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

I shot several partridges in England abour 50 years ago, when I was a boy, with some 12 bore cartridges with No 10 shot that an Italian visitor gave me. Well, OK for songbirds like they shoot in Italy, but these partridges were riddled with shot so as to be uneatable. You know when a large cloud of feathers lingers on the morning breeze, that bird is not a good eating bird.
Mike

Chuck yep it's about shot size but it's also about shot charge. 11/16 ounce of 7.5's at a 60 yard crossing bird sounds like a Hail Mary shot to me. Yeah that bird was killed but how about the ones you're not writing about? I still can't believe you are trying to rationalize shooting a 410 at 60+ yard crossers.

And I can't believe that Burt Spiller would fill a previously edible grouse with dozens of dozens of #9 shot and then feed the bird to company. I'll have to reread some Spiller and see if I think he was a writer or a bird hunter first. Many hunters know very little of ballistics and follow the leader as long as they maintain a good average. In my youth, in Southern PA, I could have shot pheasants with a .22 rifle or a .410 with #9 shot and killed my limit every day. That doesn't make the .22 or #9 shot a good choice.

Well guys I have never hunted any birds with # 10 shot. I do hunt grouse quite a lot in October and November. I shoot 1 oz of 8s in my right and 1 1/8 of 7 1/2 in my left. The guns I use most often are choked a little tight but that is the way I received them and haven't yet changed them. However my "go to" grouse gun is a 12 bore @ 6 lbs .003" choke in the right and .017" choke in the left. Shots are taken as they come but most are within 15 yards and it is very rare that I take one over 35 yards on grouse. All this to say that I notice no real difference in "kills on the wing " with the above combination when compared to when I shot 7 1/2s in the right and 6's in the left. I might also comment that it is still possible for a decent shot with a fair dog and eager legs to take 8 to 10 birds a day where I hunt - and those on the wing. I don't often exceed 4 but that is by choice ( occasionaly bad shooting sometimes makes it so as well ) I grant you that the birds I hunt are somewhat naive when compared to those long lived campaigners of the North Eastern States and Southern Ontario but they are not as "easy" as the as yet uneducated birds that frequent some parts of the West and North. I don't know how #9s would work but I believe well- close up say within 20 yards or so beyond that I think one is limiting themselves for no real purpose. Empirical proof could prove me wrong in my belief but I don't believe that I will be the one shooting either 9s or 10s at the King of the Uplands.

Well, being a South Georgia boy, I'll have to admit to never having even seen a ruffed grouse. The only grouse I've shot have been Sharptails in Saskatchewan; and the only shells I've had with me have been 12ga. 3" steel 2's. They seemed to work just fine...Geo

Well, Geo., you probably are not at much of a disadvantage being there in South Georgia. We, up here, rarely "see" them either. We hear a lot of them and see lots of gray-brown blurs ducking behind a tree, but actually "see" them rarely.

Neither do I. I think the writer was loading 5/8 ounce to reduce the recoil......then going to #10 shot to keep the pellet count up. But WHY? He used 7/8 ounce of #8 in his second barrel. This implies ( as it does in any situation where people opt for 2 shot sizes) that should he miss with the first shot, he knew that first load would then be INADEQUATE for a second shot.

Here's another prespective......5/8 ounce is closer to a .410 load than anything else. Who would ADVOCATE a cylinder bored .410 and #9, much less #10, for grouse?

Whether it's any species of bird or clay targets,I prefer to use the one shot size I'm confident will kill at the limit of my range, then choke accordingly.

I've never been comfortable with the reasoning that leads people to choose a first load that that they have no confidence in for a follow-up shot. I've found #7.5 has anchored grouse, or at least broken wing bones on the few occasions I've connected at 45 yds. Of my friends who shoot #8 in the first barrel, to a man they back it up with #7.5 in the second. Some people even talk of #6 for "late season"....if they trust #6 for late season grouse, why not early season?

I use 9 shot on a regular basis for Gambels quail, I also use 9 shot much of the time for wild chukars, as do my hunting companions. I lose VERY few birds that are obviously hit from crippling over the course of the season. Most birds are killed outright. I hunted S. Dakota for many years shooting 8's at pheasants. I have shot 8 1/2 as well. Never seen 10's and I think they would be smaller than I would choose for anything but quail.
Most shots are over points but many are not.
I grew up in Vermont shooting some pretty wild Ruffed Grouse. We always used 8's. We had no access to 9's in those days. I just returned from Ontario on a Whitetail hunt and I spent a morning shooting Ruffs. I shot 4 birds flushing and killed all 4 dead using 9 shot in a 28 gauge gun.
If I thought at any time that smaller shot made me less effective I would change immediately.

I think the reason he used such a light load of #10 shot was an attempt to get a very fast opening load that had very good penetration. He wrote;

"As a rule you will find that the same amount of powder with a reduced quantity of shot will give more penetration and greater spread"

3 drams of powder under a 5/8th oz. load must have given very high velocity. I think a .410 load of 1 1/2 dram, 1/2 oz. is 1200 fps.

I only wonder why the load wasn't completly blown?
5/8 oz. light shot with 3 drams of powder, felt wads, cylinder bore. it must have been well over 1300 fps.
But it must have worked for him, he used the load for many years and from what he wrote he killed many grouse, quail and other birds with it and considered it the best load he ever used.
Pete

I believe just looking at shot size alone ignores too many other factors. I rarely shoot birds with shot larger than #8 and kill just as many and just as well with #9. Payload, choking and range seem to be left out of the post when I hear people talking about a bird rattling like a bag of marbles because it is so full of shot. I rarely find more than one or two pellet holes in the breasts of the birds I shoot. I'm not saying what works for me will work for you, but I am certain that it works for me, which makes the "shot that small is never a good choice" mantra asinine to those that know better. Too much tossing around blanket statements from people with either not much experience or experience under different conditions. If you go back to the turn of the twentieth century or before size 9 or 10 shot was commonly used. To say that is never a good idea is telling some people that shot tens of thousands of birds, one of which I know averaged over 100 birds per day for a period of two decades, that they didn't know what they were doing.

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