Tateham's @ 822/oz while 6 produced shot of a smaller dia, thus there is just as much likely hood his #10's were smaller than todays as that they were larger.

This is akin to guys who hunt with 22 centerfires for deer, 243s for bear, etc. They try to make a statement at the expense of pain and suffering to the animal if the shot isn't just perfect. No. 10 shot will work just fine for potting stupid grouse sitting on tree limbs or the ground but it's just plain dumb for flying birds in typical cover.

Based on the excellent post by 2-piper and his 1890's size chart. It could be possible then that the writer (Hammond) in 1898 was actually recommending a size pellet that corresponds to today's standard #9 for grouse. A recommendation that some current schools-of-thought concur with.

It's the number of shot in the prey that makes it ridiculous to me---on a limb or not. I shot a teal this year lifting off a little pool with 20ga 3-inch 1 1/8 ounce No. 3s, shredded from IC barrel, and 20-odd years ago in the lead era, a whistler at full-bore over the tollers with 12ga full-choke 1 1/4 ounce No. 5s that the dog spat out on the shore and wouldn't carry to the blind. It was mush. (Lay off the kidding, I'm an ordinary shot!)

I've never purposely hunted grouse, but have shot some blues with my bow and shot at some in SD during the phez season. I keep thinking these are fair sized birds, comparable in size to a chukar on the small end or even much larger in some cases. Why would anyone want to shoot such small shot at this large a bird? Now I've shot exactly one pheasant with a 3" 410 with 11/16 oz of 7 1/2's. But, I did wait for a crossing shot within 25 yds and made sure I had a good opportunity at a head shot. Normally, I select a #6 or larger for phez. Would not this be a more reasonable size shot for grouse?

I don't think the writer used #10 shot to reduce the recoil, the shot size has no effect on recoil.
I think as Yogi OOO suggests that the shot was closer to today's #9 and the fairly heavy powder charge, with such a light payload opened the pattern very quickly.
He does say the penetration was excellent.
Pete