No 4 shot and grouse

If you are ground swatting, #4's are fine... use a full choke and aim slightly over the head... this should result in pellet-free meat. However, for wing-shooting, #4's don't carry enough pellets to retain a dense pattern beyond 27 or 28 yards with an I/C (or more open) choke, which causes misses inside the pattern. When we hunt sharpies in the cuts, we use a tight choke and old high brass #4 & #5 lead loads to take out the look-out birds at long range, so that we can run the dogs on the ground birds for wing-shooting.
 
When I was a kid that's all I bought was #4 lead it was great for ducks and rabbits and just aim a wee bit high for grouse and you will get them the neck and above.
(** Lead shot was still legal for Migratory game prior to 1997)
 
All we can find around here is #4 "Heavy Game" in 2-3/4" at the local hardware.
I shoot grouse with them just fine. Got to get close enough to shoot them in the head. Messed a few birds up this year with them but they'll do the job if it's all that's available, just pick your shots - I blew a breast almost clean off at close range with a bad shot.
 
I used to use #4’s ground-swatting them in northwestern ontario the way hoytcanon described. That’s what they had at the store. Worked well, but would drag some feathers into the meat if you didn’t have a clean head shot. Changed to #6.
 
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I grew up being taught to use 7 1/2's for grouse, rabbit, squirrel, etc and it worked fine, but was constantly spitting out pellets at the dinner table. Switched to 5's and the number of pellets in the meat dropped considerably as the larger pellets usually have enough energy for pass throughs.

I use 5's and mod choke these days on everything from squirrel to turkey. Only time i use anything smaller is for dove and shooting clays.
 
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