doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com #7.5 vs #8 Shot Performance in the Field

Bobwhites, WC, and Dove, I prefer # 8's at about 1200. Any gauge from 28 to 12. If I'm shooting my .410 on Bobwhites I'll use # 8 1/2 in the right barrel and # 8 in the left. I shot a bunch of preserve chukar last winter with my .410 for that # 7 1/2 in both barrels.

Clays are all # 8's.

Dennis

Alder adder,

Got to admit it really does not matter to me whether I use 8's or 7 1/2's under the 1st trigger, they pretty much kill the Grouse in the same manner. As long as I have patterned the shells and there are no large gaps in the 7 1/2 patterns. It does matter as to which manufacturers 7 1/2 shells, I use in the gun however. Some manufacturers 7 1/2 shells do not pattern decently out of my L.C. Smith and J.P. Sauer double guns. However when I use the SpredR loads they pattern so well it does not matter if I shoot 8's or 7 1/2 shells. So as soon as I can I shoot the SpredR loads, for both Grouse and Woodcock hunting.

Ryman Gun Dog
L.C. Smith Man

8s will do 90% of what I need done on doves, quail and woodcock. 7 1/2s excel in the late season on older, tougher and high flying birds. Same deal for clay birds...........use the 7 1/2s on the really long targets, 8s on the rest. That said, I get very reliable, hard breaks on clays at 60 yards with 8s out of a .020" choke, at 1150 fps mv. Density is just as important as retained energy. Three 8s may kill a bird, or break a clay when two 7 1/2s might not.

I'd never feel the need for any load above 1175 fps. on any game bird you listed (I don't hunt grouse). The faster a load leaves the muzzle the faster it sheds velocity. There's not near as much difference in velocity and energy at 30+ yards as there is at the muzzle. The only shotgun load I want high speed is steel, for ducks.

SRH

I used 7 1/2 and 8s both without seeing a difference, always 1 1/8 oz in 16 ga with open choke guns, on quail, dove and rabbit.
Ryman tell the Gunny we appreciate his service and Welcome home brother. Like him I can't follow a bird dog any more, I miss it a lot.
Mike

I have settled on 8�s for the smaller birds (3/4-7/8 oz).
Mainly doves and WC here though we do have some grouse in the NE part of Iowa.
Quail are usually found while persuing pheasants so in the early season its 1 oz of 7�s in the right and 1 1/8 oz of 6�s in the left.
All loads moving between 1150-1200 fps.

Der Ami,

Roger that!


Matt Stolley,

I like the Fiocchi 7's also, great shells.

Ryman Gun Dog

Rabbits (Cottontails) are soft skinned & easy to kill. I always preferred # 5 or #6, not for their greater penetration but to simply not fill them with so many shot. Once when hunting with a 20 ga Ithaca Flues which had two inches cut from the barrels I inadvertently left a 7/8oz load of #9's in my vest pocket & loaded it in the right barrel., near cylinder. Shot a rabbit broadside at around 20-25 yds. As Jerry Clower would have said it was killed Graveyard Dead but made hamburger meat out of it, wasn't fit to eat was so full of blood shot meat.

I did a lot of rabbit hunting as a kid and teenager. We steered away from the heavy shot sizes because they 'homogenized' the guts too bad. Seven and a halfs seemed right to me...Geo

Geo, you weren't making rabbit ortolan, were you? I always took the guts out of my rabbits before cooking and eating them. How badly shot up they are is always a function of shot size, shot charge, choke density, and range. And the same goes for choice of shot size for game birds. Like shooting early season grouse when there is still a lot of leaf cover, quite a few rabbits are shot in high grass and weeds where larger pellets penetrate the cover better.

As Miller says, it doesn't take much to kill a cottontail rabbit. When I was a teen, I once decided to shoot a rabbit with my pump-up Benjamin .177" pellet rifle. I didn't want to kill it because it was in a residential neighborhood, and neighbors were outside. I only wanted to sting him to discourage him from remaining in the area near the garden. So I only gave the rifle two pumps which probably gave a muzzle velocity less than 300 fps. Since he was about 100 feet from the garage, I held about a foot over his back because I knew the pellet would drop at least that far at that low velocity. When I popped him, he jumped about three feet straight into the air and came down stone dead. That's one of those shots you never forget. I can't imagine that the pellet even penetrated his skin at that range and velocity. I found no sign of a wound. He probably died from a heart attack.

I find that I miss equally well with either 7.5 or 8 shot.

Steve